As the world around us changes, so does the relationship that employees have with work – reshaped by the energy they can give to their role, what they need from work and what happens if those needs aren’t met. That puts people professionals under increasing pressure. They’re expected to shape culture, retain the best talent, drive performance and generally hold people together despite the shifting sands of today’s workplace. That’s a tough brief to crack.

It’s against this backdrop that we surveyed 752 senior leaders across HR and Internal Communications (IC). Their responses reveal something striking: how different an organisation can look depending on where you stand within it. HR leaders, who design and commission employee experience (EX) programmes, tend to assess impact with greater confidence. Their IC counterparts, who are responsible for translating strategy into the everyday experience of employees, take a more measured view.

Where they converge, however, is on the scale of the challenge. More resource, more strategy, more noise, and yet the thing that matters most – a clear and consistent employee experience – remains elusive. The effort isn’t the problem. Something deeper is broken.

This report sets out to find it.

• 63% of people surveyed say their employee experience budget has increased year-on-year. Yet 30% see misalignment between employee needs and leadership priorities as the biggest blocker to converting investment into meaningful action. For execution to keep pace with budget, organisations need to understand the behaviour and culture changes they want to bring about, and put in the work from there.

• With two-thirds of large UK employers failing to fully embed their EVP, they’re making a promise to their people despite not having the infrastructure to keep it. And with HR and IC seeing things very differently, the people responsible for spreading the message every day are considerably less sure of its effectiveness.

• 81% believe employees are clear on the long-term vision but just 29% are extremely confident the organisation knows which behaviours need to change to get there. These are figures that ask a much bigger question around whether they’re facing a communications issue or a strategy one, and where to set the bar for knowledge to drive action.

• Half of HR respondents say their IC is very effective, with three in ten IC professionals saying the same. This disconnect isn’t an isolated example and highlights the need for effective measurement to know for sure – not just to assume – the message is getting through.

Across the report we unpick the key theme to emerge – the gap between EX strategy and EX reality; between intent and impact. Things often fall down here, despite nine in ten leaders saying they understand their main EX pain points and two-thirds enjoying increased EX budget year-on-year to make that connection happen.

But where there’s a challenge, there’s opportunity. The organisations that will lead in 2026 will be those who successfully connect the dots to create experiences that make their people feel what’s important to them. Because understanding that – and knowing how to bridge the gap – is half the battle.

Ready to dig deeper? Read on ...

Something has shifted. Not gradually, but fundamentally.

The argument for employee experience has been won. Budgets have been committed. C-suite belief has been secured. That represents years of sustained effort from HR and IC professionals, and it matters.

But winning the argument isn’t the same as solving the problem.

Our 2026 survey of 752 senior HR and IC leaders reveals organisations caught in a paradox of their own success. Drive performance while building culture. Lead change while providing stability. Move faster while bringing thousands of people with you. The ambition is higher, the pressure is greater, and the distance between what organisations intend and what employees actually experience has, for many, grown wider still.

This isn’t a failure of effort. It’s a failure of framing.

Culture isn’t built in boardrooms or resolved in a single programme. It lives and sometimes dies in the everyday moments between knowing something and truly feeling it. The gap between awareness and execution, intent and reality, adequate and excellent: that’s where our report focuses its attention.

What the data confirms, and what we see every day working with some of the world’s most complex organisations, is that culture is a living system. You can’t fix it by treating a single symptom. It has to be understood as a whole, so you know where to act, in what sequence and why it matters.

From leadership to recognition and performance, via vision and values, the 2026 findings make a clear case for where attention and investment are most needed. Not to do more, but to do the right things, in the right order, with a genuine understanding of how they connect.

The gap between strategy and execution, between knowing and truly feeling, is where culture is won or lost. In 2026, it’s time to close it.

Rowan Manning
CEO, scarlettabbott

The research for World Changers was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of:

752 senior HR leaders (senior manager+) – decision-makers responsible for areas such as reward and recognition, learning and development, DEI, talent and overall HR leadership – and senior IC professionals (senior manager+) – those responsible for shaping or executing internal or corporate communications strategy and employee engagement. Aged 25+ (director and above), natural fallout of role and sector.

Key sectors (at least 100 per sector) – Financial Services, Energy, Food and Beverage, in companies with 1,000+ employees.

The data was collected between 26.03.2026 and 08.04.2026.

Censuswide abides by and employs members of the Market Research Society (MRS) and follows the MRS code of conduct and ESOMAR principles. Censuswide is also a member of the British Polling Council.