The Hidden Number: The Economic Value of Culture and Capability
A new ANZ report from Cornerstone and Great Place To Work® reveals how culture, trust and workforce capability translate into measurable business value.
A new ANZ report from Cornerstone and Great Place To Work® reveals how culture, trust and workforce capability translate into measurable business value.
The Culture and Capability Index is a workforce benchmark that measures how well organisations build the conditions employees need to perform, adapt and stay. It connects culture, trust, learning, leadership, skills visibility and workforce planning to outcomes like retention, absenteeism, hiring efficiency and productivity.
Some of the most important drivers of business performance are also the hardest to see.
Revenue, cost and profitability are tracked with precision. But the workforce conditions behind those numbers, including trust, leadership, skills, learning, mobility and workforce planning, are often harder to measure.
That gap is the hidden number.
The Culture and Capability Index ANZ Edition 2026, developed by Cornerstone in partnership with Great Place To Work® Australia and New Zealand, helps organisations understand where culture and capability gaps exist, what they cost, and where improvement can create the greatest commercial return.
A 10-point improvement in the Culture and Capability Index can unlock significant annual value per 1,000 employees:
Most of this value comes from three workforce outcomes:
The report also finds that Culture, Engagement & Trust is the single largest contributor to workforce outcomes across ANZ, accounting for approximately 30% of total economic impact.
The report shows how workforce gaps can sit beneath the surface of everyday operations, showing up later as avoidable turnover, absenteeism, slower hiring and reduced productivity.
The Index measures culture and capability across six areas:
Many organisations believe their capability systems are strong. Employees often experience them differently. The report shows where that gap creates performance risk.
Culture, Engagement & Trust contributes the largest share of economic impact across ANZ. This makes culture a measurable business driver, not a soft HR metric.
HR leaders are often more confident than employees about AI and workforce readiness. The report explores why closing this gap is a culture and leadership challenge, not only a technology challenge.
The report shows how leading organisations reduce hidden costs by improving retention, productivity, internal mobility, learning and workforce planning.
This report is for:
Cornerstone helps organisations build workforce agility through learning, skills intelligence, talent development and AI-powered workforce planning.
Together, Cornerstone and Great Place To Work® show how organisations can move from assumption to evidence, measuring culture and capability as real drivers of performance.