At our recent People First Global Event, two People Leaders explored how listening with intention can shape culture and drive performance. Nick Holmes, VP of Employee Experience at Avalere Health, and James Hampton, Head of Employee Experience at St. Austell Brewery, shared how they’ve built listening into the fabric of leadership and everyday decision-making. Their stories show what it takes to treat employee voices not as inputs, but as catalysts for change.

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Nick described how Avalere Health began its cultural transformation by blending human-centered design with active listening. They launched Your Voice, an initiative designed to capture feedback throughout the employee lifecycle from onboarding to offboarding. Surveys, round tables, pulse checks, workshops, and exit interviews created a detailed view of the employee experience. “We learned that creating an environment where people can show up as their authentic selves and feel that they belong is a really important step,” Nick said. Over time, this approach unified culture across a complex, multi-organizational environment, giving leaders the ability to quickly interpret results, track progress, and ensure that insights consistently turned into action.

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James faced a different challenge at St. Austell Brewery. Hospitality is highly seasonal, with large groups of short-term and rotational staff. Maintaining a consistent culture in that environment required empathy and flexibility. “To truly help our staff feel comfortable, authentic, and well at our workplace, I realized it’s important to understand their experiences before we can begin to impact change or encourage leaders to create change,” James explained. By listening to the needs of their diverse workforce, the brewery introduced a “pub flex app” that gave employees more control over scheduling. The result was tangible. Engagement increased by six percent in six months, and labor turnover dropped by ten percent in less than a year.

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Both emphasized that listening is not just about surveys but about building a feedback loop. It requires acting on what is heard and showing employees that their input drives meaningful change. Avalere Health, for example, saw its Employee Net Promoter Score rise by ten percent in just twelve months, while voluntary attrition fell by half. Nick described this progress as happening through “drum beats, not lightning bolts,” a reminder that cultural change is built through consistent, incremental actions rather than sudden announcements.

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Active listening also shapes leadership behavior. It encourages accountability and helps leaders communicate with clarity. James explained how even small shifts, like creating flexible scheduling, helped managers build stronger trust with their teams. Nick pointed to the cumulative effect of showing employees that their voices are valued, which created alignment across a large, complex business.

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The lesson from both Avalere Health and St. Austell Brewery is clear. Listening is not a one-off initiative but an ongoing practice. It is the discipline of seeking out diverse perspectives, empathizing with employee experiences, and using those insights to shape both daily operations and long-term strategy. Organizations that embed active listening into their culture do more than improve engagement scores. They build resilience, reduce turnover, and create workplaces where people feel connected to something larger than themselves.

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By making active listening a core business practice, leaders like Nick and James are proving that culture grows stronger not through grand gestures but through continuous, deliberate attention to the voices of their people.