Why do Czech employees look satisfied but still seek new jobs? What does research tell us about corporate culture in Czech companies?

Imagine a management meeting. HR reports that people are "basically satisfied." The engagement survey isn't alarming, no one is mass resigning, the hallways are calm. Everyone breathes a little easier. In a time when finding quality people is difficult, "satisfaction" is actually quite good news. 

However, in another browser window, something completely different is happening. LinkedIn, Jobs.cz, notifications from job portals on mobile phones. And in the employee's mind, the question arises: "Do I want to be here for another two years?" 

When we collaborated with the G82 agency to examine corporate culture in medium and large Czech companies, this dual image started to take shape very clearly. On the surface, calmness. Beneath it, a silent drain of loyalty and performance. 

Satisfied, but already one foot out the door 

Let's start with a number that genuinely unsettled us: only 13% of people in our sample truly feel a part of the company. This is the group that feels "this is our business." 

And then the second figure: about one in three employees is actively considering changing jobs. Not "sometime in the hazy future," but here and now. 

When we combined these results with other data, a pattern started to emerge: people declare relatively decent satisfaction, but their engagement and loyalty are much more fragile than they seem at first glance. 

The engagement index scored 54 out of 100 points. It’s not a disaster. But it’s not the result you would want to see if your company aspires to grow and handle the other changes ahead. 

When we translate this index into the language of performance, we arrive at a conservative estimate: about 5% of the company's capacity remains unused. In an organization of 5,000 people, it’s as if 250 people are sitting at a turned-off computer. Physically present, also on the payroll, but their potential is not reflected in the company’s results. 

What holds employees back: corporate culture as average gasoline 

We often hear the phrase: "Our corporate culture is our competitive advantage." 
In presentations, it looks beautiful. On stickers and in employer branding, too. 

However, when we asked employees if the corporate culture positively affects their personal productivity, we received a rating of around 50 points out of 100. 
And that’s a very weak argument for the claim that culture in a given company is the "engine of performance." 

Similarly, the statement "Corporate culture is our competitive advantage" ended up somewhere in the middle of the scale. People are sending us a message: yes, culture exists, it somehow works, but we do not see in it what management says about it. 

And perhaps the most telling is the response to the statement: "Thanks to our corporate culture, talented new employees are applying to us." Here we already reach the lower part of the scale. If we exaggerate: corporate culture contributes very little to recruitment or retention in people's eyes. It is present, but it is not an active player. 

 Two realities of one company 

One of the things that caught our attention in the research is the difference in how various groups perceive corporate culture. 

Managers who have subordinates rate most attributes of the culture significantly better. They more often say that culture supports performance, that management actively engages with it, and that it helps retain the best people. 

In contrast, employees without subordinates are systematically more critical. They trust less that corporate culture makes their work easier. They more often say that processes complicate their lives rather than help them deliver results. 

In simplified terms: the closer you are to the board, the more positively you view culture. The closer you are to actual operations, the more obstacles you see in it.

A similar pattern appears with the size of the company. Smaller organizations (up to 100 people) fare better on a number of indicators: relationships, atmosphere, sense of purpose. With each additional layer of hierarchy and every new process, this advantage slowly dissolves. 

This doesn’t mean that a large company can’t have a great culture. It means, however, that it must much more deliberately monitor to ensure that its corporate culture does not get lost in tables, directives, and endless approval rounds. 

Loyalty that holds out of habit 

When we looked at the results by length of employment, we found another interesting curve. 

In the first two years, the ratings of culture and engagement are relatively high. New people come with enthusiasm, with the expectation that "this will be different." 

Around the sixth year, the curve starts to decline. The feeling of overload rises, frustration with processes that fail to change increases, and the sense that extra effort pays off more in PowerPoint than in reality strengthens. 

Those who stay a long time often do so more out of habit than enthusiasm. They know the environment, they know the people, they know how to "navigate it." That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not a state that prepares the company for the next decade of change. 

Why it matters right now 

It could be said: "So what. The results are not great, but people are okay, the world won’t end." But we know what time we are operating in. Recruiting quality people is difficult. There are more changes than ever before. And every change that impacts the business model, product, or processes depends on whether people inside the company are willing to carry it forward. 

When your engagement scores 54 points out of 100, it means that: 

• some people will join, 

• a large part will endure the change, 

• and the rest will sooner or later get up and leave for somewhere else. 

From the board's perspective, it’s a very simple question: can we afford to have 5% of performance lying idle while one in three is thinking about leaving, as we plan further growth and significant changes in the company? 

Culture as an operating system, not a bulletin board 

When we at Kogi look at corporate culture, we do not think of it as a “soft topic” that can be delegated to HR and immortalized in an internal campaign once a year. 

We see it as the operating system of the company. It either facilitates work and speeds up decision-making or adds unnecessary costs, slows down, and kills motivation. 

This research has given us a very concrete picture of what that operating system looks like today in medium and large Czech companies. It’s not a disaster. But it’s not a state that a good strategy would be satisfied with by just “leaving it as it is.” 

If you feel it would be good to take a sober look at the culture in your company, we would be happy to send you a report and go through with you what it may imply for your business. 

Just drop us an email, or reach out to us via LinkedIn. 

You might find that some "turned-off monitors" just need to be switched back on. And perhaps that it’s time to change the operating system before the whole machine slows down.