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Culture Amp: Turning Employee Feedback Into Measurable Culture Change for Growing Companies

The Challenge

When companies grow past 100 employees, something shifts. The informal pulse checks that worked when everyone sat in one room no longer capture what's actually happening across teams. HR leaders find themselves flying blind on engagement, making decisions based on gut feel rather than data, and watching talented people leave without understanding why.

The stakes are real. Mid-market companies—those with 100 to 500 employees—often face the same talent competition as enterprises but without the same resources. They need to understand what's driving engagement and attrition, but most lack dedicated people analytics teams. What they need is a way to gather honest feedback, make sense of it quickly, and actually do something with the results before the next wave of resignations hits.

How Culture Amp Approaches It

Culture Amp started in Melbourne in 2009 with a specific premise: culture problems are often treated as technology problems or strategy problems, when they're really about people. The platform combines employee engagement surveys, performance management, and development tools into a single system designed to help HR teams move from collecting feedback to taking action.

The engagement module goes beyond basic surveys. It includes research-backed question libraries developed by organizational psychologists, pulse surveys for ongoing check-ins, and benchmarking against data from over 6,500 companies. When results come in, the platform uses AI to summarize open-ended comments into themes, saving hours of manual analysis. More importantly, it surfaces the specific drivers behind engagement scores—so instead of knowing that morale is low, teams understand whether the issue is recognition, growth opportunities, or something else entirely.

The performance management side handles continuous feedback, goal tracking, 360-degree reviews, and calibration. Rather than treating engagement and performance as separate conversations, Culture Amp connects them. A manager can see how their team's engagement scores relate to performance outcomes, or spot patterns that suggest flight risk before resignations happen. The platform's new AI Coach, launched in 2025, extends this further by providing real-time coaching prompts to managers based on their team's feedback—guidance that was previously available only through expensive executive coaches.

What distinguishes Culture Amp's approach is its foundation in people science. The questions aren't arbitrary; they're validated through research. The recommendations aren't generic; they're tied to specific evidence about what moves engagement scores. For mid-market HR leaders who need to make a case to skeptical executives, having that research backing makes a difference.

Who It's Built For

Culture Amp works best for companies that have decided employee experience is a strategic priority, not a nice-to-have. The sweet spot is organizations with 200 to several thousand employees—large enough to need systematic measurement, but not so large that they've already built custom analytics infrastructure. Many customers adopt the platform around Series B or C, when rapid growth makes it impossible to rely on informal feedback channels.

The platform does require commitment. It's not a set-and-forget survey tool. Companies that get the most value are those with someone in HR who can own the platform, interpret results, and drive action planning. Organizations looking for a simple annual pulse check might find it more comprehensive than they need. Those ready to build a genuine feedback loop—where employees see that their input leads to visible changes—will find it delivers.

What Customers Are Saying

The reviews suggest Culture Amp delivers on its core promise. Sharesies, a New Zealand fintech with around 220 employees, achieved a 95 percent survey participation rate and saw a two percent year-over-year increase in engagement after embedding the platform into their people strategy. Robidus, a consulting firm with roughly 475 employees, reported a 12 percent increase in engagement scores and a 5.5 percent improvement in turnover rates within a year of implementation.

Customers frequently cite the combination of usability and depth. One People Ops director noted that "the interface is clean and intuitive, making it simple for users to navigate," while another highlighted the "I/O psychology-based recommendations that provide direction in making impactful changes." Neil Blumenthal, CEO of Warby Parker, has said the platform helps his team "benchmark against best-in-class companies and deliver on our commitment of being data-driven in every area of the business." The consistent theme: Culture Amp makes sophisticated analytics accessible to HR teams who aren't data scientists.

Getting Started

Culture Amp doesn't publish pricing publicly—quotes are customized based on company size and modules. Based on community feedback, expect costs around seven dollars per employee per month, with minimum annual contracts typically starting around $4,500 to $5,000 for smaller organizations. Implementation generally takes four to six weeks, including HRIS integration, survey configuration, and admin training. Standard and Enterprise customers receive dedicated customer success support, while smaller accounts access group coaching and self-service resources.

The platform integrates with major HRIS systems including Workday, BambooHR, and Personio, as well as communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. For companies already using these systems, the technical lift is manageable.

Key Takeaway

Culture Amp makes sense for mid-market HR teams who want to move beyond intuition and build a genuine culture of feedback. It's not the cheapest option, and it requires real commitment to action planning. But for organizations ready to treat employee experience as a measurable business outcome—and willing to invest accordingly—it offers the depth, benchmarks, and research foundation to make that investment pay off.

Learn more at cultureamp.com