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Almost every company says its people matter. But saying you're "people first" and designing an organization around people are two very different things.
In this episode, we look at three organizations that challenge conventional assumptions about how work should operate and demonstrate different ways organizations can put people-first principles into practice.
Compt: Choice and Agency
Traditional employee benefits often assume the organization knows what employees need. Compt takes a different approach. Its Lifestyle Spending Accounts let employers establish budgets and categories while giving employees greater freedom to choose benefits that fit their own lives.
The cultural lesson isn't simply about benefits. It's about agency. When employees have different lneeds, families, cultures, and circumstances, treating everyone "equally" doesn't necessarily mean giving everyone exactly the same thing.
Buurtzorg: Trusting the People Closest to the Work
Buurtzorg (Dutch for "neighborhood care") offers a different model of home healthcare.
Instead of layers of management and highly prescribed processes, Buurtzorg organizes nurses into small, self-managing teams. The professionals closest to patients have significant authority to organize their work, coordinate care, and make decisions.
The lesson is simple: You can't tell employees you trust them while designing systems that require approval for every meaningful decision.
Trust becomes real when it is reflected in decision rights, processes, and the structure of the work itself.
Costco: Investing in People for the Long Term
Costco's Code of Ethics prioritizes obeying the law, taking care of members, taking care of employees, and respecting suppliers before rewarding shareholders.
That philosophy shows up in competitive pay, benefits for eligible part-time employees, employee development, and a long-term approach to its workforce.
During the episode, we also wondered whether Costco employees commonly rely on public assistance, as has been documented among workers at some large retailers. We looked into it after recording.
Available government data does show some Costco employees participating in programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, so it would be inaccurate to say this never happens. However, Costco appears much less prominently than several other large employers in the available data. A 2026 U.S. Government Accountability Office analysis of Washington State found 256 Costco employees among working Medicaid/SNAP beneficiaries, compared with 2,291 at Amazon, 1,328 at Walmart, 814 at McDonald's, and 641 at Dollar Tree.
What These Three Companies Have in Common
Compt, Buurtzorg, and Costco operate in very different industries and contexts. But they share something important:
Their commitments to people are connected to their operating decisions.
They challenge assumptions that employers always know what employees need, that managers should make the important decisions, or that investing more in employees necessarily comes at the expense of financial performance.
Instead, they build their beliefs into the way work actually happens.
Culture isn't separate from the business. It's embedded in who has authority, where money is spent, how employees are treated, and how work gets done.
Questions to consider:
• How much agency do employees have over decisions that affect their work?
• Are you designing programs around what employees actually need or what leadership assumes they need?
• Where could the people closest to your customers, patients, or work make better decisions if you gave them greater authority?
• If someone examined your organization's systems, budgets, and decision-making authority without seeing your values statement, what would they conclude that you value?
Companies mentioned in this episode:
Thanks for Listening!
We’d love to hear from you.
Kristine Gentry, PhD
kgentry@culturegrove.com
🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry
Monica M. Smith
tradewindscareerconsulting@gmail.com
🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com
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