Throughout COVID, employers were quick to offer benefits in order to meet a myriad of employee needs. Yet without a strong vision of a company’s culture, those efforts could prove to be useless.

“We can have our employees set up with every perk out there — if you don’t have strong culture or empathetic leadership, is it really going to make a difference?” said Debi Yadegari, CEO of Villyge, a platform that helps managers to lead with empathy. “They’re still going to look for other opportunities. Culture is the foundation of everything.”

Yadegari joined other HR and adviser leaders at this week’s Workplace Strategies Agenda in Austin, Texas, to dig into how employers can offer perks that support a caring culture for employees. The first step for employers is to simply start listening, said Lori Lantz, SVP and chief people officer at CableLabs, a research and development firm.