Beyond Perks: How to Build a High-Performance Culture That Scales

A recent piece from InsiderPH reports that SM Investments — one of the Philippines' largest conglomerates — pulled in six recognitions at the 2026 Inquirer ESG Edge Impact Awards, including Gold for its Sustainability School and Silver for embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion across recruitment, employee development, workplace policies, and community engagement. According to the company, nearly 100,000 employees have completed that Sustainability School, which is the part that should make any founder pause. This is what "investing in people" looks like when it stops being a slide and starts being an operating system.

What SM actually built

The numbers carry the lesson. The Sustainability School isn't a one-off course — it's an internal capability program that pairs training with how managers and frontline staff make decisions every day. SM Retail earned Silver for SM Green Finds, which helps shoppers identify more sustainable products. SM Prime took Gold for its SM Waste-Free Future campaign, and BDO Foundation received Silver for financial education work. SM Investments president and CEO Frederic C. DyBuncio put it simply: "This recognition belongs to our people, who bring our values to life every day." As Gold awardees, SM Investments and SM Prime will represent the Philippines at the Asia ESG Positive Impact Awards in Malaysia in November.

The operating lesson for you

In my experience, the companies that confuse "investing in people" with perks and snacks are the same ones that stall at scale. What's different in SM's approach is that training is tied to measurable behavior — how managers hire, how staff advise customers, how community programs get run. That's not philanthropy. That's an operating layer that compounds. If you can't point to the specific decisions your people are making differently after a program, you don't have a culture initiative. You have a line item.

What to pressure-test this quarter

Before you spend another cycle on the next culture push, sit with three questions. What is the one behavior you need to see change in the next 90 days? Which current program is aimed at that behavior, and what's the completion rate? And if a manager got promoted tomorrow, could you trace their promotion to a development path you built, or are you still rewarding tenure and charisma? Build the answer into something your leadership team can review, not just admire.