Jerry Gennaria and Will Percy on Slaying Workplace Zombies at Amplify 2025

At Amplify 2025, TOKY’s Jerry Gennaria joined Will Percy of Team Optix to tackle a challenge many leaders feel but struggle to name: the persistence of outdated workplace strategies that continue to shape culture, performance, and client experience, even when everyone knows they’re no longer working.

They called these lingering practices “workplace zombies.” And the metaphor sticks, because most of the habits holding organizations back don’t show up as obviously wrong. They show up as default behaviors. Legacy assumptions. Unspoken rules. Operational norms that no one remembers choosing, but everyone still follows.

The heart of the conversation was simple: culture isn’t what you say. It’s what your team does, repeatedly. That’s why workplace zombies are so hard to eliminate. They’re often embedded in routines, reinforced by systems, and tolerated over time. Even well-intended cultural initiatives can miss the mark if they focus on language and messaging without addressing the beliefs and behaviors underneath.

Jerry tied this directly to TOKY’s Branding From Within practice, which starts by identifying the values and beliefs shaping the employee experience. When those values are unclear, inconsistent, or misaligned with how work actually happens, the gap doesn’t stay internal. It becomes visible in the way teams communicate, make decisions, and show up for clients. In other words, the employee experience becomes the client experience.

Slaying workplace zombies isn’t about creating a new set of values or launching another initiative. It’s about naming what’s outdated, understanding what keeps it in place, and intentionally building a workplace where behaviors match beliefs. When the internal experience aligns with the external promise, the brand becomes stronger, more consistent, and easier to trust.

Watch the full Amplify 2025 presentation from Jerry Gennaria and Will Percy below, and explore what it might look like to remove what’s no longer serving your team—so you can build a workplace designed for what comes next.