Wouldn’t it be far easier to achieve your business goals if every staff member and manager was on the same page? There’s no doubt that established and refined company culture can catapult your business to a new level of success.
If you’re in the process of reviewing or revamping your company culture, keep reading. We’re going to tell you why measuring culture is good for business and how to get started.
1. Best Practices When Measuring Culture
The most important thing to remember about the process of measuring culture in the workplace is just that - it’s a process. However, this process can be made much easier when you utilise the correct tools and methods.
There are several that you can use when measuring organisational culture and we’re going to summarise them for you here.
- Surveys
- Business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Event KPIs and Initiatives
- Workforce KPIs
- Anecdotes and Tracking Behaviors
As research and data-gathering tools, surveys are the best way to get feedback and suggestions from your employees. If you construct it well and ask the right questions, the information you receive could point out what values may be missing or what needs to be adjusted in the company.
However, it’s also important to note that surveys comprise entirely of an individual’s opinion and can’t be used alone as a metric for measuring culture.
If you ask us, KPIs are a necessity and will hold some type of value for your business - they can be used to measure the performance and productivity of the company or, in this case, they can help to derive positive or negative changes in the culture of the business.
Tools like customer service/satisfaction questionnaires, for example, can assist you in determining if the values and goals of the company are being upheld, or if they need to be reviewed.
A good indicator of just how invested your employees are in the business is how they view events and programmes outside of their typical work day. Do they attend work functions? Do they participate in social responsibility initiatives? Do they seem enthusiastic about these events?
All of these questions can help you in determining whether or not your company culture is inclusive and collaborative - if that is something you value.
Similar to the previous two tools, workforce KPIs can give insight into the mindset of your employees. For example, if there’s a high level of absenteeism coupled with low performance or productivity following a major cultural shift in the company, you can look at what that change in behaviour might be attributed to.
Again, these metrics can’t be used on their own and have to be reviewed in conjunction with other cultural engagement tools.
While it may sound strange to derive cultural norms based on stories and perceived behaviours, an overwhelmingly negative company culture will show in the way employees behave and the way they speak.
Regarding behaviours, if there are certain values that are encouraged, like open communication, and you find that feedback isn’t being received often enough from your employees, you can determine whether this value is suited to your business or whether it’s not being enforced well as a cultural norm.
2. Shortfalls with the Tools to Measure Culture
As with any tool that derives its data from cultural engagement, there will be shortfalls and inconsistencies.
For the most part, some of these tools can be considered unreliable, when used on their own. This is due to the fact that many indicators can’t be boiled down to numbers and statistics. Culture is everchanging and dynamic so it can become challenging to equate statistics to behaviours and cultural norms. However, behaviours and sentiments can be telling when establishing and measuring culture.
Another shortfall could be the prevalence of misaligned values. Having said that, you could also view them as positives because you now know what needs to be changed or adjusted to improve the culture of the business.
3. Overcoming the Shortfalls
While measuring business culture and embarking on the process may sound foolproof, it’s actually a continual or ongoing process and it takes time to refine. That is how you should view it.
At the same time, consistency is key. Ensure that all the tools you use for measuring culture are constructed in a way that you’re getting the information that you need.
It may be a great idea to let your entire team know why you’re embarking on this process - get their buy-in and help them to see that this process can only benefit the business and contribute to positive growth and success. It will also help your employees to feel like they’re part of the process.
And remember to use the measurement tools listed above in conjunction with one another to ensure you’re getting the most accurate feedback and data.
4. The Importance of Keeping Your Finger on the Pulse of Business Culture
Business culture requires flexibility and constant improvement. That's why it's important to keep your finger on the pulse and remain aware of changes in the industry.
With statistics, such as the Indeed Work Happiness survey, indicating that employees are more inclined to being unemployed than unhappy, workplace culture and cultural engagement are more important than ever. Being ahead of the curve in this regard also helps you to be wary of challenges and issues within the business before they pose a greater threat to your bottom line.
The effect of a happy workforce on productivity and performance has been documented and proven, so it can only benefit your business to continually improve your company's culture.
In Conclusion
There's no right or wrong business culture and no two cultures are the same.
Whatever methods you use for measuring culture, it's important to remember to employ more than one and to have a good idea or indication of the type of culture that you want to have to make your business a success.
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