How to Improve Company Culture Through Surveys

In today’s competitive world the value of a strong company culture cannot be overstated with the benefits of a happier, more engaged workforce typically generating an 18% higher revenue per employee compared with the average. When you’re seen to care and invest in your staff, it’s also easier to attract top talent when you need to recruit new faces to support your growth, as satisfied employees are far more likely to recommend your business as a great place to work to their own professional networks.

Taking all of this into account it makes sense to know what your employees think about your company culture and whether it inspires or hinders them, so you can make any improvements you need to ensure that your culture’s the best it possibly can be to maximising your productivity and success.

What constitutes a strong company culture and how do you measure it?

Company culture refers to a company’s personality and typically includes elements such as an organisation’s mission, values, ethics, work environment and goals. Subsequently, a strong company culture is one that essentially listens, engages and supports employees to ensure they are operating to their maximum potential.

However, you won’t know how strong your existing company culture is and how conducive it is to generating the performance you need until you measure what your employees think about it. With the right employee survey and questions you’ll be able to get a much clearer picture about your company culture and how well it’s aligning with what you’re looking to achieve, while the comments you receive will enable you to take the necessary steps to improve it.

Given how highly the concept of company culture is valued among staff, with 88% of employees believing it to be crucial to their company’s success, it shouldn’t be too difficult to elicit the responses you need. With the speed with which many businesses progress, it’s also important to ensure you conduct surveys frequently if they are to be as effective and relevant as they can be.

How to improve company culture with the right survey questions

Employee Company – Job Satisfaction:

From how comfortable employees feel with your organisational culture and what motivates them to do more, to what they feel you need to improve, one of the best starting points is a job satisfaction survey. This can provide you with a fuller picture of how your organisational culture is perceived by your employees and the values they do or don’t support.

When thinking about what survey questions to include and how you can make them easier for your employees to work through and compete, you may want to assign them to different sections such as:

A) Questions that measure how well your employees understand and identify with your culture

B) Questions that assess how well your employees feel you are performing

C) Questions that measure your employees’ levels of satisfaction and feelings about what you need to improve

With these sections in mind, you might like to consider questions such as:

A) Questions that measure how well your employees understand and identify with your culture

i. Are you comfortable with our workplace culture? If yes, Why?

ii. Do you understand how your work impacts our organisation’s business goals?

iii. How do you believe our organisation defines success?

B) Questions that assess how well your employees feel you are performing

i. Is there a satisfactory culture of teamwork and cooperation within our organisation?

ii. Do you believe that we operate in a socially responsible manner?

iii. Do you believe we effectively adhere to a zero-tolerance policy against any kind of discrimination?

C) Questions that measure your employees’ levels of satisfaction and feelings about what you need to improve

i. Are there any aspects of our organisation that we could improve to make it a better place to work?

ii. Are you satisfied with the way performance reviews are carried out in our organisation?

iii) Do you believe our company provides you with opportunities to express your ideas and an adequate say in decision making?

If you’re new to surveying your employees in the area of company culture and need some further ideas with regards to templates and questions, you might like to view our employee survey templates.

CTS Diagram:

Another valuable employee-orientated assessment is the Common good, Transformation, Self-interest(CTS) diagram. This is based on Richard Barrett’s Seven Levels of Consciousness concept and expands on Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, which argues that humans must satisfy certain needs in sequence, if they are to attain the highest levels of personal growth and fulfilment.

Graph courtesy of Centre for Integral Transformation

The benefits of this type of assessment is that as well as gaining a solid overview of how your employees’ perceive your cultural values, it can also give you a deeper understanding of what they believe you need to focus on in order to build a stronger culture. We’ve outlined some sample questions based on their respective categories below:

Common Good:

• Do you feel that you’re making a difference with your work?
• Do you feel connected with other team members?
• Are there any changes you would make to bring more value to the company?

Transformation:

• Do you think our company can adapt in a fast-changing environment?
• What do you think we need to implement to make our workflow more flexible?
• Are we doing enough to more forward by investing in new technology advancements or other innovations?

Self-Interest:

• Do you feel needed at work?
• How often do you receive feedback from your leadership and your colleagues?
• How often do you get encouraged, motivated or praised for your work?

Final thoughts on how to improve company culture

Currently among SME leaders, 60% consider company culture as a ‘nice to have’. However, when you consider that around a third of all employees who leave their jobs, do so because of perceived poor company culture, improving it really needs to be made more of a priority.

Considering the level of importance currently allocated to company culture among the majority of organisations, this puts those investing in working to improve it at a significant advantage. From the ability to retain and attract new staff, to creating a happier, more motivated and productive workforce, the benefits of a strong company culture can generate increased success and keep you head of your rivals. Consequently, there has never been a better time to reach out to your employees through a survey and use their feedback to improve and strengthen your company culture.