HOW TO ASSESS THE WORKPLACE CULTURE IN YOUR ORGANISATION
Organisations strive to attract top talent, to be competitive and to build strong, cohesive teams. These teams directly influence the performance of the business, and without the right workplace culture, people will not thrive.
Workplace culture influences employee satisfaction, productivity and even retention rates. According to PwC’s Global Culture Survey 2021, 85% of organisations believe that culture and purpose are critical to business success. Similarly, Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report emphasises that organisational culture remains a top priority for navigating future disruptions. These findings underscore that while the importance of culture is widely recognised, many organisations still struggle to assess and improve their actual workplace culture, especially across multiple sites or remote teams.
This is particularly true in industries like civil engineering surveying, where teams may be dispersed across offices, worksites or even continents. Before any meaningful changes can be made, understanding and evaluating the current culture is essential. But how do we assess workplace culture? In this article, we’ll explore key strategies to assess workplace culture, particularly in diverse, multidiscipline teams that are increasingly common across many sectors.
A company’s culture is the foundation upon which everything else is built – how employees interact, solve problems, and approach their work. Lack of alignment between a company’s leadership’s perception of culture compared with the lived experience of employees can lead to disengagement, low morale and even accidents, especially in high-stakes environments such as manufacturing and energy. In civil engineering, for example, the success of a project can be attributed to the culture, as culture affects safety and collaboration, which when wrong, can be costly to rectify. A poor culture not only impacts the bottom line, but can also tarnish an organisation’s reputation, making it harder to attract talent in the future.
There are a number of mechanisms for assessing workplace culture. In this article, we will explore five:
One of the most straightforward ways to assess workplace culture is through employee surveys. These surveys can range from anonymous questionnaires to in-depth interviews. The key is to ensure that employees feel comfortable providing honest feedback.
Surveys should focus on:
- Communication styles.
- Leadership approaches.
- Employee well-being and work-life balance.
- Attitudes toward diversity and inclusion.
- How safe do employees feel raising concerns or voicing ideas.
Designing effective surveys:
- Anonymity: Ensure surveys are anonymous to encourage honesty.
- Clarity: Use clear and concise questions, avoiding jargon.
- Variety of questions: Include a mix of Likert scale, multiple-choice, and openended questions.
- Frequency: Conduct surveys regularly to track changes over time.
For example, in civil engineering projects where surveying teams work closely with construction and design teams, it’s important to understand how well different departments collaborate. Surveys can reveal whether employees feel valued and respected in crossfunctional teams or whether there are silos that inhibit effective collaboration.
Encouraging high response rates:
- Communicate purpose: Clearly explain why the survey is important and how the results will be used.
- Share results: Commit to sharing high-level findings with the team.
- Act on feedback: Demonstrate that feedback leads to action, increasing trust in the process.
A culture audit is a deepdive assessment of your organisation’s culture, analysing policies, procedures and everyday practices to uncover whether they align with your company’s values. This can involve reviewing internal documents, observing day-to-day operations and speaking with employees across different levels and locations.
Steps involved in a culture audit:
- Define objectives: Determine what you aim to achieve with the audit.
- Gather data: Collect information through documents, interviews, and observations.
- Analyse findings: Identify gaps between stated values and actual practices.
- Report and act: Develop a report with recommendations and implement changes.
For civil engineering surveyors, this could involve assessing how well safety protocols are communicated and adhered to across different work sites or evaluating whether new technologies, such as geospatial data systems, are effectively integrated into everyday operations.
Overcoming challenges:
- Geographical barriers: Use virtual tools to include remote teams.
- Employee reluctance: Ensure confidentiality and communicate the benefits of the audit for everyone.
Organising focus groups or workshops allows for in-person or virtual conversations about company culture. Unlike surveys, which are often anonymous, these sessions offer a more interactive way to understand the nuances of team dynamics.
Discussion topics might include:
- How employees perceive management’s commitment to health and safety.
- Collaboration between office staff and field teams.
- The sense of inclusion across different departments or teams.
Tips for effective focus groups:
- Diverse participation: Include a cross-section or ‘diagonal slice’ of employees from various departments and levels.
- Skilled facilitator: Use an impartial facilitator to encourage open dialogue.
- Safe environment: Create an atmosphere where participants feel comfortable sharing honest opinions.
In civil engineering, where precision and accountability are critical, a 360-degree feedback system can help identify whether leaders are providing adequate support for surveyors and other field staff.
In the civil engineering surveying industry, focus groups can reveal how well new technology implementations, are supported by leadership and understood by field teams. Are these tools enhancing productivity, or do employees feel unsupported in learning new systems? This example can apply to make sectors where new tools and processes are rolled out.
Evaluating from the leadership down is essential for a full understanding of the company’s culture. A 360-degree system allows peers, subordinates and supervisors to offer feedback on leadership performance, giving insights into whether leaders are fostering an inclusive, supportive environment or inadvertently contributing to cultural challenges.
Implementing a 360-degree feedback system:
- Select evaluators: Choose a mix of colleagues who interact regularly with the leader.
- Ensure confidentiality: Feedback should be anonymous to promote honesty.
- Balanced feedback: Encourage both positive feedback and constructive criticism.
- Action plan: Leaders should create development plans based on the feedback received.
These surveys should be completed annually and best practice would be to ensure feedback comes from supporters as well as challengers. In civil engineering, where precision and accountability are critical, a 360-degree feedback system can help identify whether leaders are providing adequate support for surveyors and other field staff. Are they demonstrating an openness to new ideas, or are they reinforcing traditional, potentially limiting, hierarchies?
In some cases, culture can be measured indirectly by monitoring key performance indicators. High turnover, frequent safety violations, or project delays may point to deeper cultural issues. By monitoring these metrics over time, you can identify pa›erns that suggest whether employees are feeling supported and empowered.
Key metrics to monitor:
- Employee turnover rates: High turnover may indicate dissatisfaction.
- Absenteeism rates: Frequent absences can signal low engagement.
- Safety incidents: Increases may reflect lapses in communication or training.
- Employee engagement scores: Regularly assessed through surveys or polls.
- Customer satisfaction: Declines can be linked to internal cultural issues.
Foster cross-functional collaboration to ensure that all voices are heard in decisionmaking processes, particularly in large-scale infrastructure projects.
For example, if a civil engineering surveying team regularly struggles to meet project deadlines, the underlying cause may be more cultural than technical. Perhaps field teams feel disconnected from decision-making processes, or there’s a lack of clear communication about project goals.
Once you have a clear understanding of your workplace culture, the next step is to act on that knowledge. For companies in the civil engineering surveying industry, this could involve:
- Enhancing communication between remote teams: Create clear channels where surveyors, project managers, and other staff can collaborate effectively. Tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams can facilitate instant communication.
- Addressing silos: Foster cross-functional collaboration to ensure that all voices are heard in decision-making processes, particularly in largescale infrastructure projects. This could involve joint team meetings or rotational programmes.
- Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion: Make concerted efforts to ensure that employees from diverse backgrounds feel valued and integrated into teams. This is especially important in technical fields like surveying, which have traditionally been male-dominated. Initiatives might include diversity training, mentorship and sponsorship programmes and advocacy opportunities.
Leaders must model the behaviours they wish to see, and ensure learning and improvements are continuous. Examples include:
- Demonstrating openness: Encouraging new ideas and being approachable.
- Providing support: Offering resources and support for professional development.
- Recognising contributions: Acknowledging and rewarding team achievements.
Continuous Improvement:
- Regular reviews: Culture assessment should be an ongoing process.
- Employee involvement: Involve employees in developing and implementing solutions.
- Feedback loops: Establish mechanisms to evaluate the effectiveness of changes.
Assessing workplace culture is not a one-time task but an ongoing process. In industries like civil engineering surveying, where teams work across various sites and use cuffing-edge technology, a strong and cohesive culture can be the difference between a project’s success and its failure. By using tools like employee surveys, culture audits and 360-degree feedback, companies can take the first step toward fostering a more inclusive, collaborative and productive workplace. Moreover, leveraging technology and monitoring key metrics provide deeper insights into the organisational culture.
...understanding and improving culture is about listening to employees, recognising and acknowledging their needs and creating an environment where everyone feels enabled to contribute to the organisation’s success.
In the end, understanding and improving culture is about listening to employees, recognising and acknowledging their needs and creating an environment where everyone feels enabled to contribute to the organisation’s success. A positive workplace culture not only enhances employee satisfaction but also drives innovation and business performance.
It’s a call to action – organisations should prioritise culture assessments as a strategic initiative. Begin by selecting one of the strategies outlined and commit to implementing it within the next quarter. For guidance, consider consulting with experts in organisational development or utilising culture assessment tools. Remember: A thriving culture doesn’t happen by chance; it’s the result of deliberate actions and a commitment to humility, transparency,and continuous improvement.