Most corporate culture surveys are not as effective as they could be. This article will help you to optimize your success and use the results to improve your corporate culture.
Start with Your Goals
When embarking upon a corporate culture survey project, you must start with the end in mind. What is your purpose in doing a corporate culture survey? Do you want to improve the corporate culture? If so, why? What are the main challenges that your company is facing? Do you have a good understanding of what corporate culture is? If not, I encourage you to read Understanding Corporate Culture.
I recommend that you narrow down your goals to three major goals that you would like to accomplish. Examples would include: 1) reduce employee turnover; 2) improve product delivery time; and 3) increase profitability. It is best to set quantitative goals. Even though you cannot quantify your corporate culture, it is the container for all of your results and has a direct and indirect impact on these results. By setting quantitative goals, you will be able to measure the results of your efforts by doing annual or bi-annual corporate culture surveys.
Be prepared to change your goals. While goal-setting up-front is extremely important, you may learn some things about your company and culture that lead you to re-prioritize your goals. This is fine. Be open and flexible. Try not to forecast the outcome of the survey before you get the results.
Designing a Good Corporate Culture Survey
Once you know what you are trying to accomplish in doing a survey, you can design questions around your goals. But, be careful! Quantum physics has demonstrated that the intentions of a scientist affect the outcome of her experiment. That is why I recommend that you use a survey that has been designed by an outside party. Her or she will not share your biases and the results will be less biased.
Below are the sections that we have included in the Culture Builders Corporate Culture Survey: 1. Company Mission 2. Leadership 3. Corporate Culture 4. Company Values 5. The Work Itself 6. Work Assignments 7. Work Fulfillment 8. Individual Career Development 9. Support, Training, and Coaching 10. Summary Questions
You see that the Culture Builders' survey covers a broad range of areas. Corporate Culture is only one section. The reason for this is that culture is the container for actions, decisions, and results. You will be able to learn about your culture indirectly by querying the other areas.
Sections 1-9 are quantitative questions and section 10 has open-ended qualitative questions. The quantitative questions can be tracked by time period, which is important. You will be able to recognize trends and be proactive in avoiding a crisis. The qualitative questions will give you lots of insights and useful anecdotes.
In designing the survey, it is essential to obtain personal information from the survey participants that will help you to segment the data. For example, tenure and department are essential pieces of information. Position level may also be useful.
That said, it is critical to keep the survey confidential. People will be more willing to complete the survey and provide honest answers if they are confident that their answers cannot be traced back to them. Use design and technology to keep the answers confidential.
Implementing the Corporate Culture Survey
Make it as easy as possible for people to complete the survey. Use the technology that makes best sense for your company. I have helped companies set up surveys on their intranets and on Lotus Notes.
Set it up so that someone can begin the survey and the partial answers will be saved if they get interrupted. Make a tight timeframe for people to do the survey - one week or two weeks if people travel frequently. Send out 48 and 24 hour notices of the surveys deadline. Getting Good Response to your Corporate Culture Survey
It is important to have the buy-in and support of the leadership team in doing this survey. Spend the time necessary to educate them about corporate culture and your goals for conducting a survey. The leadership team will then advocate for the survey and increase the response rate.
How you present the survey to potential participants is critical to the success of your project. Remember: the survey is confidential so participation is optional. If you only get 70% of people responding to the survey, you will not be able to find out who has not participated.
One of the best ways to ensure 100% participation is to clearly articulate the goals of the survey and share your plan for what you will do with the results. If I believe that you will do good things with the survey results and it will directly improve my life, I am more apt to take the time to do the survey.
What to Do with the Results of your Corporate Culture Survey
The worst thing you can do is to undertake a survey and then do nothing with the results. This is far worse than doing nothing at all. You will raise people's expectations of life at the company improving and then the results disappear into a black hole. I guarantee that morale will deteriorate.
Set up a company-wide meeting to present and discuss results. Do this within a few weeks of the close of the survey. Use the momentum that you have built up to keep moving towards your goals.
Be as transparent as possible in presenting the results. Don't skew or sugar-coat them. I helped a company do a survey and the internal person who presented the results focused only on the positive and glossed over the negative. People didn't buy it. Be as objective as possible. Try to get someone who is respected and well-liked within the company to present the results. This is far better than having an outside consultant do this. Then the whole company will own the results - not an impassionate outside observer.
I recommend setting up three task forces to own the three goals that you have set forth. Try to get volunteers to sit on the task forces. Make the teams a hybrid of different departments and different levels. Set concrete goals and timelines. Make sure that the task forces have the support and resources they need.
What Next
I recommend doing an annual or bi-annual survey to keep your finger on the pulse of the company. Make minor changes to the survey or add questions, but don't change anything significantly or you won't be able to track your results and identify trends.
Find out how to successfully change your corporate culture. Debra Thorsen helps companies optimize their corporate cultures. Visit Culture Builders for a free white paper - Corporate Culture Change: Aligning People and Profits.
- Related Videos
- Related Articles
- Ask / Related Q&A
- Doing a Corporate Culture Survey
- Creating Positive Corporate Culture Change
- Organisational Culture
- Organizational Culture-women-minorities
- New Employee Surveys Online
- Strategic Corporate Philanthropy: Using Social Investment to Improve Your Competitive Context
- Using Employee Surveys For Multiple Goals
- Cultural Awareness Training
The Benefits of Having a Multicultural Team of Pharmacists
By: Adrianna Noton | 15/12/2009Today, multiculturalism has become an important element of our society. Cities, town, and small rural communities, are now much more culturally diverse. The impact of multiculturalism has been felt across most industries, including the medical industry. One profession where the use of multicultural teams has become essential is Pharmacy. Pharmacists are...
Pallet Racking Decreases Delivery Costs
By: Adrianna Noton | 15/12/2009Whether the state of the economy is good or bad, every business is always looking for ways to cut costs and improve operational efficiency. One such area that is expensive for most businesses that ship and receive goods is the costs associated with delivery. Often delivery costs make up a...
Event Registration- An Effective Tool to Handle Events Well
By: Article Manager | 15/12/2009The event registration services act as event organizers who will promote your event at the global level. You just need to fill a registration form and leave the rest to these service providers.
Protect Your Business and Bottom Line From the Effects of Vandalism
By: Jordan Frankel | 15/12/2009Each year Graffiti, 'scratch-iti', and other forms of property vandalism cost Americans an estimated $8 billion in removal and clean-up in the form of taxes, private funds, and insurance premiums. That's a big gouge to your bottom line that doesn't even account for a loss of customer traffic as a...
The key to productivity success is managing employee tasks
By: Ryan Fyfe | 15/12/2009When it comes to managing employee tasks there are a number of ways of going about it. You will need to make decisions in regards to assigning tasks, ensuring implementation, and evaluation of the work done. The way you approach managing employee tas..
3 Simple Ways to Save Money When Buying Photocopiers
By: Simona Rusnakova | 15/12/2009Are you thinking of purchasing photocopiers for your office? Those days are gone when the copiers were used only to make copies, as with time, the office copiers too have developed into multifunction document handling systems. With numerous features, and a variety of options of copiers available in the market,...
Effectively managing employee shift trades will avoid conflicts
By: Ryan Fyfe | 15/12/2009Managing employee shift trades can lead to problems if they are not handled correctly. In many ways staff managing to get cover for the days they need off is a good thing, and it saves those responsible for the schedules from having to find people to..
A winning approach to managing employee overtime hours
By: Ryan Fyfe | 15/12/2009Those businesses that aren't good at managing employee overtime hours effectively could easily be creating problems for themselves for the present and for the future. You will often hear some companies make the claim that they don't allow overtime, b..
Stop Compromising Your Life
By: Debra Thorsen | 14/01/2006 | CareersMost of us settle for living small lives based upon what we think is possible. To live a rich a rewarding life, we must strive for the impossible, knowing that nothing is out of our reach when we align with our true bliss.
Creating Meaningful Work
By: Debra Thorsen | 26/12/2005 | CareersMany people don't find their work to be meaningful and show up just to punch the clock or to get money. This has a destructive effect on the fabric of our society. Learn how to create meaningful work by aligning it with personal values.
How Our Schools Create Corporate Drones
By: Debra Thorsen | 22/12/2005 | CareersOur school system doesn't produce innovative workers or successful entrepreneurs, it creates corporate drones. Learn how you can un-brainwash yourself from the destructive lessons that schools teach.
Why Do You Have a Job? Five False Beliefs that Lead People into Jobs they Hate
By: Debra Thorsen | 19/12/2005 | CareersThere are five false beliefs that lead people into jobs they hate. Before you change your job, company, or career, you need to examine these false beliefs.
Aligning Work with Your Life Purpose
By: Debra Thorsen | 18/12/2005 | CareersIf you are frustrated with the lack of meaning or purpose in your job, this article will guide you to discovering work that is aligned with your purpose and passions.
Doing a Corporate Culture Survey
By: Debra Thorsen | 12/12/2005 | ManagementIf you are thinking about doing a corporate culture survey, you may be a bit confused about the best place to start. This article will guide you through the process of doing a successful and useful corporate culture survey.
Control Holiday Stress
By: Debra Thorsen | 07/12/2005 | HealthIf the approaching holidays have you feeling anxious, stressed, or blue, here are some ideas to help you recapture the joy of the holiday season.
Ways to Make Money
By: Debra Thorsen | 30/11/2005 | CareersWhat are the best ways to make money? What is the best way to make money? If you answered, "a job", then you have been brainwashed like most Americans into believe that working for a company is the best way to make money. It is absolutely NOT one of t