Five Tips for Conducting a Company Culture Assessment

There is an ever growing focus on company culture and how organizations can stand out to potential job seekers. With the effects of the Great Resignation and staffing shortages still being felt across most industries and sectors, it's important for companies to ensure that they have more to offer candidates than just a paycheck. One way to stand out? Do regular check ups on your company culture.

Workplace assessments are critical to get a pulse on whether you are providing adequate resources and training so your team can do their jobs effectively. These check ups should be done regularly at any company, but if you are experiencing heavy turnover that doesn't seem to stop it should be done ASAP. Doing an assessment is a critical first step towards identifying why people are leaving - and why they are staying. When you have a really good grasp on what you are doing right as a company, that is vital information you can share with potential candidates.

There are many approaches towards assessing company culture and there is no set formula for what makes a perfect culture. Your industry, company mission and leadership all play heavily into influencing what it looks like, and what it should look like. But the best place to start with getting those answers is your team that works and lives in the environment daily.

Here are five best practices when conducting a workplace assessment:

1. Have methods to give feedback anonymously

This one is crucial if you want to ensure you get honest feedback - and you should want to get honest feedback, otherwise there is no point in conducting assessments. Regardless of if you have great relationships with your team or not, there are still natural power dynamics that come with our work environments. Very few people feel comfortable giving uncensored feedback to the person that signs their checks, even if there is a good relationship built. Providing options for employees to submit their grievances anonymously removes the fear of retaliation or additional questioning that can come when you provide feedback in a meeting. Anonymity also encourages your introverted and/or conflict avoidant team members to contribute their thoughts. Analyzing the feedback should be focused on the WHAT of the issue, not WHO submitted it or WHY they may have done so.

2. Make it a regular practice

Getting feedback and having open-ended conversations about employee well being and experiences should be a regular practice and part of the overall culture. In annual evaluations, as a part of monthly check ins, sending out an annual survey - all of these components play into whether or not your team feels that their voice is heard and valued. How you approach this as a leader is also vital, if you give off the impression that you are asking their opinion to just check a box you aren't going to get quality feedback.

3. But be wary of survey overload

We are inundated with surveys in our lives. Stores, brands, car companies, even electrical companies want to send you a survey to ask how they are doing. The last thing your team wants to do is fill out another survey - especially if you just sent one out. Sending out surveys is a passive way to collect data, one that can still be valuable but you don't want it to be your only method of obtaining feedback. Sending out a survey is a good start, but you should provide other options for engagement for those that feel they need to provide more in depth feedback.

4. Use a range of question topics

If you do go the survey route, put some thought into the questions. The idea is to get a variety of feedback on how you are meeting their needs so make them relevant for your team and what they might be experiencing. Be sure to use a combination of question types (sliding scale, rating, short/long answer, etc) and try to make it something they can complete in 20 minutes or less. Including questions about training, leadership, support, benefits packages, office amenities and understanding of various religious and/or cultural needs will ensure you are trying to understand their needs as both employees and people. Once you get into a practice of doing assessments regularly, identify common themes in the data and use it to improve the next cycle.

5. Do SOMETHING with the feedback

This is the most vital step in the whole process. The whole point of conducting culture assessments is to obtain feedback that you can use to make positive changes in the environment for your team. It is crucial that before sending out another assessment, or making any other moves in regard to company culture that you thoroughly review, analyze, follow up with the team and discuss how you are going to implement the feedback...and then actually do something with it. If you miss this step or it just keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the to do list it can actually harm relationships with your team. It sends the message that you don't really want to make any changes, just to create the appearance that you do. This practice over time can destroy trust and prevent them from engaging in these conversations in the future.

When you are in a leadership or Human Resources position your job is to create a productive working environment for a diverse group of individuals with only your own experiences, beliefs, and preferences as a guide post. Working to create a collaborative culture where everyone's voices are heard, and measures are taken to ensure needs are met, goes a long way in communicating how you view and value them as members of the team.

No company culture is perfect, but consistently working on refining and creating a healthy environment can get you pretty close. This means lower turnover, higher retention, and happier more productive teams. Not only do you as a leader want to do everything you can to retain staff during the highest rates of turnover in 30 years, but it's also the responsible thing to do in caring for the people that are crucial to your success.