Should You Measure Your Company Culture?

Two  questions I often get asked is; how should we measure the company culture and should we measure company culture?  

And my answer to this is mixed.

I truly believe the only time you should measure the impact of your company culture is when you want to see how the culture is working for your people. 

Too often employers believe they know best and create workplace cultures which do not provide any real value to the team. 

This can blindside organisations when it comes to retention, as the problems are only discovered during exit interviews and when people unexpectedly leave. 

Many businesses can be so focussed on one area, for example benefits and wellbeing, that they forget about other fundamental parts of culture such as communication and process. 

People are still going to be unhappy in a culture where communication is broken, even if you have the most competitive benefits package. 

By measuring the impact your culture has on the people, you can get a clear idea of what’s working and what isn’t.

As I’ve said before, culture is a journey. It never really ends. So by reviewing and auditing your company culture regularly you can ensure that there are no cracks appearing. 

To get a good idea of how your people feel about the current company culture ask the following questions in an anonymous survey; 

Do you feel good about showing up to work? 

Do you feel aligned with the company goals? 

Do you have access to the resources you need to carry out your role? 

If you could change one thing about the company culture, what would it be? 

You can measure the impact of your company culture through revenue and profits – the success of the business. There are many case studies available on the cold hard facts of business success due to culture. 

You can also measure it through the retention of your employees and the talent that you have.  Does your retention drop or does it increase?  

There are fundamentally lots of ways that you can measure impact in order to really understand if the culture you’ve created is actually creating a benefit to your business. 

But the trouble is, too many businesses are focused on the numbers and crunching the numbers and the data and it’s all about what’s my return on investment?  

I get that. Every business owner wants to know – is what I’m investing in going to reward me and pay off?

But with company culture measurement should be people led, not profits led.

I truly believe that company culture is not something that you think you should do.  It’s something you have to do, because ultimately it’s the right thing to do.  

If you want to create a business where your people are happy and engaged and really involved in your business, then it’s just the right thing to do because you’re creating a space where people come to work.

They’re going to spend most of their lives there, most of their week there, and surely you should want to make that a good place – a good place for them to learn and develop and be their authentic selves.  You should want to make work a positive impact on the people that you employ.   

To get support in improving your company culture, contact me today about my company culture training, or culture consultancy programme.