Workforce experience defines if the organisation value its employees. It also explains whether the company is good at employee retention and employee satisfaction, which has a significant impact on organisational culture. Organisational culture incorporates the behaviours, assumptions, underlying beliefs, and values that contribute to the environment of a business that is defined by the social and psychological experiences of the workforce.

Organisational culture is a vital factor that can have a huge impact on the perception of an employee. It defines an organisation’s internal and external identity and offers a perspective of the company’s core values. Your employees are your critics, and a strong culture helps you to retain employees. Employees who feel like a part of the community play a vital role in transforming the resource into a team that, in turn, helps in performance and employee wellbeing. Employee satisfaction has a positive impact on organisational culture.

Your goal is to find out your employees’ thoughts of the organisation, whether they support the company, their perception of the company and the work culture. To break down boundaries between the organisation and its employees, you may consider adopting a culture index survey.

What is the culture index?

Every employee has a different perception of an organisation. Their perception is based on what their working experience and is influenced by the work culture, employee relations, company policies, beliefs, and values of the organisation. Considering all the factors that influence the workforce, a cultural index is a depiction of how the employees feel being a part of the organisation. The cultural index includes opinions, sentiments, and attitudes towards different factors that have an impact on an employee’s roles and responsibilities.

The cultural index is essential to an organisation as it maintains the workplace culture. An organisation must experience the smooth functioning of all its resources to be able to compete in the market. If one resource fails to perform, there is a high chance that the organisation may fail to fulfil its goals. Managers are, therefore hired to strategise and help their team to perform. To understand the workforce culture, managers can consider conducting culture index surveys.

Culture index survey

It measures the quality of the work climate that is offered to the workforce. It defines whether an organisation is successful in retaining its employees. Culture index survey can be one of the strategies that companies use to measure whether the employees are satisfied at work.

• What is a culture index survey?

A culture index survey is a feedback tool that measures various factors that influence the workforce’s perception of the organisation. The survey can transform how companies work as it focuses on employees, and gives a clear picture of what the employees feel about the organisation. It helps the managers and the organisation by providing data that lets them make an informed decision.

• What does the culture index survey measure?

The culture index survey measures how employees feel about working in an organisation, which also includes their opinions, attitude, and feelings about different aspects of the company as well as their job. These are measured on a scale that ranges from good to neutral to bad.

• What are the tools used to measure the culture index survey?

An organisation’s culture is crucial for its success, and a strong organisational culture shows that the employees are confident in the company’s leadership. Assessing the company’s culture must be done at least twice a year to ensure that you do not miss anything vital that could change the way the employees feel about your values.

There are several platforms online as well as software that lets you measure the culture index of your organisation through a survey. The feedback tools are user-friendly, robust, and offer an in-depth analysis of the response given by the workforce. These platforms or software support massive data and several surveys and can be used as per your needs and requirements. Some of the best tools include Culture Amp, Subcurrent, Reward Gateway, TinyPulse, Officevibe, 6Q, among others.

• What are the questions in a culture index survey?

There are several different types of questions that can be asked in a survey on whether an organization is offering a good work culture to its employees. Some of the cultural index survey sample questions include the following.

Some of the open-ended questions include the following.

• Likert scale questions: Rate the below items based on your satisfaction with 1 being strongly disagree, 3 being neutral, and 5 strongly agree.
  1. You are offered an opportunity to grow
  2. You are offered an opportunity to learn new things
  3. You can communicate openly
  4. You are a part of the decision making
  5. You have flexible working hours
  6. You understand your level of responsibility
  7. You have an ideal relationship with your supervisor
  8. You have an ideal relationship with your subordinates
  9. You can ideally balance work and personal life
  10. You are offered an ideal work atmosphere.

• Some of the open-ended questions include the following.
  1. Do you feel you are being listened to?
  2. Do you feel you can trust the management? If not, why?
  3. How important is feedback to you?
  4. Do you receive timely feedback from your manager about your work?
  5. Have you been provided with all the tools and training to perform your responsibilities?
  6. Do you like the atmosphere at your organisation? Why?
  7. Do you feel overwhelmed or stressed at your job?
  8. What would make your organisation a better workplace?
  9. Are your accomplishments celebrated?
  10. What would you change in the organisation that would make your work life better?

Every question that is included in the survey will depend on what concerns the company wants to address and want it wants to achieve. Each survey is custom made for the needs of the company. Here is a sample template for an organisation that is surveying employees a year after their joining.

	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
I was offered an opportunity to learn new things
I was encouraged to ask questions about my role
The organisation celebrates accomplishments at all levels
I see a lot of growth opportunities for myself
People are allowed and encouraged to question management’s judgment
Low-level employees make independent decisions
I see communication between every level of management
People cooperate across department lines
People are encouraged to communicate openly
The managers attempt to resolve all the issues
The decisions are always handed down from higher management
My level of responsibility is as per my expectations and experience

Every survey differs based on the objective of the organisation, and whom they want to target. A culture index survey is a feedback tool that is vital for an organisation to stay ahead in a competitive market.

Benefits of measuring culture index

The culture index survey has a lot of benefits to offer with some of them as follows.

• It offers a good retention rate as companies that offer a good work culture often see a high retention rate.
• Companies also enjoy high customer retention rates which are essential for economic growth.
• Implementation of strategic planning is possible as employees are aware of what is happening in the organization.
• It offers conflict-resolution which is the key to improving the work environment.
• The culture index survey enables an organization to spot any gap in the process and bridge them.
• It helps to improve employee processes such as pre-boarding, onboarding as well as off-boarding processes.
• It is a good way of spotting and revamping errors in training and development.
• It boosts workforce engagement, efficiency, and productivity.
• It provides all information that is needed to understand the workforce and take the necessary action that will lead the organization to a path of success.

The survey keeps the employees of an organization motivated by offering them a good work environment.

Conclusion

Culture index survey is a feedback tool that offers vital information on how an organisation can improve its culture to benefit its workforce and in turn, influence the growth and development of the organisation. It offers several benefits starting from high employee and customer retention rates to leading the organisation into a path of success. For an organisation to be able to reap the benefits of the survey, it must ensure that it targets the right audience in the organisation. It must also frame the right questions that are aligned with the answers that they seek. It is vital to understand that some things are best left at the hands of experts if the work needs to be done optimally.