Cultural Assessment of a workplace

Culture of a workplace defines its character and principles on the basis of its workforce’s attitudes, ethics, traditions, beliefs and general atmosphere. It can act as a great motivator for employees to deliver their best. A healthy workplace culture is critical when rolling out and applying rules, regulations and policies that help an organisation to accelerate towards its goals and objectives. Workplace culture can also arrest attrition and lead to high work satisfaction for people. Many professional services are also available that can help an entity to assess its culture against its expectations.

Now that we know the importance of workplace culture, let us take a look at what Cultural Assessment covers under its wings:

·         Establishing expectations clearly

Management of an entity must set forth its expectations regarding workplace culture in a precise, concise and crisp manner. Expectations are established on norms like- level of formal tones in interactions between colleagues, managers and subordinates, ethical diversity of employee base and entity’s stand on it, gender specific and ethical policies and clear behavioral guidelines.

·         Real-time assessment of current culture

 This task can be accomplished by designing a structured audit. Such audits use tools like face to face interviews, questionnaires and quantitative data to determine the present culture of the organisation.

·         Arriving at the gap

 Ones the expectations are set and assessment of culture is done, an organisation would have a clear picture of what it lacks in terms of workplace culture vis-à-vis its objectives. In the light of facts and findings, new policies and guidelines to align the culture with goals can be formulated.

·         Induction

 To ensure the success of cultural assessment procedures, every organisation must take steps to familiarize their people with the need and importance of embracing the policies regarding the culture.