Discover the potential of your organizational culture with the Highberg Culture Scan

Three government security organizations in the Netherlands decided to merge, which brought many changes for employees. Additionally, there were already many cultural differences in the organization. Therefore, cultural alignment was an important part of the transition for the client. They chose Highberg because of our experience with quantitative and qualitative methods, but also the strict compliance with privacy and anonymity measures, which is naturally a high priority for government security organizations.

Highberg deployed the Culture Scan to map the similarities and differences of the various cultures, as well as which cultural aspects employees and managers hoped to see after the merger. It also tested whether the organization was ready for the change process.

The measurement provided valuable insights: there were clear concerns about the transition and the future culture, which were a surprise to management and the transition team, allowing them to better steer toward a successful integration.

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After a major reorganization, the Protestant Church was concerned about the culture and whether the organization’s core values still resonated with employees. Therefore, the organization engaged Highberg to support a culture change with data-driven insights. Highberg first conducted a baseline measurement to see what the current culture looks like and then conducted annual culture measurements for three years to track progress.

The initial findings revealed problems such as bureaucracy and hierarchy, which led to targeted actions such as reducing administrative burden and improving communication. Over time, employee satisfaction increased, especially regarding hierarchy, collaboration, and reduced bureaucracy. Engagement scores also rose significantly. The transparent, data-driven approach promoted employee engagement and positivity about the ongoing cultural transformation.

Read the full case study here.

This client is an international leader in the agricultural sector but felt the pressure of competition to grow. A new leadership team was appointed to support this expansion of the organization. As part of this, they first wanted to understand the culture within the company and identify pain points within the culture. What cultural values define the company according to employees? What culture do they envision for the future? And is there support for the newly formulated core values?

The client had no clear insight into the company culture and how employees evaluate the current leadership. Therefore, Highberg was asked to map the current culture and measure how employees see the organization. To date, Highberg has conducted four Culture Scans within the organization, each showing progress in employee engagement and growing alignment with the new core values. To track progress well, Highberg has developed a dashboard where trends of the key culture indicators, such as the main cultural aspects, employee engagement, and support for core values, are visible at a glance.

You gain insight into how the organizational culture is currently experienced by employees, so you know where you stand. The Culture Scan not only maps the entire culture, but we also analyze the different subcultures within the organization, such as differences between teams, departments, new employees, and employees who are developing more slowly.

We discover what employees find important in the organizational culture and what their ideal culture would be.

We measure the extent to which employees are willing to change, so we know if they are open to the necessary culture changes and if they have confidence in the change process.

The results offer concrete starting points for interventions, allowing you to gradually align the culture with organizational goals and employee expectations.

Using Barrett’s Values Model, we ask employees to evaluate the work values in the current culture and say which values they would like to see in the future culture. Examples of work values are formal vs. informal, chaotic vs. structured, and rules vs. freedom.

Based on Schein’s Culture Model, we map the key cultural elements of the organization. We examine how leadership is shaped, how employees interact with each other and with rules and procedures, and which symbols reflect the organizational culture, such as corporate identity, office layout, and dress codes.

We investigate not only how these cultural expressions are shaped in the current situation, but also how employees would like to see them in the ideal situation.

We measure important factors such as employee experience, psychological safety, and retention intention, so organizations can later assess whether the culture has had a positive impact. We use our benchmark studies to provide context to these results. This allows you to easily compare how your organization scores compared to other similar organizations in your sector.

Improving culture brings changes. If employees are not willing to go along with these changes, it can hinder their success. For readiness for change, we measure the extent to which the organization is ready for change. We ask whether employees see the necessity of the change, whether they are willing to change, and whether they have confidence that the organization has the right resources.

How often you should measure your culture depends on your organizational goals, the dynamics within your company, and the degree of change you are undergoing. Generally, it is recommended to measure culture at least every two/three years, but during major changes, such as a merger, restructuring, or strategy change, it can be useful to measure more frequently (for example, annually). But you can also choose to conduct a measurement before the change process and after the change process.

Generally, the Culture Scan process, from kick-off to presenting the data, takes about 12-14 weeks. If you choose not to conduct interviews, this process can be shortened to 10 to 12 weeks.

It may be that you want to investigate a specific cultural aspect. We can help you with this. Think for example of:

• Learning and development culture
• Feedback culture
• Leadership
• Diversity, equality and inclusion
• Trust in the organization
• Conflict management

If you want to further investigate a specific aspect of organizational culture, we invite you to engage with us. Together we can explore what possibilities there are to improve this aspect.

While culture and employee satisfaction are deeply connected, they are not the same thing.

Employee satisfaction is about how employees feel, while culture concerns the underlying behaviors and values that determine an organization’s success. Culture influences the execution of business strategy, while employee satisfaction does not directly do this. A strong culture ensures that employees exhibit the right behaviors to realize the strategy, leading to long-term success. Measuring culture helps organizations understand the deep-rooted beliefs and behaviors that drive business results, while employee satisfaction is mainly an outcome of the work experience. Both are important, but culture is the foundation for sustainable change and success.

Highberg applies a strict anonymity and privacy policy when obtaining data, to ensure that employees can freely share their opinions without negative consequences. We have developed a system where we do not receive traceable personal data (such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) and our clients only receive the grouped results. We apply a minimum number of employees per group, so that employee responses cannot be traced. This way, the research is completely anonymous for both parties.