Purpose and design of our Cultural Assessment
Our Cultural Assessment is a diagnostic tool. The purpose is to allow you to understand the cultural health of your organisation.
It has been designed to be quick to complete with a total of 22 questions. The questions are based on neuroscience, with 10 questions focused on Happiness, 10 questions on Engagement, 1 'Overall how happy' question and finally an Employee Net Promoter Score question.
Once an organisation has taken the Cultural Assessment and diagnosed areas which may require following up, there is a series of follow up surveys which can provide greater insight. For example, if the Cultural Assessment identified an issue with the neuroscience theme of Safety the organisation could take the Safety follow up survey to gain greater insight.
It's important to note our Cultural Assessment is about understanding an organisation’s cultural health and not about chasing high scores.
2023 data
The following insight is based on a sample size of 40,000 respondents from across the globe. As with any review of data your personal experiences or knowledge may be different to what's in this review and that’s fine. We’re simply replaying back the data we have captured from our customers.
Headline scores
Overall, Happiness and Engagement
The overall survey average score for the year was a relatively high 7.8, with an even split between Happiness (7.8) and Engagement (7.7).
Brain Systems and Neuroscience Themes
The Emotional brain system was top scoring, driven by the high scores from the Relationships neuroscience theme. The Reflective brain system was the lowest scoring due to the low scores from the Personal Growth neuroscience theme. This theme is historically low scoring.
Question level
The data shows Relationships is the top scoring neuroscience theme for 2023. The reason for this is respondents scoring well for the ‘how well they get on with their team’ and ‘enjoying working with their team’ questions.
As we saw Personal Growth was the lowest scoring theme due to respondents not being satisfied with the ‘amount of learning opportunities’ and ‘opportunities to progress their career.’
Scoring consistency
To determine scoring consistency we use standard deviation. It allows us to see how consistent the scores are. The lower the standard deviation the more consistent the scores are with less outliers.
In 2023 the highest standard deviation was ‘opportunities to progress your career’ this indicates some organisations are helping to map out their employee’s careers better than others.
Respondents were polarised on whether their ‘opinions were listened to’ which is critical to employees feeling valued.
Factors
In 2023 the top scoring factor was respondents feeling ‘committed to helping their organisation’. Interestingly the results show a large number of people being committed to their organisation, but not feeling like their commitment was being recognised with ‘opportunities to progress their careers’.
Comment Analysis
At The Happiness Index we use AI to power our comment analysis and it groups keywords into themes called entities.
We’ve already discussed the importance of opinions being listened to and within the Acknowledgement neuroscience theme there were lots of comments reinforcing this and ultimately respondents who commented on this topic felt undervalued.
The comments regarding communication were broadly positive with employees recognising organisations were making efforts to keep them informed.
Within the neuroscience theme of Enablement there were a number of comments related to a lack of resources with employees feeling their access to resources has dropped from last year.
Percentage Favourable
We’ve defined a favourable score as being scores of 9 and 10. This aligns with the Employee Net Promoter Score methodology where scores of 9 and 10 are seen as Promoters.
Just over a 1/3rd of respondents scored favourable for ‘being inspired’ by their organisation. Given the economic environment of 2023 this suggests organisations were surviving rather than thriving. As seen by the downward trending scores for ‘availability of resources’, ‘satisfaction with their working environment’ and ’ability to manage their workload’.
Sector Analysis
Health and Wellbeing was the highest scoring sector and given the nature of these organisations it's unsurprising they prioritise employee happiness and engagement.
We’ve just seen low favourable scores for ‘availability of resources’, ‘satisfaction with their working environment’ and ’ability to manage their workload’ and given the tightening of budgets within public services it has resulted with the lowest cultural assessment scores.
Correlation Analysis
Correlation analysis allows us to see if there is a relationship between questions. Here we are correlating questions with the ‘Overall how happy’ question.
It indicates that if organisations wanted to improve the scores for the ‘Overall how happy’ question they should focus on (1) inspiration, (2) making employees feel valued and (3) listening to their opinions.
Trends
Overall, Happiness and Engagement
Trends for the overall Cultural Assessment, Happiness and Engagement are consistent. There were slight rises in 2022 and then dropped again in 2023. The drop is marginal and we wouldn’t consider this to be significant.
Factors
There is consistency in the top 3 themes across both 2022 and 2023, although in a slightly different order. It demonstrates organisations have been consistent in explaining requirements to employees, that employees recognise the importance of ‘getting on with people’ and have been making efforts to do so.
Percentage Favourable
A recurring theme in the data is employees are committed to helping their organisations succeed, however this trending data shows employee commitment has dropped over 5% points since 2021.
The downward trend for ‘availability of resources’, and ’ability to manage their workload’ has resulted in employees having to make do with the resources they have and cope with higher workloads which is impacting their level of commitment.
Correlation Analysis
We identified earlier that if organisations wish to improve the happiness of their people they should focus on (1) inspiration, (2) making employees feel valued and (3) listening to opinions. This is consistent over the past 3 years.
An emerging trend is the importance of the physical working environment. It’s worth keeping an eye on this as it scored 0.49 in 2021 and in 2023 it was 0.61. This covers both physical workplaces such as offices, factories, etc and working from home environments.
Key Takeaways
Here are some key takeaways from our 2023 review:
- The insight is based on the data we have received and we’re simply replaying it back.
- The average score was 7.8 with an even split between Happiness and Engagement.
- Relationships was the top scoring neuroscience theme driven by respondents scoring well for ‘how well they get on with their team’ and ‘enjoying working with their team’.
- Personal Growth was the lowest scoring theme due to respondents not being satisfied with the ‘amount of learning opportunities’ and ‘opportunities to progress their career.’
- 'Being inspired’ by their organisation had a low percentage favourable which is a result of downward trends for ‘availability of resources’, ‘satisfaction with their working environment’ and ’ability to manage their workload’.
- If organisations want to improve the scores for the ‘Overall how happy’ question they should focus on (1) inspiration, (2) making employees feel valued and (3) listening to opinions.
- A recurring theme in the data is employees are committed to helping their organisations succeed, however this trending data shows employee commitment has dropped over 5% points since 2021.
- Downward trends for ‘availability of resources’, and ’ability to manage their workload’ has resulted in employees having to make do with the resources they have and cope with higher workloads, this is impacting their commitment.
- An emerging trend is the importance of the physical working environment. This covers both physical workplaces such as offices, factories, etc and working from home environments.