Human resource professionals must become culture architects. Without an intentional design, culture develops on its own — and not always in ways we want to see. Culture is vital to developing and sustaining a healthy, high-performance organization, especially in today’s volatile climate. In fact, respondents to the 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey ranked building organizational culture as their top imperative for transforming work.

However, many of us have a fuzzy understanding of what culture is and how to measure it in our organizations. That’s why we invited Tim Kuppler, Director of Culture and Organization Development at Human Synergistics, to a recent episode of Alchemizing HR, where he broke down what a high-performance culture looks like and how to track it.

Here’s how to measure culture to drive higher performance at your organization.

Distinguish Between Culture and Climate

When speaking about culture, most people point to elements that actually belong to the organizational climate, which invites a specific culture but isn’t culture itself. It’s important to know the difference so you can target and measure the right things. Climate consists of the systems and processes you have in place, such as rewards systems, performance management and leadership styles.

Culture, on the other hand, consists of the items we can’t see that shape our perceptions and attitudes: values, norms, beliefs and assumptions. An employee asking themselves whether they’re allowed to speak up in a meeting or should stay quiet is an example of how culture impacts behavior — and performance.

It’s especially vital to measure culture intersection with gender, race and disability. You’re likely to find vastly different results across different employee populations. Tracking culture can help you tangibly move the needle on your diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Identify High-Performance Culture and Behaviors

Managers often influence the climate that drives a high-performance culture. Identify your top managers who are setting inclusive norms. What’s different about the climate they set versus the climate set in other parts of the organization? What specific behaviors are they embodying that enable a high-performance team culture? Define the behaviors that drive a healthy and productive culture, and don’t lose sight of them.

At points where your organizational culture is passive or aggressive rather than constructive, empower teams to make new things happen in different ways. You might have a team that constantly avoids confrontation at the expense of sharing new ideas. Enable that manager to facilitate idea-sharing and healthy conflict. Be transparent, and seek to turn the language that describes desired behaviors into everyday functioning.

Develop a Targeted Improvement Model

Culture is driven by shared learning and mutual experiences. Develop a targeted improvement and learning model to capitalize on both. Explain why culture is important for performance, build a baseline for measuring your progress, and adjust strategies as needed to meet your target goal.

At HRCI®, we pivoted to an agile culture model based on the strengths and weaknesses we uncovered in our culture assessment. We started integrating agile culture into smaller projects. Having a framework and shared language helped us become more effective as an organization.

We also evaluated the vision and values we needed to inject into the culture and kept up efforts to keep culture at the forefront of our minds and systems throughout the process.

Watch the recording for recertification credit.