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Staff Survey / Culture

Barbara Wootton

My company is a small SME with around 50 staff.  We have had our challenges along the way but lately (I would say noticeably for the last 4 months) our staff seem be to disengaged, picking fault with small issues, taking advantage of flexible good will and which in turn is breading a very toxic environment.  

There has been a change in management at the top but the new MD has been with our company for nearly 6 years so the staff know him.  Not sure at this stage if that is a good thing or bad thing.

To be perfectly honest our company is so flexible and accommodating I think there has definitely been a shift in strong leadership to employees running the show.

Culture is a massive topic and one my company knows we need to address.  We have legacy employees who feel the 9am-5pm culture and doing nothing over and above suits them, but management want to attract new talent and breathe new culture into the company.  Easier said than done.  They have yet to define what they see as the right culture for us.

So in a bid to find out what the issues are as a starter for ten I thought a survey would give staff a platform to air some of their grievances, but also provide the company with feedback.  We have never circulated a survey like this before but we have to start somewhere.  Any ideas on the type of questions which would be beneficial to include?   

Actually any ideas at all???

Thanks in advance.

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  • Hi Barbara

    If you want to do any work around discretional effort, and what really has an impact (as opposed to what people imagine to have an impact), IMO you can't beat the 12 Gallop questions. If you haven't come across these before, you will find them in First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman.

    As there are only 12 of them, it's not difficult to construct a survey with the 12 questions which have yes/no answers plus some additional questions with free-form space for staff to comment. Then you can produce a statistical analysis from the 12 questions.

    You can use the free-form answers to gather qualitative data and and address those answers. In this section, I don't think you need to use an evidence-based questionnaire and can just ask for thoughts and opinions. If you want to uncover brakes and blocks, you could ask staff what 3 things they would change to make their working lives better. You could ask them the best thing about working for your organisation and the worst thing - you are only limited by your imagination.


    BTW, 50 is not a large group, but I think it would still be worth producing a statistical analysis of the Y/N questions even though 1 person is 2% of your total population and probably an even higher percentage of your respondents.

    This is an area where there is a lot of robust research available and yet I still come across consultants and organisations selling tools which are not supported by evidence. I have more than once contacted suppliers to ask the basis for e.g. survey questions and been told that they have drawn on their experience or intuition. You have an opportunity here to carry out a really solid piece of work that will be of real value to your organisation.

    It also occurs to me that this would make a great project for a management report. You might be able to get a student to take this on.

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  • Hi Barbara

    If you want to do any work around discretional effort, and what really has an impact (as opposed to what people imagine to have an impact), IMO you can't beat the 12 Gallop questions. If you haven't come across these before, you will find them in First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman.

    As there are only 12 of them, it's not difficult to construct a survey with the 12 questions which have yes/no answers plus some additional questions with free-form space for staff to comment. Then you can produce a statistical analysis from the 12 questions.

    You can use the free-form answers to gather qualitative data and and address those answers. In this section, I don't think you need to use an evidence-based questionnaire and can just ask for thoughts and opinions. If you want to uncover brakes and blocks, you could ask staff what 3 things they would change to make their working lives better. You could ask them the best thing about working for your organisation and the worst thing - you are only limited by your imagination.


    BTW, 50 is not a large group, but I think it would still be worth producing a statistical analysis of the Y/N questions even though 1 person is 2% of your total population and probably an even higher percentage of your respondents.

    This is an area where there is a lot of robust research available and yet I still come across consultants and organisations selling tools which are not supported by evidence. I have more than once contacted suppliers to ask the basis for e.g. survey questions and been told that they have drawn on their experience or intuition. You have an opportunity here to carry out a really solid piece of work that will be of real value to your organisation.

    It also occurs to me that this would make a great project for a management report. You might be able to get a student to take this on.

Children