Climate versus Culture Surveys

The term ‘climate’ is used to describe employees’ perceptions of their work environment, and is typically measured by questionnaire surveys and provide a ‘snapshot’ of the current state of the organisation. Culture is a more complex and enduring ‘trait’ of the organisation reflecting fundamental values, norms and philosophies shared by organisational members that emerge over many years. A good way to think about the climate-culture distinction is to view culture as the ‘values’ of the organisation, and climate as the policies, practices and activities that emerge from as a result of those particular values.

It’s relatively easy to measure the climate of the organisation as you simply need to design a questionnaire instrument that asks people to rate observable aspects of the work environment (e.g., communication, leadership, job design, and so on). Such ratings can then be linked to attitudinal and behavioural reactions like employee engagement or intention to quit the organisation (this is what JRA does with its combined climate-engagement survey). Culture, on the other hand, is much more difficult to assess. Culture is about the underlying assumptions, expectations, and outlooks that are taken for granted by organizational members and are therefore not immediately interpretable. To assess an organisation’s culture, we have to examine the underlying structure of symbols, myths and rituals manifested in the shared values, norms and meanings of groups.

What is important to note about the distinction between climate and culture is that one is far easier to change than the other. Climate, for instance, refers employee thoughts and feelings about the work environment. Thus it is temporal, subjective and often subject to direct manipulation by people with power and influence, Culture, in contrast, refers to an evolved context. Thus, it is rooted in history, collectively held, and sufficiently complex to resist many attempts at direct manipulation.