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Measure and improve company culture with behavioral insights
A strong company culture doesn’t emerge from core values on the wall, but from what people do, say and allow every day. How do people work together?
Do employees feel space to contribute? Does leadership behavior align with the organization’s values?
With Deepler’s culture module, you make visible how employees truly experience the culture in an organization. This reveals where company culture provides strength, where behavior creates friction, and which patterns prevent change.
- Measure how employees experience company culture daily
- Discover where culture, behavior and core values diverge
- Translate culture research into concrete improvement actions
Company culture: what is it and how do you map it?
Many organizations discuss their culture when something changes: growth, merger, reorganization, new leadership or increasing distance between teams. But company culture is not one separate topic.
It sits in decision-making, communication, leadership, collaboration and the way people interact with customers and colleagues. A culture survey helps make those often invisible patterns visible and discussable.
In this article we explain:
- What company culture means and how you recognize it
- Why culture in an organization influences behavior
- How you can measure and describe company culture
- What helps in changing or improving company culture
- How Deepler translates culture into concrete action
Table of contents
What is company culture?
Company culture is the sum of beliefs, habits, behaviors and unwritten rules within an organization. It determines how people work together, how decisions are made, how leaders provide direction and how employees handle change, mistakes, customers and each other.
The formal values of an organization often tell you what is important. The real culture shows what employees experience in practice. That’s why measuring company culture is valuable: it reveals whether desired behavior actually appears in teams, processes and leadership.
From core values to daily behavior
Core values are only credible when employees recognize them in their daily work. For example, an organization might say it is open, while employees experience major decisions as top-down.
Or claim that ownership is important, while mistakes are punished. By examining culture, you connect words to behavior and it becomes clear where desired culture already exists and where adjustment is needed.
Schein’s three levels of culture
In Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985), organizational psychologist Edgar Schein described company culture as consisting of three layers:
- Artifacts: what you see and hear, such as the office layout, dress codes, rituals and the way meetings are run
- Espoused values: what the organization says it considers important, such as core values, mission and codes of conduct
- Basic assumptions: the unconscious beliefs about how work “should” be done, which steer behavior most strongly
If you really want to change culture, you have to reach that bottom layer. Research helps you get there.
The 7 dimensions of organizational culture
Based on research by O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell (1991), Stephen Robbins describes seven characteristics on which organizational cultures differ from one another:
- Innovation and risk-taking: how much room is there to experiment?
- Attention to detail: how precise does the work need to be?
- Outcome orientation: does only the result count, or also the way you get there?
- People orientation: how much do decisions take employees into account?
- Team orientation: is work organized mainly in teams or individually?
- Competitiveness: how strong is the internal competition?
- Stability: is the emphasis on preserving what exists or on growth and change?
Why is company culture important?
Culture in an organization often determines how people act faster than a procedure or policy document. When the culture is safe, clear and learning-oriented, employees are more willing to take responsibility. When the culture is unclear, closed or defensive, delays, confusion and dependency on leaders emerge.
Measuring company culture provides organizations with various benefits
Company culture is influenced by leadership, communication, collaboration, decision-making, role modeling and how successes or mistakes are handled. Precisely because culture runs through everything, it’s difficult to steer by intuition alone. A culture survey reveals which patterns employees recognize and which aspects of organizational culture need attention.
1. Visibility of unwritten rules
A culture survey reveals which norms and habits employees experience daily. Think about how easily people give feedback, how decisions are made or how much space there is for initiative. This gives you insight into the real work culture, not just formal values.
2. Better alignment between values and behavior
Many organizations have core values but don’t always know if they come through in practice. By measuring company culture you discover where values are recognizable and where behavior shows something different. This makes culture change more concrete and honest.
3. Stronger collaboration between teams
Cultural differences between teams or departments can cause misunderstandings, frustration or delays. A culture survey reveals where teams work, communicate or prioritize differently. This allows you to work more directly on shared norms and better collaboration.
4. Greater clarity during change
During growth, reorganization or strategic change, culture often determines whether plans land. If employees are used to waiting, change requires different interventions than in a culture where people naturally take initiative. Culture data helps tailor your approach accordingly.
5. More targeted work on future readiness
A healthy company culture helps organizations learn faster, collaborate better and improve more easily. By measuring culture rather than just naming it, you create a foundation to actively steer toward behavior that fits the organization’s ambition.
Conduct your culture survey with Deepler’s software
With Deepler’s culture module, you examine how employees experience company culture in their daily work. You measure topics such as collaboration, leadership, safety, decision-making, ownership, communication and alignment with core values.
The results are translated into clear dashboards and team insights, so HR, management and leaders don’t get stuck in abstract culture language. You see where desired culture is already visible, where teams experience different patterns and which conversations are needed to improve company culture.
What types of company culture are there?
In practice, company culture determines more than most companies realize. It steers how decisions are made, how people treat each other and, ultimately, how attractive an organization is to new talent. At Deepler.io we see again and again in our work with clients that culture rarely arises by chance: it is the result of choices around structure, leadership and values, made consciously or unconsciously.
There is no universal “best” model. A scale-up that needs to move fast has different needs from an organization where consistency and control come first. Below we explain five recognizable culture types, with their characteristics, pros and cons, and when a particular type does or does not work.
1. The hierarchical culture
In a hierarchical culture, decision-making authority clearly lies with management. There are fixed procedures, clear reporting lines and little room for interpretation in how work is done. This model works well in sectors where predictability and compliance weigh heavily, such as the financial sector, healthcare or production environments.
The advantage: clarity and consistency. Everyone knows who decides what. The risk: slow decision-making and little room for initiative from the shop floor, which in the long run can lead to a weaker sense of ownership among employees.
2. The team-oriented culture
Here the emphasis is on collaboration rather than individual performance. Decisions are reached through consultation, and the customer experience and mutual engagement are central. Organizations with this culture often invest deliberately in a good work-life balance, because they assume that teams who feel supported also perform better.
The advantage is a high level of engagement and a pleasant working climate. The downside: responsibility can become diffuse when nobody clearly owns a result, and decision-making by consensus takes time.
3. The performance-driven (elite) culture
This culture revolves around attracting and retaining the strongest people and rewarding top performance. There is a strong focus on quality, the bar is set high in recruitment, and those who perform quickly get growth opportunities and attractive terms of employment.
This model can be highly motivating for ambitious employees, but the downside is real: high work pressure and a culture that leaves little room for people who do not want to be on their toes all the time. Without attention to sustainable employability, this risks turnover and burnout.
4. The horizontal (flat) culture
Typical of young, fast-growing organizations and start-ups. There is no strict top-down structure; everyone is expected to think along, give feedback and take responsibility beyond their own job title. Innovation and experimentation are actively encouraged.
Its strength lies in speed and flexibility: ideas can be tested and adjusted quickly without first having to pass through an entire hierarchy. The risk often arises with growth: without any structure, decision-making becomes unclear and the organization may struggle to scale up.
5. The family or clan culture
In this culture the team feels like a close-knit group in which people know each other well, share values and feel strongly connected to the company. Loyalty and mutual care come first, and decisions are often made with collective well-being in mind.
This creates a warm, safe working environment with usually low turnover. At the same time, it can be harder to part ways with underperforming employees, and the emphasis on harmony can get in the way of critical feedback.
Which culture suits your organization?
None of these five types exists in pure form: most organizations are a mix, with one dominant style. The question that really matters is not which label sounds best, but which culture suits your stage of growth, your market and the kind of people you want to attract and retain.
At Deepler.io we help organizations think about that question from a practical perspective: not as an abstract exercise, but linked to concrete choices in structure, leadership and communication. Want to know which culture best fits your goals, and how to strengthen it instead of leaving it to chance? Feel free to get in touch.
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Quinn’s culture model: four types of organizational culture
The most widely used model for classifying company culture is the Competing Values Framework by Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn (Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture, 1999). It sets two tensions against each other: flexibility versus control, and internal versus external focus. This produces four cultures:
- Clan culture (family): focused on collaboration, engagement and developing people
- Adhocracy culture: focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and experimentation
- Market culture: focused on results, competition and customers
- Hierarchy culture: focused on structure, procedures and predictability
No organization has one pure culture. What matters is the mix, and the gap between the current and the desired culture. A culture survey makes both visible, per team and per department.
From feeling to shared perspective
Without research, company culture often remains a collection of opinions. One person calls the culture entrepreneurial, another experiences mainly chaos.
One sees openness, another doesn’t dare voice important concerns. A culture survey brings those different experiences together and clarifies where patterns resonate organization-wide.
This creates a shared starting point. Not to assign blame, but to jointly determine which behavior helps and which behavior hinders the organization’s development.
What are the benefits of a culture survey?
A culture survey helps organizations make an abstract subject practical. Instead of talking about ‘the culture’ as if everyone means the same thing, you gain insight into concrete behaviors, tensions and differences between teams. This makes it easier to describe, improve and change company culture.
Describe company culture concretely
Many organizations find it difficult to describe their company culture without falling into vague language. With culture data you see which characteristics employees truly recognize.
Is the organization mainly results-oriented, cautious, informal, hierarchical, learning-focused, people-oriented or entrepreneurial? By linking those characteristics to behavior, culture becomes less vague and more useful for leadership, HR, onboarding and communication.
More targeted company culture improvement
Improving company culture only succeeds when it’s clear which behavior needs to be reinforced or changed. If employees experience little ownership, it could stem from unclear frameworks, lack of trust or a culture where initiative isn’t rewarded. By measuring underlying patterns, you avoid generic culture programs and choose interventions that match the real cause.
More control over culture change
Changing company culture requires repetition, role modeling and clear choices. A survey shows where the organization currently stands and which topics deserve priority.
Afterward you can track whether new agreements, leadership behavior or change interventions take effect. This makes culture change not a one-time session, but a process you can guide and adjust.
Improving company culture: 6 tips
Culture change does not happen with a new set of core values or an inspiration session. It takes consistent behavior, at every level. These six tips help you give direction to your company culture.
1. Map the current culture honestly
Don’t start with the desired culture, but with what employees experience now. Without a baseline measurement, you don’t know where the gap is or whether your approach is working.
2. Translate core values into concrete behavior
A core value such as “openness” only means something once it is clear what it looks like. For example: decisions are explained and everyone is free to ask questions in meetings.
3. Let managers lead by example
Employees look at what leaders do, not at what they say. So invest in leadership, because that is where culture in teams begins. Read more on our page about strengthening teams and leadership.
4. Make it safe to name patterns
Unhealthy habits only change when someone dares to name them. So work on psychological safety, so that employees are honest about what is going on.
5. Reward the behavior you want to see
Take a critical look at who gets recognized and promoted. If you mainly reward individual results, collaboration will not become part of the culture.
6. Measure regularly and discuss the results
Culture changes slowly. So measure at fixed moments and discuss the results with each team. That way you see whether new behavior really sticks and where you need to adjust.
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Is a culture survey mandatory and what about privacy?
A culture survey is usually not legally required in the Netherlands. Still, it can be highly valuable for organizations, especially when culture impacts workload, psychological safety, leadership, collaboration or change capacity.
Because a culture survey concerns employee experiences, care is important. Communicate in advance why the survey is being conducted, which topics are measured, how results will be used and who will access reports.
Only ask for information necessary for the survey’s purpose and report at group level where needed to prevent traceability. This builds trust and increases the likelihood that employees answer honestly.
Is a culture survey anonymous?
A culture survey works best when employees can speak freely about how they experience the company culture. Anonymity or confidential group reporting is therefore important.
Especially on sensitive topics such as leadership, safety, feedback or decision-making, employees must be able to trust that their answers will not be fed back individually. Deepler helps to structure results in such a way that patterns become visible without individual employees taking center stage.
What about GDPR and privacy in a culture survey?
In a culture survey, you process personal data or at least data that can be traced back to groups of employees. Therefore, the processing must comply with GDPR.
That means, among other things, that you formulate a clear purpose, do not collect more data than necessary, inform employees about use and retention periods, and handle small groups carefully. Open answers and segmentations require particular attention, because they can be more recognizable. Privacy is not only a legal requirement, but also determines the quality of the answers.
What is the role of HR, management and leaders in a culture survey?
HR can prepare the culture survey and ensure that the approach is careful, understandable and safe. The board and management have above all a role model function: they must make clear why culture matters and be willing to look at their own behavior.
Leaders then play a major role in follow-up, because culture is visible daily in teams. The works council can be involved when the survey touches on personnel policy, privacy or broader organizational development.
Why do many organizations conduct a culture survey?
Organizations conduct a culture survey because culture often makes the difference between making plans and implementing them. Strategy, core values and processes can be logical on paper, but if the daily work culture doesn’t match them, change stalls.
A culture survey makes visible where the organization helps itself and where behavior works against ambition. That makes it easier to make improving business culture practical.
Healthy vs. toxic
Culture shapes almost everything in an organization: how colleagues treat each other, how you deal with customers, how conflicts are resolved and how decisions are made. It is not what is written on the wall, but what people do, say and allow every day.
Positive company culture
In a strong culture, employees treat each other and customers with respect. There is room for feedback, and conflicts are addressed instead of swept under the rug. Employees feel engaged and are willing to go the extra mile. That culture is exactly what makes the difference when you want to attract and retain talent.
Negative company culture
A negative culture feels unpleasant and, in the worst case, even unsafe. Conflicts go undiscussed or are not taken seriously. Employees become less engaged and leave sooner. You probably don’t have to think long to come up with an example, in your own surroundings or in the news.
Get more out of your culture survey
Link culture to recognizable behavior
Don’t just ask whether employees experience the culture positively. Investigate concrete behavior: do people speak up to each other, are mistakes discussed, is there room for initiative and are decisions clearly explained? This prevents culture from remaining a vague umbrella term.
Make differences between teams discussable
Business culture is not the same everywhere. Teams can differ greatly in leadership, safety or collaboration. Don’t use those differences to judge, but to understand which patterns work and where support is needed.
Translate insight into exemplary behavior
Culture changes especially when people see and experience different behavior. Therefore, link results to concrete exemplary behavior from leaders, agreements in teams and recurring moments when the desired culture is practiced.
Do’s of a culture survey
A good culture survey requires clear language and careful follow-up. Employees must understand that this is not an abstract project, but about the way they work together daily.
- Explain why you want to measure business culture
- Use recognizable examples from work practice
- Report carefully at team and organizational level
- Discuss results with leaders and employees
- Choose some behaviors you want to visibly strengthen
Don’ts of a culture survey
- Don’t make culture too abstract with only values or models
- Don’t use results to settle scores with teams or leaders
- Don’t ask for feedback if there is no follow-up
- Don’t draw conclusions from small groups that are traceable
- Don’t start a culture program without clear priorities
What do you do with the results of a culture survey?
The results of a culture survey are only valuable when they are translated into behavior. Start by recognizing patterns: where does the desired business culture already appear, where is there friction and what differences are visible between teams or levels in the organization?
Then determine which themes have the most impact on collaboration, leadership and change capacity. Share the results in a way that invites conversation, not defensiveness.
Improving culture requires repetition: small behavior agreements, visible exemplary behavior, clear frameworks and regular follow-up. This way culture becomes not a standalone project, but part of how the organization learns and works.
From insight to behavioral change
It is essential to not only recognize culture patterns, but also convert them into concrete behavioral changes. This starts with prioritizing themes that have the greatest impact on your organization. Focus on areas where collaboration, leadership and change capacity can grow the most, and deploy targeted interventions there. Actively involve teams in interpreting results, so everyone understands why certain changes are necessary and what their role is in them.
Successful culture change requires a rigorous approach with measurable milestones and progress. By regularly feeding results back to teams and implementing improvements incrementally, you prevent improvement trajectories from stalling. This ensures that culture change is not a one-time exercise, but a structural shift that manifests itself in daily behavior. That’s why we have defined a framework of six follow-up steps that you can execute after the initial research:
Want to know how to build a culture in which everyone feels at home? Then read our article:
Creating an Inclusive Company Culture: Tactics and Strategies
Analyze culture patterns
Look at recurring themes in collaboration, leadership, communication, safety and ownership. Pay attention not just to average scores, but also to differences between teams, functions or organizational departments.
Describe the current and desired culture
Make clear what behavior employees currently experience and what behavior fits the organization’s ambition. Avoid abstract labels and describe concretely what people should see more or less often.
Share insights without oversimplifying
Culture is sensitive. Therefore, present results as patterns to learn from, not as a judgment of one team or leader. Create space to recognize, nuance and deepen outcomes.
Have the conversation about behavior
Use the results to have teams discuss which behaviors help and what holds them back. Think about giving feedback, making decisions, taking responsibility or dealing with mistakes.
Choose a few culture interventions
Don’t tackle everything at once. Choose, for example, better leadership behavior modeling, clearer decision-making, more psychological safety or stronger collaboration between departments.
Keep measuring and adjusting
Changing organizational culture takes time. By measuring regularly, you can see whether agreements, leadership behavior and interventions are having an effect. This way you can adjust before old patterns become the standard again.
Make organizational culture discussable with insight into behavior
With Deepler, HR, management and leaders see how employees experience the culture in an organization. Dashboards show where values, behavior and collaboration reinforce each other or drift apart. This means you have conversations not based on loose opinions, but on recognizable patterns that teams can translate into action.
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Frequently asked questions
What is organizational culture?
Organizational culture is the way people within an organization think, work together and act. It’s about values, norms, habits and unwritten rules. You see organizational culture reflected in communication, leadership, decision-making, collaboration, how mistakes are handled and the space employees feel to take initiative.
What does organizational culture mean?
The meaning of corporate culture lies mainly in daily behavior. It’s not only what an organization says it values that matters, but what employees actually experience. A corporate culture can be, for example, open, results-oriented, hierarchical, informal, learning-focused or cautious.
How can you measure corporate culture?
You measure corporate culture by asking employees questions about recognizable behaviors and experiences. Think of feedback, leadership, collaboration, safety, ownership, decision-making and core values. Combine scores with open explanations to better understand why employees experience the culture in a particular way.
How do you describe corporate culture?
A good description of corporate culture uses concrete words and examples. Don’t just say the culture is informal or entrepreneurial, but explain how that becomes visible. For example: decisions are made quickly, employees speak to each other easily, or teams have a lot of freedom.
What is a healthy corporate culture?
A healthy corporate culture helps employees work well together, take responsibility and make problems discussable. There is clarity about direction, space for feedback and trust to use mistakes as a learning moment. What is healthy depends on the ambition and context of the organization.
What is a toxic corporate culture?
A toxic corporate culture is a culture in which behavior structurally becomes harmful to trust, safety or performance. Think of fear of reporting mistakes, gossip, exclusion, abuse of power, unclear decision-making or avoidance of responsibility. Measurement helps to make such patterns visible earlier.
How can you improve corporate culture?
Improving corporate culture starts with understanding what behavior is currently visible and what behavior is needed. Then you choose targeted actions, such as strengthening leadership behavior, introducing feedback rhythms, clarifying decision-making or helping teams make agreements more concrete. Improvement requires repetition and role modeling.
How can you change corporate culture?
Changing corporate culture doesn’t work with one workshop. It requires clear direction, role modeling by leaders, concrete behavioral agreements and regular follow-up. By measuring culture periodically you see whether the desired change is also experienced by employees.
What is the difference between culture and core values?
Core values describe what an organization considers important. Culture shows what employees experience in practice.
Sometimes these align well, but sometimes there is a gap between words and behavior. A culture survey makes that gap visible.
What topics do you measure in a culture survey?
Common topics are collaboration, leadership, communication, safety, ownership, decision-making, feedback, customer focus, change and alignment with core values. The exact themes depend on the organization’s question and desired culture development.
What does a culture survey cost?
The cost of a culture survey depends on the size of the organization, the number of modules, reports and desired guidance. With Deepler you can combine culture surveys with other topics such as leadership, psychological safety, D&I or EVP. This way the setup aligns with your goal and budget.
How often should you measure corporate culture?
For major changes, it’s wise to measure culture more frequently, for example periodically with short measurements. For broader monitoring, annual or semi-annual measurements may be sufficient. What’s important is that you only measure when you also make time for feedback and follow-up.
How do you ensure that employees answer honestly about company culture?
Honest answers arise when employees notice that the survey is not intended to hold people accountable. Clearly explain why you are examining company culture, how anonymity is safeguarded, and how results will be used. Then visibly provide feedback on what happens with the input, so that employees maintain trust in the process.
What are the 7 dimensions of organizational culture?
Based on research by O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell (1991), Stephen Robbins describes seven dimensions: innovation and risk-taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, competitiveness and stability. Together they determine the character of an organizational culture.
What is Quinn's culture model?
Cameron and Quinn’s Competing Values Framework distinguishes four types of organizational culture: the clan (family) culture, the adhocracy culture, the market culture and the hierarchy culture. The model sets flexibility against control, and internal against external focus.
What are Schein's three levels of culture?
Edgar Schein distinguishes artifacts (what you see and hear), espoused values (what the organization says it considers important) and basic assumptions (unconscious beliefs). The basic assumptions steer behavior most strongly and are the hardest to change.
What is the difference between company culture and organizational culture?
In practice, the two terms are used interchangeably. Organizational culture is the broader term and also fits government, healthcare and education; company culture is mostly heard in the business world. In both cases, it is about the shared values, norms and unwritten rules that shape behavior.
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