How To Create a Culture Survey For Free (+Questions to Ask)

Are you wearing rose-colored glasses when it comes to your workplace culture? If you’re in a management position, that just might be the case. 

The truth is that there is often a disconnect between how management sees the culture vs. that of employees. For example, in one study, it was found that managers had a much more positive view of their company and team culture than that of their employees.

Receiving feedback from your team in the form of a culture survey is incredibly important as the insights it provides highlight any differences in perceptions between employees and management. 

Also, it sends a message to your team that you genuinely care about their experience at work. You’re showing them that you're committed to improving their work environment, which isn’t always the case at every organization. In fact, in SHRM’s 2022 Global Research Report, 21% of employees surveyed said their company is not committed to improving organizational culture. 

In this article, we will cover the basics of what a culture survey is, the questions to ask, and how you can administer one of your own to get a pulse on the culture of your team.

What is a Culture Survey?

A culture survey is a series of questions to uncover how respondents feel about their experience at work. The feedback attained from a culture survey can highlight what’s working, what’s not, and where changes need to be made to a team, department, or company-wide culture.

Culture Survey: Should You DIY It or Outsource It?

When leaders are ready to learn more about their team, department, or company’s culture, the first thought is should I create the survey, or should it be outsourced? With the rise of DIY survey tools and forms, it’s never been easier to deploy your own culture survey. The benefits of taking this approach include: 

• It’s quicker since you won’t be waiting for another company to execute it
• It costs little to nothing to create and administer
• It allows you to receive the results as they’re submitted
• It’s easy to get pulse checks on the culture regularly as you can send it out multiple times and make iterative updates

Despite the ease of deployment and financial savings of the DIY option, don’t forget that it will cost you your time as you will be the one who creates the survey, administers it, and then evaluates the individual responses. If this won’t work for you, then outsourcing might very well be the way to go. Not to mention, the benefits of working with an expert include:

• They have knowledge and experience administering culture surveys
• They know and apply best practices to question selection and distribution
• They may get more honest responses as the data collection is from a third-party
• It may reduce the fear respondents have of being exposed
• They help you interpret the response and build an action plan from the data

20 Survey Questions to Ask Employees About the Culture on Your Team

Deploying a culture survey can help you get a pulse on the current culture to make informed decisions on what’s working and where adjustments need to be made. To better understand your culture use these questions to gain valuable insight into employees’ perceptions of the work environment.

1. What words would you use to define our culture today?
2. What are aspects you like and dislike about our current culture?
3. Would you recommend our team/company to someone to work here?
4. What makes you proud to be on this team/work for this company?
5. How would you rate morale?
6. Do you feel supported by your peers in our team? Within the company?
7. Do we celebrate success enough?
8. When do you have the most fun on the team?
9. Are your contributions recognized and appreciated?
10. Are your input and perspective valued and encouraged?
11. Do you think your feedback is taken seriously?
12. Do you feel respected by your leaders and peers?
13. Are you motivated to do your best work?
14. What is the most meaningful part of your job?
15. Do you think you can reach your full potential on this team/at this company?
16. Do you trust management has your best interest when making decisions on the business?
17. How would you rate the level of communication you receive from your team leader? From the organization?
18. Do you feel you’re supported in your professional development?
19. If you were leading this team, what change would you make to improve the culture?
20. What word would you like to use to describe the culture a year from now? What needs to change or improve to be able to use those words?

How To Create a Culture Survey For Free Using Google

If you choose to go the DIY route with your culture survey, there are two ways you can go about it. First, ​you can keep it simple and use this sample culture survey template as a jumping-off point. It is created in Google Docs so you can edit it to your liking, delete unnecessary questions, and then either send it as is, download and email it as a Word document, or print it out.

On the other hand, you can use Google Forms, a free and easy-to-use online survey creation tool. Unlike this previous option, this option allows for anonymous responses, which may reduce the resistance and hesitance some participants feel when asked to provide constructive feedback to leadership.