At a Glance

• Culture is more than slogans — it’s the lived experience that drives employee behavior, innovation, and performance.
• Measuring culture enables organizations to identify gaps, align leadership with values, and support strategic success.
• CORE – الجوهر by KBS offers a structured and data-driven approach to understanding and enhancing organizational culture

Defining Organizational Culture

Culture has become a buzzword in recent years. Since flexible work arrangements became widespread following the COVID-19 pandemic, the term “culture” has appeared frequently in HR materials, corporate communications, and visual branding. It’s often used to represent or give form to an organization’s values. Yet culture goes beyond language or imagery. It is not what’s written on the wall, but what consistently plays out in practice — in how people interact, decide, and lead on a daily basis.

Organizational culture is the collective set of values, norms, attitudes, and unwritten rules that guide day-to-day actions in an organization. It defines how people act, make decisions, and collaborate. When properly defined and reinforced, culture enhances the Employee Value Proposition (EVP), boosts organizational performance, and supports long-term strategic goals.

Culture directly impacts:

• Employee engagement and retention
• Adaptability to change
• Customer experience
• Innovation and accountability
• Ethical behavior and compliance

As such, culture is a strategic asset and directly linked to achieving strategic objectives. Some would argue that culture even edges strategy in terms of overall value to an organization. This is why it has become more important than ever to measure organizational culture.

Why Measurement is Crucial

Many organizations fail to or avoid measuring culture, believing it is too abstract and intangible to assess. However, the absence of measurement makes culture a blind spot that can hinder progress and obscure root causes of key issues.

Measuring culture enables organizations to:

• Identify misalignments between stated values / norm and actual behaviors
• Track shifts in sentiment and behavior over time
• Benchmark across different functions, departments, or geographies
• Tie culture to business and strategic outcomes
• Provide leadership and HR with actionable, evidence-based insights
• Uncover underlying drivers of disengagement or performance challenges

Ultimately, measurement allows organizations to make better decisions, strengthen cultures, and improve overall performance.

What to Measure – and How

Given the broad aspect of culture and what it covers, several methods are used to measure and quantify it. Leading organizations assess their culture via:

• Quantitative surveys that cover several cultural domains such as values, decision-making norms, behaviors, etc. These surveys are usually anonymous and provide tangible insights on how an organization’s culture is perceived
• Interviews and focus groups that allow for further contextual insights to be generated
• Internal organizational reports that can be used to identify cultural trends and insights. These include exit surveys, periodic employee performance reports, employee relations cases, etc.
• Digital tools that use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to analyze communications and sentiment in emails or other mediums

How KBS Can Help – Introducing CORE-الجوهر

At KBS, we support organizations in designing, measuring, and shaping their cultures. To do so, we rely on CORE-الجوهر.

CORE – الجوهر (named as such to reflect that People and Culture are the CORE of every organization) is KBS’ proprietary assessment tool that provides a data-driven evaluation of organizational culture and health, identifying strengths, areas for improvement, enhancing employee engagement, and supporting strategic planning for success. It allows KBS and the organization to:

• Evaluate how well the organization’s culture, leadership, and strategic objectives align with employee perceptions and experiences.
• Identify factors that influence employee satisfaction, motivation, and commitment, and provide actionable insights to improve engagement.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of performance management systems and development programs, ensuring employees have clear career growth opportunities.
• Provide comparative data to benchmark against industry standards and highlight best practices for continuous improvement.
• Identify inefficiencies in processes and resource management to enhance overall organizational effectiveness and adaptability.
• Enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of leaders to drive better outcomes and employee satisfaction.
• Assess the physical and psychological aspects of the work environment, ensuring it supports employee well-being and productivity.

CORE – الجوهر covers six key organizational culture and health pillars that are interrelated and collectively cover all aspects of an organization’s functioning, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation. These pillars are:

• Leadership
• Employee Engagement
• Work Environment
• Organizational Values
• Performance and Development
• Operational Efficiency

These pillars work together to provide a holistic and actionable understanding of an organization’s internal dynamics.

Should you wish to explore how we can support you in assessing and re-shaping your organization’s culture, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

About the Author:

Marc El Haddad is a management consultant with over 13 years of experience in strategy, organizational transformation, and leadership advisory. He currently serves as the Director of the Center of Expertise and Consulting Services at KBS, with a particular focus on People & Culture advisory, strategy design & execution, and enterprise transformation. Marc is passionate about helping organizations build purpose-driven, high-performing cultures that support long-term success.