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Organizational Culture Quality Audit

What does your company look like? 4 overlapping hexagrams  Hexagrams read: 53% of the workforce is male 77% of the workforce is white 5% of the workforce identifies as LGBTQ+  64% of the workforce is aged  25-54 Hexagram overlaps read: 30% of the workforce are women aged 25-54 4% of the C-Suite are women of Color 40% of LGBTQ+ adults are BIPOC 41% of people aged 25-39 are LGBTQ+ & 17% of people aged 40-55 are LGBTQ+ Citations: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics November 2021  |  Williams Institute.  LGBT People’s Experiences of Workplace Discrimination and Harassment.  (2022, January 12) FIC Human Resource Partners, LLC Logo

Don't assume that your intended culture is the one that your people and communities are experiencing.

Be sure!

​​Measuring Culture with the SIO Model

The Organizational Culture Quality Audit (OCQA) utilizes our proprietary SIO Culture Model to provide a comprehensive framework for assessing organizational culture. The SIO Model allows us to examine cultures across three critical dimensions:

The Organizational Culture Quality Audit allows for an in-depth analysis of both the macro-level organizational culture and the micro-cultures that exist within divisions, departments, and teams. The framework equips leaders with a robust vocabulary and methodology to understand nuances and drive strategic culture change.

Social Culture

Social culture refers to identity-based culture experiences and the sense of inclusion, belonging, and psychological safety that employees feel.

Ideological Culture

Includes the organization's values, mindsets, and ideologies that influence behaviors and interactions.

Operational Culture

Focuses on the organization's structures, systems, policies, processes, and procedures that shape the employee experience.

SIO CULTURE MODEL

Hexagram of the SIO Culture Model Organizational culture
Hexes on the left side read from top to bottom say Client Culture Experience, Permitted Culture, Intended Culture, and Ideological Culture
The hex in the center reads Social Culture
The Hexes on the right side read from top to bottom say Employee Culture Experience, Microculture, Macroculture, and Operational Culture
SIO Culture Model, © 2023 FIC Human Resource Partners All rights reserved.

Organizations are complex culture ecosystems comprised of people with different identities and experiences and the microcultures that exist around them.  Like every ecosystem, organizational cultures must maintain a careful balance. 


Fostering an inclusive culture of belonging means balancing the differences across microcultures and aligning them to your larger organizational culture values. At FIC Human Resource Partners, we understand the complexity of organizational cultures and our nuanced understanding allows us to guide our clients in the work of balancing their microcultures and fostering inclusive cultures of belong. 

How the OCQA Works

The Organizational Culture Quality Audit survey was developed and refined through an extensive testing process including reviews by DE&I experts and practitioners. It has been validated through numerous administrations across diverse industries and is administered by FIC Human Resource Partners, LLC through our Nuance Culture Surveys line.

​​

The OCQA utilizes a web-based survey customized for your organization.

 

It employs a series of forced-choice assessment questions to gather employee perceptions on 18 specific culture elements spanning the SIO Model dimensions.


Our third-generation logic allows for personalized follow-up questions to uncover the intersections and nuances of individual culture experiences. 

  • Web-based survey platform

  • Privacy By Design

  • Organization-wide deployment

  • Forced choice questions

  • Robust Demographic Collection

  • 3rd Generation Logic

Organizational Culture Experiences 
Questionnaire reads
This Portion is designed to offer us insight into your overall experiences with the Social, Ideological, and Operational Culture of your organization.
Statement 1. My Organization is diverse. Strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree
Statement 2. Diversity exists throughout all levels of the organization. Strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree.
Statement 3. The policies, procedures, and practices in my organization are equitable and implemented fairly. Strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree.
Statement 4. Wages are equal within the scope of job responsibility and level. Strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree.

​​Demographic data is gathered to facilitate analysis of culture experiences through different lenses including role, team, tenure, race, gender identity, age, ability status, and more. Our privacy-by-design approach maintains anonymity while enabling rich insights.

  • Granular visibility into employee culture experiences based on social and professional demographics.

  • Differences and alignment between macro (organizational) culture and micro-cultures.

  • Gaps between intended/permitted culture and actual permitted behaviors.

  • Specific culture elements and focus areas for improvement initiatives.

Culture Quality Reporting - Example

Example image of the Culture Quality Reporting for Productivity
Calculated staffing in the upper left-hand quadrant
Unsustainability in the lower left-hand quadrant
Sustainability in the upper right-hand quadrant
calculated growth in the lower right-hand quadrant
A hexagonal point slightly to the left of the lower half of the Y-axis marks the productivity.

Quality: Unsustainability

An unsustainable productivity culture exists when an organization has or is growing beyond the capacity of the workforce to sustain productivity levels and quality while failing to increase staffing levels to meet the time and productivity demands of the organization.

Cautions

Organizations that have an unsustainable productivity culture will experience high staff turnover, lower customer satisfaction, loss of revenue, and increased safety, legal, and financial risk.

Threshold: Calculated Growth

Organizations with a calculated growth culture are cognizant of staffing, capacity for productivity, and works to maintain sustainable staffing levels.  That the organization has engaged in this culture change effort indicates that having reached a level of productivity that was unsustainable recognized the need to be more intentional about workloads, time commitments, and staffing.

Action Equals Impact

Example image of the Culture Quality Reporting for Hierarchy
The upper left-hand quadrant is decentralized
The lower left-hand quadrant is anarchistic
The upper right-hand quadrant is defined
the lower right-hand quadrant is ambiguous.
A hexagonal point slightly to the left and above the center point of the axis marks the Hierarchy.

The Organizational Culture Quality Audit is administered annually.

Action

Define Roles

Responsibilities

1st level improvement

  • Hierarchy

  • Authority

  • Agility

2nd level improvement

  • Communication

  • Collaboration

  • Efficiency

3rd level improvement

  • Wellbeing

  • Psychological Safety

Stage 1 Action of the OCQA Define Roles and Responsibilities.
The light purple hexes: Wellbeing is connected to Psychological Safety and Communication. Psychological Safety is connected to Wellbeing, Authority, and Communication. Agility is connected to Authority, Collaboration, Communication, and Psychological Safety. Efficiency is connected to Wellbeing, Communication, and Authority. Communication is connected to Efficiency, Hierarchy, Collaboration, Wellbeing, and Psychological Safety. Hierarchy is connected to Wellbeing, Communication, and Authority. Collaboration is connected to Agility, Psychological Safety, and Wellbeing. Authority is connected to Psychological Safety, Hierarchy, Efficiency, and Agility. Define Roles and Responsibilities is connected to Hierarchy and Authority.
Grey hexes for Community, Productivity, Ethics, Innovation, Authenticity, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Priorities aren't connected to anything.  2022 FIC Human Resource Partners All Rights

Benefits

  • Data-driven insights into the current state of organizational culture at multiple levels.

  • Ability to quantify progress through annual administrations of the audit.

  • Employee inclusion and buy-in through participation.

  • The ability to plan focused, high-impact culture initiatives tailored to address areas of need.

What the OCQA Reveals

People Are Our Priority

Privacy-by-Design

The audit maintains strict participant anonymity to encourage candid, honest feedback. Demographic data is aggregated and handled securely to prevent identification.

Respondents are not asked to provide any personal details that can specifically identify them, such as: 


●      Names 
●      Email addresses
●      Employee numbers 
●      Position titles  

 

Personal Identifying Information will not be shared with any third parties, and our reports to your organization will not relay any identifying information about respondents or their answers.

Contact us to learn more about how the OCQA can help you gain a deep understanding of your culture.

Have Questions?
Check our FAQ page for answers!

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