To measure a culture change initiative's impact, use employee feedback through surveys, track engagement metrics like participation in new programs, and monitor performance indicators such as productivity and collaboration. Assess retention rates to see changes in turnover and satisfaction, and gather qualitative data from focus groups and interviews. Consistent evaluation ensures the initiative's success and allows for necessary adjustments. 📊🌱

Leveraging modern technologies and machine learning algorithms can help companies these days to be much smarter in defining key leading indicators, and to use them not just for describing the past, but also for predicting the future. It can be especially helpful for large culture-change projects.

Employee engagement is an organizational outcome of culture and not a true direct measure of company culture. I would encourage leaders to actually measure company culture to inform their strategy and planning to shift the culture towards their ideal mindsets, norms and behaviors and remeasure around 15-18 months via random selection of pulse surveys. This is in addition to tracking additional outcome metrics such as turnover, productivity, and engagement.

You can conduct employee surveys and track its improvement over time. Or an even better way is to spend more time where the work gets done, as your Culture changes and evolves you will see it, hear it and feel it amongst your team members.

Start with how you're thinking about culture change: It's emergent (unfolding over time) not linear (flipping a switch). We can plan and measure accordingly: 1) Have a clear and purposeful vision for the culture shift you're after. What will things be like on the other side? What will the impact be on the organization and its stakeholders? 2) Plan in time horizons. What are you aiming for in the short-term, mid-term and long-term? Note: Because culture change is complex, these won't necessarily be more of the same. For example you might expect short-term engagement to decrease while people adjust. 3) Culture powers performance, so the best culture metrics are: How is the organization performing? It doesn't serve us to separate the two.

It’s important to measure the impact of strategic initiatives to change and develop culture so that you know what’s having a positive effect, and what isn’t. I have used these methods and metrics of assessment before and found them useful. 1️⃣ Pulse Surveys: Track employee sentiment over time. 2️⃣ Turnover Rates: Monitor voluntary leavers. 3️⃣ Performance Metrics: Assess productivity and collaboration. 4️⃣ 360 Feedback: Evaluate leadership alignment with values. 5️⃣ Focus Groups/Skip-level lunches: Gather qualitative insights. 6️⃣ Well-being Scores: Check absenteeism and morale. 7️⃣ Customer Feedback: Look for improved satisfaction on NPS scores. 8️⃣ Collaboration: Track cross-team efforts, communication and recognition.