How to audit and improve your company culture

Jayne McCabe, National Lead for Leadership and Management Development at Skills for Care discusses why and how you should be auditing your company culture to create a more effective working environment that values continuous improvement.

Creating a workplace culture that not only supports your mission but also drives continuous improvement isn’t a one-time task, but an ongoing commitment. In adult social care, a strong and positive culture is one of the most powerful levers for improving staff engagement, service quality, and innovation.

Workplace culture is more than policies, perks, or mission statements. It’s the character and personality of your workplace, which includes the shared values, behaviours, relationships, traditions, and beliefs that shape how people work and interact.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) describes the right workplace culture as one where the “ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensure people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.”

The best social care cultures combine the push for constant improvement in staff performance with sincere care for their workforce’s wellbeing and the experience of those they support. But knowing where to make those changes to achieve this, you need to understand what your culture currently looks like.

How to audit your culture in practice

We recommend you use the Culture Iceberg model to get an accurate picture of your culture. The Culture Iceberg model is a way of viewing organisational culture that is split into two categories – articulated culture and lived culture. Articulated culture includes what we say, see and expect. Lived culture incudes what we actually do, feel and decide. When your articulated culture and your lived culture are aligned, your workplace culture is embedded in your workplace authentically, building trust and security for your team – what you say matches what people do.

In addition to this, you can use the Analyse - Plan - Do – Review model to take a structured approach to evaluation and improvement of your culture over time. We describe both of these models in greater depth in our positive culture toolkit.

Let’s take a look at how to combine these models to audit your culture. For each stage of the Iceberg Model outlined below, we’ve included a series of checklist documents which you can download and use to help you perform your audit.

1. Say

The first step in auditing your company culture is to consider what the organisation says its culture is. This is reflected in your vision, purpose, values, and strategy. Our goal here is to assess what we believe our culture is intended to look like to, according to our expressed views.

• Analyse: Review your current vision, values, and strategy to check for clarity, consistency, and alignment with actual behaviours and goals. Then actually ask your teams if they can tell you what it means and why it is important (Month 1)

• Plan-Do: If gaps or inconsistencies are identified, prioritise improvements and update statements or strategic aims. (Next 2 months)

• Review: Reflect on progress and reassess in 12 months.

2. See

This stage is all about how culture is presented through visible symbols.
Consider the physical environment, internal and external communications, branding, and design.

• Analyse: Do a “culture walk” to observe how values are visually and physically reflected across the organisation. (Month 1)

• Plan-Do: If the environment or communications don’t reflect your values, identify priority changes. (Next 2 months)

• Review: Evaluate effectiveness after a year.

3. Expect

What behaviours are expected and how are these expectations shared? These are usually communicated through policies, procedures, and codes of conduct.

• Analyse: Review key policies and procedures to ensure they clearly reflect expected behaviours and align with your stated culture. (Month 2)

• Plan-Do: If there are mismatches or outdated guidance, plan to update policies over the next 6 months.

• Review: Reassess after 12 months to confirm alignment.

4. Do

This is the first of the ‘lived culture’ parts of the Culture Iceberg model and it looks at what actually happens in practice. At this stage, you’ll explore behavioural norms—how people act when no-one is watching.

• Analyse: Conduct a “culture behaviours walk” to observe how people behave day to day. (Months 3–4)

• Plan-Do: If behaviours don’t match expectations, develop plans for cultural change over 6–12 months.

• Review: Return to this after a year to track changes in norms.

5. Feel

How people think, feel, and talk about the organisation. Listen to staff, people who draw on care and support, families, and stakeholders.

• Analyse: Hold listening groups or feedback sessions to explore perceptions and lived experiences. (Months 4–6)

• Plan-Do: If themes of concern arise, take immediate action on quick wins and plan longer-term cultural improvements. (Next 6–12 months)

• Review: Check back after a year to see if feedback has shifted positively.

6. Decide

What is prioritised and rewarded in times of challenge. What people do when under pressure reveals what the culture truly is.

• Analyse: Review case studies or real-life examples of how your team acted during challenging times. (Months 6–7)

• Plan-Do: If these examples reveal misaligned priorities or unintended consequences, plan immediate fixes and longer-term changes. (Next 6–12 months)

• Review: Re-evaluate your cultural resilience in a year.

By progressing through each stage of the model and completing the associated checklist, you should be on your way to having a better understanding of your culture and be able to take decisive steps towards improving it.

If you’d like to get a better understanding of organisational culture within adult social care, our positive culture toolkit or our creating a positive workplace culture seminar are excellent tools for those seeking a better understanding.

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