Purpose & Values Deep Dive Survey
Use the Purpose & Values Deep Dive survey to understand how people perceive your organisation’s purpose and values – including understanding what they are, and finding them motivational. From this survey, you’ll get a clear view of how well your purpose is communicated, and whether values are carried across into the work you do.
When to use this survey
• If another survey showed this as an area for improvement
• To prepare for change in the organisation
• When trying to improve retention rates
• You have experienced a low Purpose & Values Score in your Organisational Fitness matrix
How the survey is scored
This Deep Dive survey addresses four criteria of Purpose & Values:
- Understood
- Unique
- Applied and
- Inspired
These areas will inform your Purpose & Values score, outlining any areas that need improvement, and changes employees think you should make.
Asking 12 questions on a 5-point Likert scale, from strongly agree to strongly disagree, this Deep Dive first finds each survey respondents’ total score. This is based on the proportion of positive answers (‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’). Combining these scores, the average over all respondents is calculated, deriving the overall Purpose & Values score.
This survey also contains four open-text questions, to understand and add context to the scores and support your findings.
Introductory Text
In this survey, we’ll ask you about 4 core areas of purpose and values - from how clear the purpose and values are, to whether they inspire your daily behaviours. This will help us understand the working experience within our business, and guide our next steps - with the aim of making {our organisation} a better place to work.
Understood
The Understood dimension informs you about your organisation’s purpose. Are our purpose statements clear? Are they communicated well? and are they consistent with everyone’s own value sets? The Understood dimension is made up of the indicators: Clear, Relevant, Awareness and an open-text question.
| Indicator | Question | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Clear | I am aware of the purpose and values of {our organisation}. | People in the organisation know what the stated purpose or values statement of the organisation are and what they mean. |
| Relevant | The purpose and values of {our organisation} are clear and easy to understand. | People in the organisation understand at a deeper level what the purpose and values mean and can clearly explain them. |
| Awareness | Our values provide a good fit with the things that I consider important in life. |
The purpose of the values are meaningful to employees and fit with their own personal values. |
| Open Text | Which of {our organisation} values do you feel most connected to? Please explain your answer. | Asked in order to gather top of mind thoughts on how connected people feel to their organisation’s purpose and values. |
Unique
The Unique dimension of Purpose & Values helps you understand if your employees feel that your purpose is distinctive, relevant to your industry, and whether it helps you stand out in a positive way for your customers.
The Unique dimension is made up of the indicators: Distinct/Unique, Translated to Customers, Fits Industry and an open-text question.
| Indicator | Question | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Distinct/ Unique | Our purpose and values are distinctive, they help make us stand out compared to other organisations in the same industry. | The organisation’s unique purpose and values help attract customers and top talent from the industry. |
| Translated to Customers | The service we provide {to customers} is shaped and influenced by our values. | The organisation’s core values are strong enough to guide how people in the organisation serve their customers. |
| Fits Industry | Our purpose fits well with our industry and makes sense. | Having a stated purpose or values that doesn’t fit or make sense can do more harm than good to an organisation. |
| Open Text | Which of our values makes us different from other companies in our industry? Please explain your answer. | Asked in order to gather top of mind extra thoughts and ideas regarding the organisation’s stated purpose and values. |
Applied
The Applied dimension helps you know if your employees feel your purpose positively influences people’s behaviour and if it has a beneficial effect on the daily working lives of all your employees.
The Applied dimension is made up of the indicators: Influences Behaviours, Shared Collectively, Translated into Roles and an open-text question.
| Indicator | Question | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Influences Behaviours | Our purpose influences how people in {our organisation} behave day-to-day. | The purpose of the organisation has filtered down to the front line and guides people’s day to day activities. |
| Shared Collectively | Our values are shared by everyone and they help create a collective spirit. | Having a purpose and values that are shared across the organisation is a very powerful way to align people around a common vision. |
| Translates into Roles | The values of {our organisation} help inform how I approach my role and my daily actions. | People in the organisation reflect on the values in their day to day work as a way to help them make decisions. |
| Open Text | What’s a great example of you or one of your colleagues living our values? | Asked in order to gather real life examples of employee behaviour that shows alignment with organisation purpose and values. |
Inspired
The Inspired dimension helps you understand if your purpose motivates your employees. With this dimension you can gauge if your purpose inspires your team to make an impact, and if it acts as a guide in unusual or challenging situations.
The Inspired dimension is made up of the indicators: Motivates, Guides in Crisis, Influences Decisions and an open-text question.
| Indicator | Question | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Motivates | Our values inspire me to go the extra mile and contribute more to my work. |
People in the organisation find the purpose and values of the organisation inspiring and motivating in their day-to-day work. |
| Guides in Crisis | When things go wrong, I often refer back to the purpose and values of {our organisation} to guide my actions. | People in the organisation use the purpose and values as a guide for how to act during times of uncertainty. |
| Influences Decisions | {Our organisation} makes decisions that are consistent with our mission and values. | When decisions are consistent with the organisation’s purpose and values, this serves to reinforce them even further with employees. |
| Open Text | What process, policy or common behaviour is most at odds with our values? | Asked in order to gather instances of behaviours that are misaligned with values, that may be top of mind for people. |