Organizational climate research: how to do it in practice 

The Organizational climate research It has ceased to be an annual HR ritual and has become an instrument of governance.  

According to State of the Global Workplace 2025, According to Gallup, global engagement fell to 21%, and the associated loss of productivity reached $438 billion in 2024. 

If you are already conducting this diagnosis and want to take it to the next level, this article details how to conduct the organizational climate survey: instrument design, examples of dimensions and questions, reading the results, and turning them into an action plan linked to strategy and performance. 

Why is organizational climate research a strategic agenda? 

Because of the weather anticipates performance. It measures how leadership, goals, recognition, and workload are perceived in day-to-day operations, and this perception influences retention, productivity, and the execution of the strategy. Without this diagnosis, management reacts only when financial indicators already reflect the strain. 

For the McKinsey, Companies in the top quartile of the Organizational Health Index outperform the rest in terms of sales growth, profit, and return on invested capital, with better talent retention. 

Kaplan and Norton reach the same conclusion through the Balanced Scorecard approach. In article in the Harvard Business Review, They treat culture, leadership, alignment, and teamwork as organizational capital, the readiness of which needs to be measured in order for the strategy to be executed. 

Therefore, the Organizational climate as an executive agenda It must be read in conjunction with organizational culture. According to Edgar Schein, culture is made up of values and assumptions; the climate shows whether daily life confirms or contradicts them. 

Gallup attributes the recent decline in engagement mainly to wear and tear on the managers themselves, This shifts the focus to the person who translates the strategy into routine. This is one of the critical factors of strategic management. 

Researching organizational climate: from planning to feedback 

Define the strategic objective, select the dimensions, build the questionnaire, ensure anonymity, implement it with clear communication, analyze the data by area and hierarchical level, and return the results to the leadership with action plans.  

The cycle is only complete when there is follow-up of the actions and a new measurement. 

1. Define the decision that the diagnosis will support 

All research must stem from a business question: reducing turnover in a critical area, sustaining a restructuring, or measuring the maturity of leadership. 

This segmentation guides the dimensions, the sample, and the periodicity, and avoids generic questionnaires that produce averages without any decisive utility. 

2. Construct the instrument with methodological rigor 

A robust instrument balances depth and objectivity. The points of attention are: 

• Dimensions: limit the questionnaire to dimensions related to strategy, such as leadership, clarity of goals, recognition and development; 

• Scale: use observable statements on a scale of agreement, which allow areas and cycles to be compared; 

• Open fields: reserve few spaces for comments, the basis of qualitative reading; 

• Anonymity: pre-define the minimum number of respondents per cut-off point, so that no result exposes individuals; 

• Personal data: document the purpose, access, and retention in accordance with the LGPD. 

3. Apply with sponsorship and transparent communication 

An Gartner research from 2023 He pointed out that only a third of the employees believe that the organization will act on the feedback received. 

Therefore, the sponsorship of the board, the date of the refund and the person responsible for each action must be announced before the collection. 

4. Analysis through four lenses 

Combine statistical reading (disaggregation, historical evolution and differences between areas), the organizational context (restructuring, goals and turnover), qualitative evidence and the link with the strategy. 

For the qualitative layer, it is worth observing the project. Culture 500, from the MIT Sloan Management Review, which applied text analysis to 1.4 million employee evaluations to measure culture on a scale. 

5. Return the results and keep track 

The cascading feedback from the board to the teams is the point where most cycles fail. Each manager should present the results of his or her team, choose a few priorities, and prioritize them accordingly. report the progress in a governance routine. 

What is the best model for organizational climate research? 

There is no universal model. The most appropriate combination is a fixed core with dimensions comparable over time, combined with variable modules aligned to the strategic moment of the company.  

The combination of an annual census, pulse surveys, and qualitative analysis usually delivers the best balance between depth and agility. 

The Harvard Business Review notes in article from 2024, Traditional engagement surveys have limitations and leaders receive low scores without knowing where to start. The diagnosis reinforces the need for an organizational climate research model designed to generate decisions, not just indicators. 

To choose the format, evaluate four criteria: 

• Comparability: the central dimensions need to remain stable between cycles; 

• Strategic adhesion: the variable modules must reflect the priorities of the year; 

• Response capacity: do not collect more than the leadership can handle; 

• Data integration: crosses the climate with turnover, absenteeism and results, supported by good indicator management. 

Examples of research on organizational climate: dimensions and questions 

Good examples of organizational climate research cover direct leadership, strategic alignment, recognition and fairness, development, psychological safety, and workload.  

Each dimension must have observable statements, measures in the scale of agreement, So that the result indicates behaviors to be corrected and not just satisfaction levels. 

The dimension of psychological safety comes from the work of Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School and is usually the most sensitive: it produces true data only when anonymity is credible. 

There is also a regulatory factor in Brazil. The PORTARIA MTE No. 1,419/2024 It included psychosocial risk factors in the occupational risk management of NR-1, and the Ministry's guide published in 2025 lists 13 factors. 

As a measure of perception, the organizational climate survey does not replace the technical assessment of these risks, but it feeds the inventory with signs of overload, clarity of roles, and the quality of leadership. 

How can organizational climate assessment lead to decisions? 

The assessment of organizational climate generates decision-making when the result is converted into a few priorities, With managers, goals, deadlines and indicators monitored by the leadership. Without this link to the management routine, the diagnosis becomes just a report and the frustration of the employees tends to increase. 

The same Gartner research showed that only 19% of HR directors believed that their managers knew how to act on feedback. The gap therefore lies in the ability to execute, not in the collection of feedback. 

A consistent action plan follows five practices: 

• Prioritization limit the plan to a few topics per area, chosen for their impact on the strategy; 

• Hypotheses: transform perceptions into hypotheses and validate them with additional data before taking action; 

• Responsibility: define a goal, indicator, deadline and responsible person for each action; 

• Integrated reading: Treat high-performance areas and declining climates as a risk of future wear and tear; 

• Remedy: use pulse surveys to confirm the evolution between the annual cycles. 

To deepen the action phase, see also How to improve the company's climate in practice. 

How to connect climate, performance and development in the same management? 

Climate measures perception while Performance measures delivery. Read together, they reveal where the pressure for results compromises sustainability. Therefore, the diagnosis should inform the decision-making process. Individual performance as a management system, and not run in parallel. 

In practice, every climate finding finds an answer in a human resources management mechanism: 

Two decisions support this integration. The first is to adopt an effective evaluation model with clear criteria. The second is to base development on a competency matrix, So that the PDI can address causes, not symptoms. 

How can Actio help your company take action on climate change? 

The Development and Performance, from Actio, takes care of what happens after the diagnosis. Developed in partnership with Falconi, it brings together on a single platform what usually remains scattered in spreadsheets and informal meetings. 

Among the features are: 

• Configurable evaluation cycles, with stages, periods, and weights; 

• Performance calibration to ensure consistency between areas; 

• Nine Box matrix and succession map for talent decisions; 

• Individual Development Plan (PDI) accompanied by leadership; 

• 1:1 meetings, continuous feedback and record of recognitions; 

• Individual goals connected to the company’s objectives; 

• Reports per person, team and cycle, with support from Actio IA to identify gaps and risks. 

The result is a continuous and traceable base, on which the climate action plan no longer depends on the memory of each manager. 

To understand how this can help your company in the process of conducting an organizational climate survey, talk to an Actio expert. filling out the form below.