What makes a workplace a great place to be? Winningtemp is built around categories that capture what matters most to people at work, all developed in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg.
- The nine standard categories give you a clear picture of how your teams feel: Leadership, Job Satisfaction, Meaningfulness, Autonomy, Work Situation, Participation, Personal Development, Team Spirit, and Commitment.
- The 11 supplemental categories, from Psychological safety to Innovation, help you go deeper. Both generate insights and trends, and together they make up your total temperature.
This article explains and briefly describes each category: What does Meaningfulness actually mean? And what questions fall under the different categories?
Standard categories
Leadership
Leadership is all about how employees perceive their leaders in terms of trust, cooperation, communication, feedback, and support, and if they feel that their manager is around when they need to get in contact with them.
Job Satisfaction
This category reveals whether employees enjoy their tasks, have fun at work, and are motivated and committed. In short, are the employees happy and satisfied?
Meaningfulness
Do the employees feel that their job is meaningful to them? And do the managers show appreciation? This is a crucial category that shows the employees' inner feelings and if they feel that their work positively affects society.
Autonomy
Autonomy is about job control and influence. Do the employees feel they can make decisions regarding their work situation?
Work Situation
This category includes questions about stress and whether employees feel they have the right conditions to perform their job effectively. Questions about bullying, harassment, and discrimination are also included in this category.
Participation
Do the employees feel confident in their right to express their opinion? Are they proud of working for the company? Do they believe they can influence decisions made by their department?
Personal Development
This category is about personal development if the employees feel that they learn new things and that they get the learning and development opportunities they need in order to be able to do a good job.
Team Spirit
Team spirit includes collaboration, communication, and respect. And if the employees feel that they, as a team, work well together and learn from each other.
Commitment
Do the employees feel engaged at work? Does their job bring out the best in them? This category also includes the critical question: "Do you feel that the company you are working for is the best possible employer for you?"
Supplemental categories
What are supplemental categories?
The supplemental categories can be used together with the pulse categories to get a more complete picture of employee experience, and are a complement to Winningtemp's existing question batteries. The supplemental categories are developed in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg and are selected based on market trends and feedback from our customers.
The 11 supplemental categories are:
- Psychological safety
- Transparency
- Person job-fit
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Subjective well-being
- Sustainability (social, environmental, and economic)
- Diversity, equality, and inclusion
- Self-leadership
- Ambassadorship
- Trust
- Innovation
1. Psychological safety
Corresponding concepts in Research Literature
Psychological safety
Definition
A brief definition of psychological security (PS) can be described as "individuals' perceptions of the consequences of interpersonal risks in their work environment" (Edmondson et al., 2004). Psychological security thus reflects individuals' perceptions of how others react when exposing themselves / making themselves vulnerable by, for example, asking a question, seeking feedback, reporting mistakes or proposing a new idea. Psychological security promotes the willingness to contribute ideas and actions to a shared/common enterprise (Frazier et al., 2016).
It is the belief that the workplace is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.
Psychological safety allows employees “to feel safe at work in order to grow, learn, contribute, and perform effectively in a rapidly changing world.
Example question: "Do you feel it is okay to make mistakes in your team?"
2. Transparency
Corresponding concepts in Research Literature
Transparency
Definition
Transparency is the extent to which the inner workings of the organization are made available to the members of the organization. This includes sharing information about finances, governance, operations and culture from management. It is measured by the degree of being direct, easy to understand, honest, reliable and useful The goal of transparency is to create a more open and accountable organization.
Example question: "Do you feel that it’s easy to access information about important news at [the company]?"
3. Person – job fit
Corresponding concepts in Research Literature
Person – Job fit
Definition
Person-job fit is the degree to which a person’s knowledge, skills, abilities, needs and values match job requirements. (Brkich et al., 2002)
It is a form of organizational psychology that states that an individual’s personality traits will reveal insight into their adaptability within an organization.
By matching the right individual characteristics with the right job, companies can achieve better synergy and avoid pitfalls such as high turnover and low job satisfaction. Employees are more likely to stay committed to organizations if the fit is good.
Example question: "Do you feel that you have the opportunity to use your skills in your current role?"
4. Cross-functional collaboration
Corresponding concepts in Research Literature
Boundary spanning, cross-functional collaboration, inter-departmental collaboration, weak ties
Definition
Boundary spanning is interacting with people and resources outside one's normal area of activity. It is about transcending organizational boundaries to gain access to new information, new ideas and new perspectives, or carry out collaborations and joint projects.
Boundary reconnaissance involves actions/actions that a team takes to reach out to its surroundings in order to obtain important resources and support. By bridging boundaries, the team reaches out to discover internal and external requirements, secure the resources and support needed to meet those demands, advance the team's work, and build "goodwill" among stakeholders. Unlike boundary scouting which is a more strategic outreach strategy, boundary buffering is more strategically disconnected. Boundary buffering means that the team isolates itself more from exposure from its surroundings and thereby promotes a more "rational" thinking/behaviour within the team. Boundary buffering thus strengthens the team boundaries against external interference or influence and creates a protected internal atmosphere. Boundary reinforcementmeans that the team establishes its boundaries through increased awareness of the boundaries and strengthening the team identity. Clear boundaries and a clear team identity can help team members preserve their energy and commitment so they can focus on accomplishing the teams task/tasks. Boundary work is thus about acquiring information and resources as well as managing relationships with external stakeholders and protecting the teams resources (including time and energy) from competing for external requirements (Faraj & Yan, 20)
Example question: "Do you communicate with people outside of your own unit or department?"
5. Subjective well–being
Corresponding concepts in Research Literature
Subjective well-being
Definition
Subjective Well – Being (SWB) refers to the cognitive evaluation and emotional balance that people make of their lives.
It is an individual's emotional assessment of their life.
Includes both positive and negative emotions and cognitive assessments of how satisfied one is with one's life - what lay people call happiness, peace, fulfilment, and life satisfaction.
Example question: "Do you regularly experience positive emotions such as happiness, joy, and love?"
6. Sustainability
Corresponding concepts in the research literature:
Sustainability, environmental sustainability, social sustainability, economic sustainability, triple bottom line, sustainable development, open sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR), environmental social governance (ESG), environmental in-role behaviours (EIRB), sustainable leadership.
Definition
Sustainability does not have a single definition but is rather a collective term for different types of sustainability. A useful collective term is the triple bottom line (TBL):
Social sustainability: human rights, gender equality, inclusion.
Ecological sustainability: environmental and climate impact.
Economic sustainability: long-term economic growth without adversely impacting social or environmental aspects of society.
Example question: "Do you feel that your company cares about its employees’ quality of life?"
7. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
How equal and inclusive the employees perceive the company to be.
Example question: "Does your company make an effort to recruit a diverse workforce, in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual orientation?"
8. Self-leadership
Corresponding concepts in the research literature
Self-leadership, personal initiative
Definition
Self-leadership is described as a collection of mental strategies that lead an individual to specific behaviours and aims to increase value for an organisation and increase individual effectiveness and well-being (Houghton et al. 2013).
A closely related concept to Self-Leadership is the concept
Personal Initiative, which Frese & Fay (2001) divide into the following aspects: (1) Self-Starting, (2) Proactive, and (3) Persistent.
To create these questions, three different conceptualisations of self-leadership were used:
Self-leadership
Personal initiative
Voice behaviour
Example question: "When a problem arises at work, are you active in trying to solve it?"
9. Ambassadorship
Corresponding concepts in the research literature
Organisational citizenship behaviours, organisational commitment, organizational ambassadorship, organisational advocacy, loyalty
Definition
Ambassadorship is not its own clearly delineated concept when it comes to employees' attitudes and behaviours, but is included in several conceptualisations/models that deal with employee engagement. The first of these conceptualisations is called Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB). This measures the individual's participation in the organisation by assessing whether the individual is a helpful citizen inwardly and a loyal ambassador outwardly (ambassadorship is called in OCB for loyalty and sometimes loyal boosterism). The second conceptualisation of commitment is called organisational commitment, which measures commitment in the form of willingness to perform as well as ambassadorship.
Sample question: "Do you think that your company’s values are similar to your own?"
10. Trust
Corresponding concepts in the research literature
Trust, trustfulness
A number of conceptualisations have been developed over the years, which is a testament to the fact that the concept of trust has been difficult to define (Dienz & Den Hartog, 2006). Trust can be described as a psychological condition that involves the intention to accept vulnerability (for example, relinquishing power and influence) based on positive expectations of others' intentions or behaviours. Based on these contexts, trust is explained as something interpersonal, as well as something that can be experienced between people and organisations. In sum, the definitions of trust revolve around the concepts below, which can be seen as sub-dimensions of the concept of trust:
Conscientiousness: You show good motives, kindness and genuine care for other people.
Integrity: You show honesty, transparency, and a desire for fair treatment.
Competence: How do you tend to estimate the competence of others?
Predictability: There is consistency and regularity to your behaviours.
Openness: Your desire to listen and engage in dialogue.
Example question: "Do you feel confident that management treats you fairly?"
11. Innovation
Corresponding concepts in the research literature
Innovation, innovation readiness, and dynamic capabilities
Definition
Innovation has several definitions. The most common is the OECD definition: innovation is the ability to develop or improve new products (goods/services) (product/service innovation) that are relevant to a market, but also the ability to change internal processes and organisational methods (process- and organisational innovation). In the development of the question battery, the following three dimensions have been used:
- Structure. The way you organise the innovation work. Innovation processes. Working methods. Formalisation and centralisation. Vision and strategy.
- Culture. The rule book determines which behaviours are accepted.
- Resources. Access to time, financing, skills, etc.
Example question: "Does your company culture promote experimentation and risk-taking?"
What is total temperature?
Your total temperature is the combined score of all your activated categories. It brings everything together in one number, so you get the big picture at a glance.
It includes the pulse, supplemental, and onboarding/offboarding categories. Custom categories aren't included.