Key insights
- You can compare workplace culture between countries when the core survey questions are identical.
- Keeping 70 to 80 per cent of questions identical across countries is what makes the comparison genuine.
- A low-scoring office improving fast is usually healthier than a high-scoring one sliding backwards.
If you’ve ever run an engagement survey across more than one country, you’ve probably seen it: two offices that feel very similar day to day, yet one consistently scores four points higher than the other.
The difference often isn’t the workplace but how people in different countries use and experience rating scales.
For example, a 26-country study of survey response styles found Japan recorded the lowest acquiescence and the highest middle-of-the-scale tendency of all 26 countries, while Southern European and most Latin American countries leaned the other way, towards agreement and the extreme ends of the scale.
A Madrid team and a Tokyo team can have much the same experience of work and still land four points apart on your dashboard. Ranking offices on raw scores will often send you chasing the wrong problems, because people in different countries use rating scales differently.
What should a cross-country culture benchmark measure?
Ten practical dimensions, worded identically in every location, so score gaps reflect real differences in experience rather than response style.
The Great Place To Work model defines a great workplace through three relationships: with management, with colleagues and with the work itself. Those relationships are expressed in five universal dimensions, credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie. For multinational teams, it helps to translate those five into the ten dimensions below.
| Dimension | What to measure |
|---|---|
| Trust and psychological safety | Speaking up, disagreeing, admitting mistakes |
| Leadership | Confidence in local leaders, fairness, communication |
| Inclusion and belonging | Respect, equal opportunity, belonging |
| Collaboration | Cross-team cooperation, knowledge sharing, conflict resolution |
| Autonomy and accountability | Decision-making freedom, clear ownership |
| Growth | Career opportunity, feedback, learning, mobility |
| Recognition | Whether good work gets noticed and rewarded |
| Workload and wellbeing | Sustainable workload, flexibility, burnout risk |
| Connection to company | Understanding of strategy, values and purpose |
| Intent to stay | Engagement, advocacy, likelihood of remaining |
These ten dimensions are a practical extension of the five core dimensions, breaking credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie into more granular themes for cross-country reporting.
How do you benchmark workplace culture fairly across countries?
Fix the core questions, allow a local module, read distributions rather than averages, and control for who is answering.
01
Keep a common core survey
Hold 70 to 80 per cent of questions identical everywhere. That shared core is the only part you can honestly compare.
02
Add a local module
Spend the rest on country-specific matters: employment norms, management practice, local concerns.
03
Read distributions and favourable rates
Track favourable-response rates, the spread, movement over time, and gaps big enough to be statistically meaningful.
04
Control for workforce composition
Ten-year veterans answer differently from six-month hires. Segment by tenure, level and function, then weight where the mix is skewed.
This segmentation supports a For All view of culture, checking that different groups within each country experience a consistently high-trust workplace.
Statisticians call this measurement invariance, and the data on it runs deep in journals such as Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences. The practical version: stop treating a 4 out of 5 in Manila as identical to a 4 out of 5 in Munich.
Building a single culture index
Making a simple culture index is the easiest way to get a clear picture across different countries, as long as you publish the dimension scores beside it. A composite is good for spotting movement at a glance and dangerous when it buries one weak result under six strong ones.
A practical Culture Health Index, built from the ten dimensions above, gives a single weighted view of culture health over time while keeping weak areas visible. The weights below reflect the centrality of trust and leadership in the Great Place To Work model, with inclusion, collaboration, growth, recognition and wellbeing as the supporting pillars.
| Culture Health Index component | Suggested weight |
|---|---|
| Trust and psychological safety | 20% |
| Leadership | 20% |
| Inclusion | 15% |
| Collaboration | 15% |
| Growth | 10% |
| Recognition | 10% |
| Wellbeing | 10% |
Which culture benchmark should you trust most?
Run all three, and give the trend line most weight when deciding where to intervene.
| Benchmark | What it compares |
|---|---|
| Internal benchmark | Each country against the company average |
| Trend benchmark | Each country against its own previous results |
| External benchmark | Company results against industry and country norms |
The trend view catches what a snapshot misses. An office below the company average but climbing four points a year has leadership worth studying. One at the top shedding two points a year has a problem nobody has named yet.
How do you explain the differences you find?
Numbers show where the gaps sit, and interviews tell you why. Take your highest and lowest scoring offices, then ask what managers there do differently, which local practices work, and whether the gap traces back to leadership, policy or who happens to work there.
Benchmark the experience rather than the style. Open disagreement in a meeting is routine in Sydney and unusual in Jakarta, and neither makes for the better workplace. Measure the outcome, whether someone can safely challenge a decision, and let each country show you how it gets there.
Frequently asked questions
Can you compare employee survey scores between countries?
You can compare workplace culture between countries when the core survey questions are identical, and you should treat small gaps with caution. Research on cross-national response styles, including Harzing’s 26-country study, shows that agreement habits and extreme-answer habits differ by country.
Compare favorable-response rates and year-on-year movement rather than raw averages, and check any gap is statistically meaningful before acting on it. Distribution matters more than the mean.
How many survey questions should be the same in every country?
Keep 70 to 80 per cent of questions identical across countries when you benchmark workplace culture. That common core gives you a like-for-like comparison across the ten dimensions, which are a practical extension of the five core Great Place To Work dimensions.
Use the remaining 20 to 30 per cent as a local module covering country-specific matters such as employment norms, regional management practice or issues raised in the last engagement cycle. The split keeps the benchmark comparable and locally useful.
What is a culture health index?
A culture health index is a single weighted score built from several survey dimensions, typically trust and psychological safety at 20 per cent, leadership at 20 per cent, inclusion and collaboration at 15 per cent each, and growth, recognition and wellbeing at 10 per cent each.
It works well for tracking movement over time. Publish the individual dimension scores beside it so a weak area stays visible. The weighting puts trust and leadership at the centre, matching their place in the Great Place To Work model.
Why does one country always score lower on our engagement survey?
Persistently low scores in one country usually trace to real differences in employee experience, differences in how people use rating scales, or differences in workforce composition. Check composition first, since a young or newly hired population answers differently from a long-tenured one.
Then look at that country’s own trend line. Steady improvement against its own history tells you more than its position in a global ranking. This is consistent with the Great Place To Work For All approach, which looks for a consistent high-trust experience across every employee group and location.
