Paul Sewell, responsible for the JWC’s Organizational Development and Culture, briefed on Monday, 5 February on the preliminary results from last year’s annual climate survey. The survey, which has now been used for four years serves as a “temperature check” from the staff on how the organization is functioning.

Staff are asked approximately 50 questions on a variety of topics including internal communication, workload, engagement as well as team dynamics and organizational culture.

One of the major outputs is the “heatmap” (shown in the picture) which provides, on one single sheet of paper, a snapshot of how every branch feels about each of the major areas. This has been an invaluable tool to help the organization remain on track. It allows each of the separate branches to then take this information and focus on their own development throughout the year.

Paul Sewell said, “this one document is valuable for all levels of the organization from the work with the senior leaders down to the individual branches”.

As an exmple, last year’s heatmap proved useful identifying some major Organizational Development projects, which included the Corporate Knowledge initiative to improve the transfer of knowledge within the HQ and the Open Plan Workspace project focussing on improving working conditions.

The JWC "One Team" programme, which has now been running for almost five years, is unique in NATO, being the only programme of its kind focusing on shaping the organizational culture at the HQ.