Perth-based Workplace Culture Review

WHAT
is a Workplace Culture Review?

Organisational culture is the everyday interactions that your workplace rewards, ignores or tolerates. This includes the good, bad and ugly behaviours.

The question is whether that culture is helping you achieve your strategy or quietly holding you back.

A Workplace Culture Review provides an evidence-based understanding of your organisational culture, identifies what is working well and where barriers exist, and produces a clear, prioritised set of findings and recommendations — the evidence base for deciding what to do next.

This isn't about creating values to display on a wall. It's about understanding how your people actually work together, how leaders lead, and how decisions really get made — not how the org chart says they should.

A Workplace Culture Review combines internationally recognised diagnostic tools, leadership engagement and staff consultation to understand:

the culture your people experience today
the culture they aspire to create
limiting or energy-draining behaviours that reduce productivity
the values driving observable behaviours across the organisation
cultural strengths to build upon
barriers affecting collaboration, engagement and performance
opportunities to better align culture and leadership with strategy

A review is a diagnosis, not a redesign. You'll walk away knowing exactly where you stand and what to prioritise — with a clear path to Culture Change Consulting if you want support acting on it.

WHY
does culture matter now?

Culture has become infrastructure for performance, adaptation, AI adoption and employee safety and wellbeing.

1. Employee engagement has fallen to its lowest level since 2020

Only 20% of employees globally are engaged at work. Gallup reports that global engagement fell for the second consecutive year, from a peak of 23% in 2022–23 to 20% in 2025. The economic consequence is significant: Gallup estimates that low engagement cost the global economy approximately US$10 trillion in lost productivity, equivalent to around 9% of global GDP.

Engagement isn't created by an annual survey or a wellbeing initiative. It's shaped by the everyday experience of leadership, trust, purpose, recognition, accountability and how work actually gets done. If only 1 in 5 employees is genuinely engaged, culture is no longer a “nice to have.” It's a performance issue.

2. Organisations are changing faster than their people can absorb

Deloitte's 2026 Global Human Capital Trends research found that 85% of leaders say it's critical for organisations and their workforces to adapt at the speed required today, but only 7% believe their organisation is leading in this area.

One-third of workers experienced 15 or more major changes in the previous year - change this constant was associated with decreased wellbeing, increased workload and people feeling less relevant or left behind. Organisations that successfully cultivate an adaptive approach report meaningfully better financial results and more meaningful work.

Culture determines how people experience change. A culture built on trust, psychological safety, learning and open communication gives people somewhere to stand when everything else is moving. Your organisation may be changing faster than your culture can absorb.

3. AI is making culture a business-critical issue, not an HR issue

Deloitte's research found that organisations taking a technology-first approach to AI are 1.6 times more likely to fall short of expected returns compared with those taking a human-centred approach — and identifies culture, trust, decision rights and human–AI interaction as issues organisations need to actively rethink.

You can't successfully implement AI simply by buying the technology. People need to trust it, understand how their roles are changing, feel safe experimenting, and know where human judgement still matters. AI can change how work gets done. Culture determines whether people can change with it.

4. Psychological safety is a performance and safety system, not a wellbeing initiative

For Australian organisations, psychological safety now sits at the intersection of culture, leadership, performance and Work Health and Safety. AHRI's 2025 research into psychosocial risk found that 38% of employers reported a rise in psychosocial hazard claims or complaints in the 12 months to October 2024 - yet only 28% of employers invest in the leadership and management capability that reduces that risk.

When people feel safe to speak up, problems surface early: an unsustainable workload, a safety concern, a decision people are worried about, a mistake that needs fixing. When they don't feel safe, those conversations disappear underground — and that's where culture becomes a WHS issue.

Culture affects whether people engage. Culture affects whether people can adapt. Culture affects whether AI delivers value. Culture affects whether people speak up about risk. And ultimately, culture affects performance.

So the question isn't “Do we need to work on our culture?” It's: “Is our culture helping us perform, adapt and manage risk — or quietly getting in the way?”

WHO
needs a workplace culture review?

A Culture Review is particularly valuable when your organisation is:

implementing a new Strategic Plan
experiencing organisational growth or significant change
looking to strengthen leadership capability, adaptability and accountability
undergoing structural or cultural transformation
integrating mergers or acquisitions
experiencing low engagement, declining trust or high turnover
seeking to improve collaboration across teams
responding to workplace conflict, bullying grievances or other psychosocial risks
wanting to understand the values actually driving behaviour, before deciding what to do about them

Whether you're a small, medium or large local or state government, not-for-profit or private organisation, or government agency — culture influences every result you achieve.

HOW
does a workplace culture review work?

Culture isn't understood through surveys alone. It's uncovered through conversations, shared understanding and honest data, gathered in a way people trust enough to be honest in.

A cultural review is the first two phases of the culture journey:

Phase 1 — Listen: understand where you are now

Using internationally recognised culture diagnostics such as the Barrett Values Centre Culture Values Assessment (CVA), I explore personal values, current culture, desired future culture, cultural entropy, alignment and emerging themes. I also conduct leadership interviews, staff consultation workshops and review other documents and data. This gives you an evidence-based picture of your current and desired culture to be compared down the track.

Phase 2 — Diagnose: understand the patterns, root causes and gaps

Interactive staff workshops create psychologically safe spaces to explore the findings, understand the why behind the numbers, and identify cultural strengths and challenges. This gives you employee insight, shared understanding, and early ownership of what needs to change.

What you receive: the Culture Review Report

Rather than a report that gathers dust, you'll receive a clear, practical Culture Review Report, including:

Executive Summary
Culture Review Findings
Strategic Alignment
Cultural Strengths and Barriers
A Prioritised Roadmap of Recommendations

From here, some organisations take the roadmap and run with it internally. Others want support turning findings into a defined culture framework, embedded into everyday systems and sustained over time - that ongoing work is what my Culture Change Consulting covers, picking up exactly where the review leaves off.

WHERE
does a culture review make the biggest difference?

A Workplace Culture Review helps organisations:

Align culture with strategic direction
Improve collaboration and communication
Build stronger leadership capability
Increase accountability and consistency
Strengthen physical and psychological safety and wellbeing
Clarify behavioural expectations
Improve employee engagement and retention
Reduce preventable costs like turnover, recruitment, legal costs or workers compensation
Create a shared language for leadership and teamwork
Enhance organisational performance
Deliver better outcomes for customers, members and communities

A culture review connects naturally to my other work. Where findings point to a defined culture change program, that's Culture Change Consulting. Where they surface psychosocial hazards specifically, that connects to my WHS Psychosocial Risk Audit. Where poor team psychological safety is a concern, that points to Psychological Safety Systems Blueprint. And where the root cause is structural rather than cultural, that's Organisational Development.

WHY
work with me?

Culture is one of the most overused and misunderstood concepts in business.

My approach combines strategic HR, organisational development and evidence-based culture diagnostics to create practical outcomes that improve the way organisations work. I don't simply run a survey and hand back a report — I work with leaders and employees to understand what's actually happening, and why.

With experience across local and state government, government agencies, mining, not-for-profit and private organisations, I understand that every organisation has its own context, challenges and strengths. Every Culture Review is tailored to yours.

What clients say

"We engaged Belinda Coghlan to facilitate a cultural values workshop for our French-based company, Saniflo. Belinda quickly grasped the task at hand and was able to create a process that meshed pre-determined values from our Head Office with our Southeast Asia group, and to supplement those with some locally derived values. Belinda successfully focused the group on values and behaviours that reflect a contemporary approach, to people internal and external to the business. I would have no hesitation in recommending Belinda for cultural values work."

Michael Alborough, SFA Australia

"Just wanted to thank you again for your great work on the Western Power Succession Planning Project. Your knowledge, flexibility and skill in meeting the customer where they were at, was wonderful. Lots of positive feedback!"

Scott Erskine, Modal (Western Power)

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between a Workplace Culture Review and Culture Change Consulting?

A review is diagnostic - it tells you what's actually happening in your culture and gives you a prioritised roadmap of recommendations. Culture Change Consulting is the implementation work that follows: defining the culture framework, embedding it into your systems, and sustaining it over time. Many clients start with a review; some stop there, others continue into consulting.

How do I know if my organisation needs a culture review?

If you're experiencing high staff turnover, poor communication, burnout, leadership challenges, low engagement, workplace conflict, or a culture that doesn't reflect your values, a review can help identify the underlying causes. Often the symptoms are obvious - the root cause isn't. That's where an independent review adds value.

Do you only work with organisations that have cultural problems?

Not at all. Many of my clients are successful organisations preparing for growth, restructuring, succession planning or leadership transition. A review isn't just about fixing problems - it's about understanding your culture clearly before you scale it, restructure it, or build on it.

We already have organisational values. Can you work with those?

Absolutely. A review can tell you how well those values actually show up in day-to-day behaviour - not just whether they're written down. Some organisations need help bringing existing values to life; others need to understand where local teams have drifted from global corporate values.

How long does a review take?

It depends on the size of your organisation and the diagnostic methods involved, but most reviews are completed in a matter of weeks, not months — the Listen and Discover phases are deliberately bounded so you get findings you can act on quickly.

What does “evidence-based” mean?

It means findings are based on data, not assumptions. I use staff consultation, interviews, surveys, the Barrett Values Centre Culture Values Assessment (CVA), and Amy Edmondson’s Psychological Safety Survey to understand what's really happening before drawing conclusions.

Will staff be involved in the process?

Yes. A review that only surveys people without giving them a chance to make sense of the findings together misses half the value. I involve leaders and employees through workshops, interviews and consultation, so the findings are trusted, not just delivered.

What industries do you work with?

I work across a wide range of industries, including mining, local and state government, professional services, not-for-profit organisations, agriculture, manufacturing, retail, building and construction, and privately owned businesses.