How do your employees actually feel about you? Answer this burning question with a corporate culture audit.

It’s a question many business owners and employers may ask themselves often. There’s no shortage of dark humor regarding the 9 to 5 grind and the bosses who are at the top looking down. The relationship between an employer and their workforce is crucial to the overall productivity of day-to-day operations. When trying to improve employer-employee relations, you may require the surreptitious expertise of an undercover private investigator to conduct a corporate culture audit into your business.

Many businesses believe they can get an accurate picture of their business from within by tasking internal employees with getting to the root of the problem. However, what internal investigators lack is objectivity. They have their own biases regarding the people they work with, and the ability to remain 100% objective is tainted by their associations. Not only that, but in any subsequent action, the motivations of such an internal investigator may be called into question. It’s best to stick with an investigator who has no stake—directly or indirectly—in the outcome.

When it comes to your business, you don’t know what you don’t know. Think of a corporate culture audit like a medical checkup for your business. An independent professional comes into your business, either straightforwardly or undercover, and begins with a conversation with leadership and human resources. Just like an intake for a physical, the professional would ask questions about the functionality of the business, what day-to-day operations are like, and what patterns of disruption are regularly occurring. Once the intake is complete, the corporate investigator or private investigator will develop a plan to pull the corporation out of its pattern of disruption.

A corporate culture audit is a great way to take the exact temperature of employee morale. Corporate investigators can engage employees in diverse questions about the business, how much they enjoy their job, and what their level of engagement in the job itself is. Judging the level of engagement is important because an employee’s level of engagement in their job will have a direct impact on how well they do their job, which in turn has a direct impact on the level of productivity. Corporate culture investigators can pinpoint the problems in an organization that cause employees to disengage from their jobs and consequently raise the level of productivity in the organization.

Employees may not always be honest when asked to provide feedback on leadership in a corporation or organization, especially if such forums are not anonymous. They may fear for their job security, or retaliation against them for being honest. Regardless of the motivation, a covert or anonymous feedback forum is one of the many things that a corporate culture auditor could facilitate. In addition to the anonymity of such a measure, employees may also feel more emboldened to accurately describe their feelings to a third-party. In this way, employers can get a real picture of how their employees not only feel about the business, but also about themselves as an employer.