OCAI Online provides the validated Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument online so everyone has access to this useful tool to start sustainable change.

Successful organizational change is all about changing "the way we do things around here": what you need is actual behavior change. Working with your workplace culture is an excellent way to create this kind of real change. The OCAI tool is a great starting point followed by engaging OCAI workshops that entice people to co-create their culture and take ownership for the change.

Our clients

Many organizations, consultants and individual respondents have worked with OCAI Online: using the OCAI survey, the work kits, the video training or our consultancy.
To give you an idea:

• 10,000 individual respondents from various sectors (update September 2011)

OCAI Online is owned by Marcel Lamers Msc. and Marcella Bremer MscBA. We are based in the Netherlands.

We have been working on organizational culture for many years and also established "Kikker Groep", a European consultancy company that specializes in changing organizational culture.

We started using the OCAI nationwide in 2008, when we researched the overall culture in the Dutch health care sector. More than 1,600 doctors, nurses, and managers working in hospitals and nursing homes participated in the OCAI. The results showed that most of the health care workers were not very satisfied and wished for change.

We are very happy to offer the OCAI to you, thanks to permission from its developers, professors Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn.
We think the OCAI provides a very useful starting point for sustainable and successful organizational change, which can involve all employees and benefit from everybody's ideas and energy. If you take the time for a serious dialogue about the outcome, you might achieve breakthrough results later on in the process.

We found that clients needed a clear step-by-step method so we refined the change method suggested in Cameron and Quinn's book "Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture" and added steps with questions, exercises and extras that made it easier for our clients to work on organizational culture and behaviors. Because this step-by-step method proved useful, we now share it in our OCAI work kits. We also share our way of helping organizations to change in our online video training that explains everything from theory to practice when guiding organizational culture change as a consultant or HR manager.

About Marcel & Marcella

Our motto is to develop the workplace, the workers and the world. We've seen how unhappy some people can be at work, just because they have to pay the rent. We've also been at great workplaces where the full potential of individuals created great things. We feel that the world could be a better place if people develop themselves, live up to their full potential and treat each other with respect. We agree wholeheartedly with Daniel Pink who found that what motivates people is not only satisfying your material needs, but above all achieving Mastery in your profession, Autonomy in doing your work and having a Purpose; experience meaning and contribute to the world.

We are dedicated to facilitating this worldwide development and because we live in a society with organizations, institutions and corporations, these places are a great starting point for learning and development. Every worker who learns to deal with change, will take this home and spread it further in families, groups and neighborhood.

We are dedicated to learning, development and change. With the rapid pace of contemporary change, it is essential that people cope with change. Organizations are changing all the time. We found that successful change only occurs when identity, beliefs, competencies and behaviors are aligned. We can't command others to change. Every individual and every organization has to change their beliefs, competencies and behaviors. The vehicle for change is organizational culture.

We can't order organizations to change their culture. We work with the people in organizations to collectively change their culture and take ownership for their change. Engagement and participation are key in successful change.

We learned this the hard way. We remember board meetings where top executives agreed on a plan but didn't implement it... We remember employees nodding Yes but not keeping their agreements. Because they never intended to, or because there were hidden advantages to the old behavior, or on the contrary, hidden objections to the new behavior. Or because no-one else was doing it. They really tried but.... We were frustrated because we wanted to guide real change and make a difference. We didn't achieve successful change until we started to really engage all organizational levels, to take people's objections and beliefs seriously, to guide them in taking ownership and co-creating the change with them.

Many HR managers, consultants or CEO's don't try this because they fear to fall into the "soft fluffy stuff", no matter how many research shows that people's mindset delivers hard results when it comes to organizational performance. They think it takes too much time and money, while having your change program sabotaged afterwards, leads to higher cost and may even damage trust, credibility and motivation in organizations. Time spent up front in engaging your people returns your investment in a successful change.

This might be the best tip for successful change you ever got - but you won't know until you do it. Just do it!

OCAI in English, Spanish, French, German and Dutch

The OCAI assessment can be done in English, Spanish, French, German and Dutch when you use an OCAI Pro or OCAI Enterprise account. We also operate a Dutch OCAI site.

Reports by industry group or economic sector

Our database is organized by industry group and economic activity. Every now and then we calculate the (anonymous) scores of a specific sector, and we will publish a free OCAI report on its overall current and preferred culture. It's always fascinating to see the similarities and differences between industry groups and between countries. We'll keep you posted if you like and share this information with you. We're always curious to hear your opinion.

If you have any questions or comments, please send us an email.