Organisational change has definitely become "the norm", but while most employees see value in the end result, a significant proportion find it stressful and "very disorganised", new research shows.

Sunsuper's 2017 Australian employee insights report, based on a survey of 1,000 employees, found just three per cent hadn't gone through major change at work. Of those who had, 60 per cent believed it was worthwhile, but only 15 per cent said it was "very organised".

Some 20 per cent say it was disorganised and 24 per cent consider it was "very stressful", the report shows.

The most common type of change experienced at work was new management or leadership, followed by seating/team changes or new ways of working. 

The survey found the way employers communicate change to the workplace significantly affects employee buy-in and its overall success, with employees saying they prefer to hear about it from their direct managers during team or one-on-one meetings (42% and 19% respectively).

"After establishing a clear reason for implementing change, a key initial step in any change process could be to identify pivotal roles and people within the business who can help implement the change process, and engage them as early as possible," the report suggests, noting the most important people in the process aren't necessarily at the top.

Employers should determine who will be most affected by the change, who leads these people, who they respect, and who will have the most to say – both positive and negative – about the process, it says.

Driving culture from the bottom

Just one in three employees describe their organisation's culture as success-oriented, the report says, adding that smaller companies seem to more easily maintain a collaborative and fun culture – 43 per cent of workers in companies with 20–99 employees report a family-focused and fun culture compared to 20 per cent in companies with more than 500 employees.

A high-performing culture can't be solely driven from the top, the report says, but 66 per cent of employees think their workplace culture is driven from the top down. Younger workers believe they have more of a role to play, with 43 per cent of Gen Ys saying their culture is built from the bottom up, compared to 24 per cent of Baby Boomers.

The report suggests employers run focus groups or anonymous questionnaires to understand what employees value at work, asking questions such as, "what three words would you use to describe our culture?", "what three things do people in our organisation value most?", and "what's the most important thing that helps us get things done?".

The vast majority of workers (84%) say they will leave a company if the culture is poor, and this is most likely among high-income-earning employees. Some 89 per cent of employees earning more than $130k a year indicated such an intention, compared to 67 per cent of those earning under $40k.

Extra leave trumps health programs

Employees value some form of additional leave (42%) over personal or physical programs (7%), the report says. Given the level of commitment of Australian employers to providing wellbeing services as part of their EVP, it's good to know that 69 per cent of workers know how to access the wellbeing benefits their employer offers," it says, but this knowledge varies across generations, company size, income, and part-time and full-time employment.

For example, 20 per cent more full-time employees than part-time employees, and 21 per cent more Baby Boomers than Gen Y employees, know how to access wellbeing benefits at work.

One in four employees say an employer's wellbeing initiatives are "very important" when looking for a new job, while 61 per cent say it's "somewhat important", the report notes.

"A good place to start in building a wellbeing program that employees truly value could be to establish a committee with representatives from all levels of the business to understand what wellbeing concerns and priorities exist in the organisation, then workshop proposed benefits and test how likely they are to resonate with staff," it says.

*2017 Australian employee insights report, Sunsuper, August 2017