What is the importance of measuring the maturity of the safety culture in your company?

The security culture in institutions is not just about rules and technologies, but mainly about the behavior of employees in the face of cyber threats. As risks evolve, it's essential to understand how your team responds to these challenges.

As such, measuring the maturity of your security culture is a crucial step in identifying knowledge gaps, improving processes, and strengthening your organization's protection posture.

In this text, we will explore the importance of assessing the maturity of the safety culture in your company, the benefits of this measurement for risk reduction, and the best ways to perform this analysis.

Keep reading and find out how this assessment can make a difference in your institution's digital security.

Why is it important to measure the maturity of teams?

We live in an increasingly complex digital landscape, where cyber threats are more sophisticated and attacks more frequent.

Phishing, ransomware, data leaks, and other forms of fraud are among the top concerns for organizations across all industries. While security tools are crucial, they are not enough on their own. 

This is because the human factor continues to be exploited by these criminals, so it is crucial that organizations understand and monitor these actions.

Security maturity refers to the level of evolution of an organization's security practices and processes, ranging from the early stage of awareness to the implementation of advanced, automated strategies.

This concept is crucial, as it helps companies assess their posture in the face of cyber threats and understand which areas need improvement to ensure a robust defense.

It is necessary to remember that maturity is not just about having security tools in place, but about integrating security effectively into everyday life, promoting an organizational culture that prioritizes continuous data protection.

Therefore, measuring security maturity allows organizations to identify gaps or weaknesses in their protection strategies.

From this, it is possible to draw up more efficient action plans, prioritizing areas of greater risk and improving incident management, access control, and employee training practices.

This process also allows for a smarter allocation of resources, ensuring that security investments are made strategically, aligned with the organization's real needs.

Measuring this maturity not only better protects data and systems, but also creates a proactive culture of risk mitigation, where security is seen as an integral part of the organizational environment.

What are the benefits of measuring team maturity?

Measuring the maturity of the safety culture offers tangible benefits for institutions, especially when it comes to identifying gaps in employee processes and behaviors.

Often, organizations only notice security gaps after an incident, which can be detrimental.

With measurement, it is possible to identify weaknesses before they become serious problems, allowing for proactive intervention to correct flaws and prevent potential vulnerabilities.

Another important benefit of maturity measurement is the ability to prioritize actions strategically.

After all, not all security issues have the same level of impact, and not all areas of the company need immediate attention, so assessing maturity helps to identify which areas pose the greatest risk.

This allows the security team to direct their efforts to where they will have the greatest effect, ensuring that resources are allocated more efficiently and effectively.

In addition, the continuous measurement of maturity allows employee awareness to evolve constantly.

Because it is not enough to carry out training once a year or only when new attacks arise. The safety culture needs to be integrated.

In this way, with the right metrics, it is possible to track the evolution of people's knowledge and engagement over time, adjusting educational campaigns and initiatives as needed.

A very important point of these actions is that they contribute directly to risk reduction.

This happens because when the organization has a clear vision of its maturity and actions are taken based on real data, the ability to mitigate incidents increases considerably.

How to measure the maturity of teams?

Measuring the maturity of the safety culture is essential to identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as to direct strategic actions.

For this, it is necessary to adopt clear indicators and tools that allow measuring the behavior of employees in relation to safety practices. Measurement should be continuous, allowing for constant adjustments to awareness and policy approaches.

In addition, the measurement process should not be seen as a one-off task, but as an ongoing practice within the organization that should encompass:

• Analysis tools;

• Reporting;

• Regular safety testing.

All these indicators help to track the evolution of the safety culture and ensure that changes are truly effective over time.

Definition of clear and measurable metrics

Before starting to measure maturity, it is essential to define what will be evaluated, for this the metrics must be clear, objective and measurable. So that it is possible to follow the evolution over time.

Some key metrics include employee engagement with awareness campaigns, reducing incidents caused by human error, and improving response to phishing simulations.

It is important to establish a starting point, so that it will be possible to observe how the metrics evolve after specific actions, such as awareness campaigns or security training.

Tests and simulations

An effective way to measure the maturity of the security culture is to conduct phishing tests and simulations, which assess how employees respond, identifying those who fall for fraud and those who take steps to protect their data.

The success rate in these simulations gives you direct insight into the team's knowledge and behavior.

These simulations help measure not only technical knowledge, but also the practical behavior of employees in the face of real threats. Over time, the frequency of these simulations can be adjusted as maturity progresses.

Campaign Evaluation

Awareness campaigns are one of the main tools to promote a culture of safety and to measure their effectiveness, it is important to evaluate indicators such as:

• Security email open rates;

• Interactions with educational content;

• Quiz results.

To measure these rates accurately, it is important to use campaign management tools, which provide detailed reports on employee engagement and learning.

Tracking this data over time will help adjust campaigns, making them more effective and aligned with the specific needs of the organization.

Continuous monitoring and feedback from employees

Measuring security maturity should not be limited to one-off events or training, it is essential that it is continuous.

This is because these actions are crucial to identify improvements and areas that need more attention.

This can include analyzing how employees respond to security alerts, how to manage passwords, and whether they adhere to security best practices.

Employee feedback also plays an important role in this process, so conducting periodic surveys on employees' perceptions of safety helps identify blind spots.

This contributes to a more people-centric approach to safety, improving adherence and proactive behavior.

Data analysis and reporting tools

Data analytics tools provide detailed insights and objective metrics, because they can integrate data from different sources, such as phishing test results, training attendance, and behavior on security platforms.

With this information, it is possible to create custom reports generated to visualize risk areas and progress over time.

These reports enable security managers to make informed decisions and adjust awareness strategies as needed.

Phishx helps organizations measure team maturity

Measuring the maturity of an organization's security culture is a key step in improving the protection posture and ensuring the integrity of corporate data and assets.

PhishX, with its extensive experience in cybersecurity solutions, offers products that help companies not only measure, but also improve the security awareness and behaviors of their employees.

With PhishX Analytics, organizations can measure and analyze the maturity of the safety culture, through detailed reports and accurate metrics, it is possible to monitor employee interaction with awareness campaigns.

This platform collects important data on the effectiveness of the actions implemented, such as performance in phishing tests, engagement rates with training, and the general behavior of employees in the face of simulated incidents.

With this, PhishX offers a clear view of security gaps and areas that need more attention, allowing for corrective actions and more assertive strategies.

In addition, our ecosystem provides training modules, simulations of real attacks and quizzes, all adapted to the needs of each company.

Measuring employee participation and performance in ongoing training contributes to a more accurate view of security maturity in the company, in addition to enabling quick adjustments to increase the effectiveness of awareness.

With these solutions, PhishX not only makes it easy to measure the maturity of your security culture, but also provides you with the resources you need to evolve that culture continuously and effectively.

By integrating our products, institutions can ensure that their security strategy is constantly improved, aligning people, processes, and technologies to reduce risk and strengthen defense against cyber threats.

Want to know more? Schedule a conversation with our experts and learn how our ecosystem can change the maturity of your team.

You need to measure the maturity of the safety culture in your company