Culture is defined as a set of norms or knowledge that determines a particular set of people. But what is workplace culture?
Essentially “workplace culture is the character and personality of your organisation. It’s made up of your organisation’s leadership, values, traditions and beliefs, and the behaviours and attitudes of the people in it,” or as Forbes describes, it “is the shared values, belief systems, attitudes and the set of assumptions that people in a workplace share.”
How is a workplace culture created?
In truth, there is no shortcut to creating a positive workplace culture as it’s unique to individual business needs.
However, from our experience, we’ve learnt that leaders and managers need to encourage teamwork. By promoting a good team dynamic, individuals are able to share workloads more efficiently and perform to their strengths – this increases your chances of reaching targets effectively and on time. Not to mention, a good team ethos can also boost motivation and morale amongst employees, which in turn leads to improved engagement and retention.
Determine and regularly communicate a set of values that reflect your organisational long-term goals and create a sense of shared purpose, ensuring your current employees (and any future employees) are aligned to it – this helps people to understand how their role fits into the big picture.
Establish an inclusive work environment, where all employees feel valued, supported and nurtured. Learning never stops, so ensuring employees have access to relevant and regular career development opportunities allows them to upskill and grow.
Furthermore, cultivate employee relationships to increase effective communication – open and honest communication is vital for creating a positive feeling in the workplace. When organisations are open and transparent with employees, it helps employees to feel trusted.
What makes a positive workplace culture?
The below are just some of the factors that help to contribute towards a positive workplace culture;

- Respect
- Transparency
- Trust
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Inclusion
- Diversity
- Purpose and goals
- Resilience
- Innovation
Building and evolving a strong and positive work culture when times are good may sound easy, but what happens when things are not going so well…
Change is inevitable. Competitors may launch new products, companies go through periods of challenging cash flow, maybe an influential leader leaves or maybe the company turns in an unexpected direction.
How do you keep your culture on track and how can you use your culture to drive positivity?
Let us take transparency for example. A recent study from McKinsey set out to understand what employees were saying about the future of remote work.
The finding highlighted anxiety in the workplace increased the less well informed they were. Apparently communicating openly and being transparent about both what you know, and more importantly, what you do not know (for example, if your organisation is still unsure what the working model might look like post-pandemic) is key for employees to feel secure. Communicating about the future (even if it is unknown) results in increased performance and reduces the risk of burnout for employees.

This illustrates, that despite being in challenging times, having a workplace culture that is focused on transparency and communication means that by being open with employees, they feel more secure and are more likely to view the challenging situation in a positive/secure way.
When things get tough, workplace culture may be overlooked. However, a positive workplace culture is what is going to get your company back on track. Change may be inevitable but having a resilient workforce enables you to bounce back from setbacks quicker. The alternative? Your employees may feel stressed, burnt out, unmotivated and productivity and performance will dive. Can you afford for that to happen?
By using a Culture management platform such as MyPeople, you can grow, scale, and protect your organisation. By measuring the environmental factors that are driving or hindering team performance, you can start taking control. Additionally, if you evaluate the impact of change over time, you can make changes in your business with confidence.
Your workplace culture defines your organisation. Make it positive and it might just be the very thing that drives positivity, productivity and boosts morale in the tough times – as well as the good.