At Worklogic we assist our clients in building and maintaining healthy and respectful workplace cultures. Sometimes this involves conducting workplace investigations, preliminary assessments and mediations to address inappropriate behaviour in the workplace that can create a toxic team culture. These types of interventions however inevitably lead to further unhappiness and can lead to a poor outcome for team cultures. While sometimes it is inevitable that these types of interventions are required but at Worklogic we recommend taking a more proactive, positive and supportive process by conducting a workplace culture review of the team.
Increased staff turnover, sick leave, absenteeism and poor performance are all signs of dysfunction. Sometimes a critical incident has occurred, involving legal or reputational risks, serious injury or intervention by external regulators.
It can often be very difficult for employers to get full and honest information about the situation. Many employees may feel uncomfortable about revealing their concerns directly to their management. They may:
- perceive that supervisors and managers are involved, or are subjective or have their own motives,
- worry that another key employee is reticent to speak up, or
- not want to ‘stick their neck out’ or be seen as part of the problem.
If you have a suspicion that something is ‘not quite right’, you don’t have to wait to receive a formal complaint. Trust your instincts and address the problem before it festers.
This is when conducting an independent workplace culture review can provide you with invaluable insight and advice into the real drivers of the culture and behaviours being demonstrated within the team by an independent workplace culture expert.
A Workplace Review is a review of the lived experience of people in a workplace. The review gives interviewees the opportunity to provide their perspective on a number of pre-agreed aspects of the work environment, on a confidential and unattributed basis.
A Workplace Review summarises and analyses what employees believe is the current state of their workplace and makes proposals as to how the organisation might be able to address any concerns expressed or build on any positive aspects of the culture. It is entirely for the organisation to determine what response(s) it makes to the data collected. A range of interventions may be appropriate as a result of a review. These might include interventions such as examination of organisational structure, authorities, processes or delegations; clarification of roles and responsibilities; review of governance arrangements; individual or team training, mentoring or coaching; team building; team chartering; conflict resolution, mediation or facilitated discussion.
As a review does not test the factual accuracy of any of the perceptions expressed by interviewees, it cannot provide the basis for any disciplinary outcomes, as procedural fairness has not been accorded to any participant.
The process is confidential and anonymous. No information about which team members completed the survey is given to the client and only Worklogic will receive the responses provided by survey respondents. The responses will be incorporated into a report, but no participants will be identified, nor any information provided that could identify anyone.
The reason we really love workplace culture reviews is that they provide insight into what is really happening with the workplace culture that quite often may be very different from what the team Manager may consider what is working well and what is not within the culture in the team by looking at all aspects of workplace culture that in our experience are the key drivers of workplace culture.
If you have some concerns regarding the workplace culture in your organisation or within a particular team, conducting a workplace culture review will uncover the real issues and we can then work with you to implement recommendations to enhance the good aspects of the culture and help you implement solutions to improve the culture within the team.
