Workplace Culture: No Accountability = No Change
Toxic workplace culture is – once again – the topic of conversation in the press. It has taken the courage of several individuals to shine a light on workplace practices that not only physically threaten lives, but also create an environment of mistrust and fear.
Parliament House in Australia isn’t the first and won’t be the last example of a workplace where its leaders choose to ignore the signs or reports of an unsafe environment and it now has a once-only opportunity to get it right if it wishes to salvage its reputation and retain the services of the good people that it has working there.
Like many organisations with culture issues, however, it is likely to walk down a well-trodden path. An external review (or two) will be commissioned, humility may be shown when the results are published, someone will stand up and publicly say that ‘culture is the most important thing’ and then like many reviews before it, no-one will apologise for the hurt and upset caused, nothing will be done with the recommendations bar some legislation or policy change and no-one will be held to account for what they’ve done.
In an independent review of government processes for the development and implementation of large public programs and projects in 2015, Professor Peter Shergold had this to say about the way things get done within the Australian Public Service: ‘Legislation will not change culture: people and their actions do.’
When it comes to culture, reviews and reports can shed some light on what needs to change, but it’s only when leaders stop ignoring poor behaviour and choose to take affirmative action against those that perpetuate it, that things actually will change.
Here are three things that all business leaders must do to ensure there is accountability around culture:
1. Put your money and time where your mouth is – stop talking about culture being the most important thing and provide staff with the time and money to define the expectations that they have of each other. Then ensure there is visible support in holding everyone to these agreements
2. Open your ears – culture is all around you. In order to find out what’s really going on, talk to people and just listen. Show empathy, compassion, humility and understanding. Make the maintenance of a vibrant workplace culture a key metric for the senior leadership team and invest in approaches to continually improve it
3. Deal with the transgressors – where you have instances of poor performance or there are people who seek – through their words or actions – to undermine the safety of others within a culture, then they need to be dealt with swiftly and fairly. Regardless of whether they’ve been there four weeks or 40 years no-one should make anyone else feel afraid to come to work or undermine the quality of what others do.
The Australian Institute of Company Directors in a report at the end of last year, called on CEOs and Boards to start taking culture seriously. They said that: ‘…defining expected culture [is] a precursor to requiring employees to behave in line with the desired culture.’ Senior leaders would do well to remember that they are employees too and that demonstration of those behaviours starts and ends with them.