3 Signs It’s Time to Refresh a Workplace Culture

Everyone's talking about workplace culture, value words, value-based leadership, etc. There's a sense of urgency in the discussion making it sound like every organization should tear up what they have and implement new values every year - because newer is always better. But is it really? No, it’s not. You need to constantly work on your value culture to keep it alive and current, but if it's a natural part of your organization and it works, you shouldn’t tear up what you have.

But when should you tear it up and start over? It's hard to know, and there's a risk that if you wait too long, the road ahead will be longer than it needed to be. To help you, Mia has put together her top three signs that it’s time to refresh your workplace culture.  

1. The value culture is only a document and not a natural part of your everyday work life - you may see words written on the office walls and in PowerPoints, but they don’t surface in conversations, they're not present in decision making, and the leaders don’t use them in their leadership, which sends signals that it’s not important and therefore employees also don’t use them, this leaves a value culture that only exists in a document.

2. Events with large organizational impact - when something happens that shakes the organization (for better or worse), you need to look at the value culture and make sure that it still aligns with current and new organizational goals, ways of working, and the organization’s direction.

3. Unofficial leadership starts to sprout in different parts of the organization - when unofficial leadership starts to take over making the official leadership lose their respect and mandate to steer the organization in the right direction. A lot of the time, these situations create a culture where a lot of energy is spent on complaining and focusing on problems rather than the things that are good.

What's the status of your workplace culture?

Find out more about Mia’s program in Culture Excellence here.