Workplace culture at AU

We are all responsible for fostering a positive workplace culture. But, as a manager, it is your responsibility to put workplace culture on the agenda and to help promote the culture that your unit wants to have.

Who should be involved?

Everybody experiences culture differently. So we recommend that you involve a wide range of people in all phases when working on your workplace culture, so that you get a suitably nuanced and representative picture of your workplace culture.

It’s also important to involve your occupational health and safety representatives and union representatives so that the process is endorsed and supported – and so that there are more ‘ambassadors’ playing a role.

We also encourage you to work with the occupational health and safety organisation (AMO) and liaison committees (SU), who can help you understand your workplace culture and offer informed solutions or initiatives to make changes.

However, it’s important that you don’t transfer the overall responsibility for improving your workplace culture to a group of staff or to a committee. These people have a role to play, but the process needs to be anchored and framed by you as a manager – to ensure continuity and coherence across the various initiatives.

The manager as a role model

In addition to leading the process of change, as a manager, you are an important role model for the desired workplace culture in your unit. So be aware of how you exemplify the behaviour and values that are important for your team and how you as a manager demand and promote these values from your colleagues.

We create our workplace culture together every day at work – through our professional relationships and collaborations.

Our workplace culture relates to the values, norms and convictions that influence the way we interact with each other. Much of this influence takes place completely automatically and unconsciously, but it’s possible to impact our culture by becoming aware of our actions and patterns and changing our attitudes, behaviours and structures that maintain or promote a given workplace culture.

We all have an influence on our culture, and we can all promote the culture we want to have – through our conscious actions, reactions and ways of collaborating.

By working consciously on our professional culture, we can enhance both our results and well-being.

Culture is an approach and not a topic

Workplace culture is not a topic in itself but an approach to working on some of the (complex) challenges that can arise in most workplaces. 

Challenges such as stress, poor collaboration or offensive conduct, and organisational changes, strategic work etc. are often indicators of the workplace culture.