Ask Christa! What Does a Healthy Work Culture Look Like?? (S2E20)

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and today’s question is, “What does a healthy work culture look like?”

The first thing to know about culture is it's really hard to define culture. There are a lot of different definitions, and if you do a literature review, not that I would expect anyone to do that, but if you were to do that, you would see that there are a lot of different ways to define culture, especially in the workplace.

Most people have agreed that it has to do with the behaviors and the norms and some of the shared values that contribute to accepted employee behavior in the workplace, virtually or on site. And as a result of that, I want you to think of culture less as something that can be defined outside of you—what it LOOKS like—and more as something related to how you FEEL or the way things ARE while you’re at work.

Generally speaking, we ALL want to feel good in the workplace. At least, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone say they don’t care HOW they FEEL in the workplace. Some may be more matter of fact than others—“it’s just a job, I’m not there to feel good,” but I see that as taking a neutral position. Saying it’s just a job and you’re not there to feel good doesn’t automatically mean you’re OK with feeling bad.

Some might think of culture as how we work WHILE at work, and they consider it as connected with the workplace environment and workplace satisfaction. But when you think of workplace satisfaction, I want you to think about what it takes to get the work done to a level where you feel satisfied. It’s a job well done. You’re achieving your goals no matter what is happening around you because you have the tools to do your job, you know what’s expected, and you have the know-how and experience to get it done the way it needs to be done. For most people, it’s satisfying to get good work done.

But there’s a different kind of “how we feel at work” that goes beyond the environment and satisfaction, and that’s feeling good at work behaviorally. socially. emotionally.

That you feel you are treated well and you are encouraged to treat others well. That you get along with the other good humans you’re working with, and if not, there’s a constructive, professional way to resolve a conflict and learn and then agree and COMMIT to working better together. That you feel a level of trust in your workplace that you won’t be insulted, diminished, put down, yelled at, publicly humiliated, told who you have to be “or else,” or told who others think you are with the expectation that you become someone else.

That’s all related to culture, and I’m going to define culture as the generally accepted definition: work place norms, shared behaviors, and commonly demonstrated values—which may or may not be the company values you see hanging in frames around your work place.

It’s not as much about satisfaction as it is about engagement—how you feel you click in with those around you, the work you are doing, the way you feel while you’re there, and to some extent it’s a personal and individual gauge, as with all cultures, and that’s why I’m going to focus less on what a healthy culture looks like, and more about why and how you determine whether a culture is one in which YOU will thrive or merely survive.

For the most part, the cultures with thriving employees—highly engaged employees who go above and beyond their work in a prosocial “I want this company and everyone in it to be as successful as possible, so I’m giving all I have to give today” way—usually look like this:

·       People are valued through various demonstrations of respect, such as having a mix of listening and talking, not just talking; controlling the impulse to interrupt; taking notes or REMEMBERING the key points made

·       People in your close orbit or those who are stakeholders of your work know who you are, what you do, how your work impacts their work; they demonstrate how they value the work you do because of the difference it makes to their work and to the bigger picture

·       People known how to communicate effectively and respectfully, address conflicts in a constructive way without emoting in large sweeping dramatic strokes or small but mighty passive aggressive sabotaging.

In short, it looks like a good community—like a good group of people all wanting what is best for the company and for each other, and before you, “pssha, tsshh, eye roll” at me, these places DO exist and they are typically the places that are consistently the most successful companies.

And why not have higher standards when it comes to the behaviors at work? Why not seek out and insist on cultures that believe in and support what enables good humans to do better while at work? Not every day will be perfect, and not every day will feel good, but overall, a healthy culture…. Feels…. Good.

“That sounds great, Christa—how do I find those companies?”

Look to the organizations that are steady winners. Not just with sales, but with all of it—and then also look at the people metrics.

You might not hear about them in mainstream news, but you WILL hear about them when it comes to lists that are more about The Most Admired companies, or those where they value their legacy while ALWAYS looking to develop the future (side note: best places to work aren’t always the best places to work, so keep those lists in perspective…).

The steady winners place emphasis on employee engagement so they can get the best out of their employees—not the MOST out of their employees, but the best, and that’s an important distinction.

Steady winners balance the needs of their employees with the rest of the business, understanding that working your employees through long hours (essentially, getting the MOST from your employees) isn’t sustainable, and does NOT guarantee getting the best. As a strategist who focuses on organizational performance and competitive value… I like getting the best out of employees, not the most.

Steady winners want that, too. They want employees who are refreshed by the time they start a new day—ready to critically think through new issues or RETHINK any previous issues they weren’t able to easily solve the days before. They want employees who lift each other up so the company is strong every day, even when your best might not be able to give their best.

We all have days like those.

And so instead of talking about what a healthy workplace culture LOOKS like, let’s talk about what it FEELS like:

·       No Sunday night blues—no anxiety 24 hours before you start your work week. There is clarity in the work you do, you know what‘s expected of you, and you have the resources to do your job as expected.

·       You have a sense of ownership to your work—wanting to do good work not because you have to look out for yourself, but because you’re looking out for your team and you know your team is looking out for you

·       Trust: you can be yourself, knowing we ALL have a few things to work on, express ideas, speak up if you think there is a problem, and receive inputs and feedback from others that aren’t designed to shut you down—but to lift you up. Feedback is because others are looking out for you. They want you to do well. This part of trust is often referred to as psychological safety.

·       Then there’s the usual things that a lot of people lose track of right away, things that come out of feeling you’re in a healthy culture: You smile. You laugh. You feel like you’re in your zone, in flow, in your groove—however you want to say it. You connect with others and feel you are a part of a team and organization you are contributing to.

There are a lot of resources you can find about culture, so in this episode’s Additional Resources, which are in the show notes as always, I've included two articles I selected to offer insights for finding and vetting healthy workplace cultures.

The first one is from Gallup, which I have listed in other episodes because they are a foundational resource for readable, practical business research that gets to the heart of the matter when it comes to organizational performance through employees. This article is from October 2024, and it’s called, “What is organizational culture? And why does it matter?” It offers more details about some of what I’ve provided here, and offers a different view also—which I always think is important. I want you to learn from a variety of tools so YOU can work better and live better. It goes through the impact of culture, the impact leadership has on culture, what toxic workplace cultures look like, and so forth. It’s a good read.

I also included a recent blog Harvard’s Professional and Executive Development blog called, “Why Workplace Culture Matters.” It was originally published in November 2023, but recently updated this past February 2025. In a quick read, it offers insights for questions to ask, such as how employee conflicts are handled; some of the other questions may or may not resonate, but it’s a great article to begin thinking more critically about workplace culture.

But you know something? There’s soooo much information available, so I’ve included a Google Search on “Research About What a Healthy Workplace Culture Looks Like,” which is directly aligned to the question.

OK that’s a wrap! We’re just four episodes away from finishing up Season TWO!! Keep the questions coming—you can submit them on my show’s website, AskChrista.com, that's Christa with a CH, and while you’re there, click on the FOLLOW button, leave a review, and join my mailing list if you haven’t already to receive my Sunday Night newsletter called “More Answers.” You can find them on the Blogs page of my show’s website also, but my newsletter always includes a few extras.

As always—thank you for your support!!  And remember, if you have a business challenge or workplace issue, Ask Christa!