You can’t train your way out of a toxic organizational culture

When it comes to fixing an unhealthy work culture, the last thing any of us needs is another HR workshop

Photo by Alex Litvin on Unsplash

Imagine this: you are sitting in a classroom or on a video call, listening to someone like me, a corporate trainer or organizational development consultant, reveal the top ten steps to building a healthy workplace culture.

You are there because your organization has hired me to hold workshops for supervisors and employees. So, 12 to 20 of you sit in this mandatory meeting because of a recent spate of incivility and so-called ‘toxic climate’ across a few teams in various departments.

The toxic behavior includes the following:

• incidents in which people have been overheard yelling insults at one another
• an employee’s poor performance, which leads to everyone else working harder. Their issues are overlooked due to their ‘attractiveness’
• a couple of managers threatening to fire anyone seen checking their phones on work time

Throughout the workshop, I might help you and your peers practice giving effective feedback, proactively address disrespectful behaviour, and work through conflict productively. All of these are…