When the presenting problem isn’t the real problem
Culture often shows up in small moments
We tend to talk about workplace culture as though it is something large and abstract. Values. Engagement surveys. Leadership programs. The things written on the wall. I think culture is often much easier to see in the small, everyday moments.
Who gets listened to in a meeting?
What happens when somebody makes a mistake?
Can someone question a decision without being labelled difficult?
When a shift is busy, do people help each other or start blaming each other?
Does the person finishing a shift actually have enough time to tell the next person what they need to know?
That last question became particularly relevant in the aged care organisation I was working with. It would have been easy to look at the complaints coming through and conclude that we had a culture or behaviour problem. In reality, some of what we were seeing was being created, or at least amplified, by the way the work itself was organised.
Safe Work Australia makes an important connection here. Its guidance for health care and social assistance says organisations need to consider not only workplace interactions and behaviours, but also job demands, the design of work, role clarity and the systems through which work is managed and supported.
It goes further, noting that poor workplace behaviours can sometimes be a response to things such as high job demands, inadequate support and a lack of role clarity.
That matters. If people are rushed, responsibilities overlap, information isn't getting through and there isn't enough time to complete important tasks properly, telling everyone to "communicate better" only gets you so far.
In our case, five minutes for handover wasn't simply a communication issue. It was a design-of-work issue. Once we saw that, the conversation changed. Instead of asking why people weren't communicating effectively, we could ask whether we had actually created the conditions for effective communication in the first place.
That is a much more useful question. It also brings the conversation back to what mattered most: making sure staff had the information and time they needed to support good outcomes for residents.