Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is a mix of norms, values, beliefs, meanings, and expectations that group members hold in common and that they use as behavioural and problem-solving cues. Organizational culture could enhance the psychological safety and health of the workplace and the workforce when it is characterized by trust, honesty, respect, civility, and fairness or when it values, for example, psychological and social support, recognition, and reward.

Trusting organizational culture is imperative for any positive and productive social processes within any workplace. Trust is a predictor of cooperative behaviour, organizational citizenship behaviours, organizational commitment, and employee loyalty, all of which in turn help retain and attract staff and faculty. When an organization has a health-focused, positive, supportive, and nurturing organizational culture, employee well-being, job satisfaction and organizational commitment are all enhanced. A work culture with social support also enhances employee well-being and can provide a positive environment for staff and faculty who may be experiencing psychological conditions such as depression and anxiety. 

Since the culture of the organization ‘sets the tone’ for the entire organization it can undermine all other attempts of supporting the workforce. If the culture is negative, it reduces the success of the programs, policies and services created to support workers. An unhealthy culture creates more stress in the workplace, negatively affecting well-being. If an organization has a culture of ‘profit at all costs’ and constant chaotic urgency, burnout will increase. 

• all people in the workplace are held accountable for their actions; 
• people at work show sincere respect for others’ ideas, values, and beliefs;  
• difficult situations at work are addressed effectively;  
• staff and faculty feel that they are part of a community at work; 
• staff, faculty and management trust one another. 

A psychologically healthy and safe work environment is part of the University's strategic plan. Creating a culture that is psychologically safe is everyone’s responsibility from students, staff, faculty, managers and senior leadership. Everyone has a role to play.  

We encourage managers to take the psychologically safe leader assessment. This assessment offers leadership strategies to support a psychological health and safety. It assesses the extent to which managers already use these strategies and areas of improvement.  

In addition, this survey can be extended to their respected teams. A similar survey that staff and faculty can use to give feedback about their perception of their manager’s strategies.  

We encourage to continue to nourish the factors to which you have strength and use the conversation tool guides to help dive into the areas of improvement.  

To learn more about this free and bilingual resources, please visit the Workplace Strategies for Mental Health page.  

The Mental Health Commission of Canada developed this free online training program about psychological health and safety in the workplace. Discover about the 13 psychosocial workplace factors from the National Standard of Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace and what you can do to help yourself and others in the workplace. The average time for completion is 75 minutes.

Test your knowledge with a final quiz! Upon completion, you will receive a certificate.

To request access for the training, please send an email to [email protected]. Once your request has been received, a link to access the workshop will be sent to your email address.