CASE STUDY
Rebuilding Trust and Resetting Culture After a Strike
*Note the company is not named to protect the anonymity of our client, with whom we are still working. Culture change takes time, afterall!
THE CHALLENGE: Scarred relationships and uncertainty about the future
In the wake of a strike, a large department found themselves carrying a complicated mix of emotions. The leadership was feeling angry and burned out, middle managers were feeling hurt, exhausted, burned out, and distrustful of their staff due to their behavior on the picket line. Employees were feeling proud about what they’d accomplished and were ready to get back to work. Everyone was feeling uncertain about how to come back together and move forward.
Leadership had a contingency plan to operate through the strike, but as everyone returned to work a bigger question surfaced: What happens now?
Understanding this was a problem they needed help overcoming, the leaders were able to acknowledge hard truths publicly and clearly, and recognize that the stakes were too high to go through this challenge alone. So, they hired Civility Partners, a decision that took humility, courage, and real commitment, and it became the turning point that allowed the team to begin rebuilding.
THE WORK: Creating the space, the structure, and the standards to move forward
Over the next 12 months, Civility Partners helped the group reset how they communicate, collaborate, and hold one another accountable. The work focused on both the human side (repairing trust and relationships) and the operational side (creating clear, shared expectations). Our work included:
Participants report practical, positive learning experiences and takeaways:
- Listening sessions that rebuilt trust.
Creating a safe, structured space for people to talk was a foundation of our work. We held 30+ listening sessions and interviews across levels and tenure, which helped surface what people weren’t saying out loud, reduced stigma around speaking up, and gave the leadership team real insight into what needed to change.
- Coaching and leadership support.
Alongside broader culture work, Dr. Bob Berk coached the department’s leader, helping her navigate an emotionally charged environment and lead through conflict and emotions with clarity and steadiness.
- A “Professional Agreement” built collaboratively between the union and leadership.
Dr. Berk helped the union and leadership create a “professional agreement” (intentionally not framed as a contract or code of conduct) – a clear, practical agreement outlining expectations and defining key terms like accountability, so the team could align on what “good” looks like. It was rolled out through multiple meetings with the union board, leadership team, and managers to ensure shared understanding, discussion and buy-in.
- Operational clarity that reduced friction and restored fairness.
Civility Partners supported leadership as they implemented new systems that supported the cultural reset, including updating standards and policies for accountability, hiring practices, and onboarding, and providing more support for middle managers to proactively build collaborative culture. Attitude and culture-fit were now equally as important as technical skills for all levels.
- The union and leadership engaged in workshops to create shared language, shared expectations, and shared ownership of the culture.
Although both the union leadership and the team leadership worked hard to tamp down conflict after the strike, the relationship between the two entities continued to hold a deep-seated distrust and emotional exhaustion. Engaging in these workshops was essential because they helped transition the organization from an adversarial “us versus them” mentality toward a collaborative partnership. By establishing shared language and expectations, both parties stripped away the heated rhetoric of the dispute and created a practical framework that prevented future friction and reduced grievances. Ultimately, building shared ownership ensures that a healthy workplace culture becomes a mutual responsibility rather than a source of ongoing conflict.
- Development of an action plan to keep momentum going.
Through a two-day retreat, the department’s leadership team sat with Civility Partners to define what the most important actions are for the next 12 months. The plan included dates, responsibilities and measures of success.
OUTCOMES SO FAR: A visible culture shift, peer-driven accountability, and continued hard work
The leadership team describes a noticeably different tone and atmosphere now, even with so much more work to go.
For now, they see more civility and trust emerging, and are poised to continue to make the hard and incremental progress to ensure this new culture “sticks”. So far they see:
- Better day-to-day professionalism with fewer late arrivals, improved attitudes, and real-time course correction when someone slips.
- Healthier team composition as some leaders moved into new roles or positions, and many took on new tasks and responsibilities.
- Peer-to-peer accountability as the group is better at regulating itself, calling out behavior that didn’t match the new expectations with empathy, and protecting the experience of new hires.
- More buy-in to operational decisions as leadership’s transparency grew. They explained the “why” behind staffing shifts and people didn’t just resist, they volunteered to support what the operation needed, something that wouldn’t have happened in prior years.
- Leadership confidence and momentum as our partnership gave the leaders guidance, skill, and confidence to do the hard work they weren’t previously comfortable doing.
