A bullying complaint lands on your desk. A high performer is damaging team morale. Burnout continues to climb despite your wellness initiatives. Managers struggle with difficult conversations, and the “soft skills” everyone talks about still aren’t showing up in day-to-day behavior.

The problem isn’t that you don’t care. It’s that today’s workplace issues don’t come with straightforward solutions or a handy instruction manual.

After hearing how much you enjoyed our webinars, many of you asked for more. So we listened.

That’s why we’re launching the Workplace Intelligence Series—a monthly webinar program designed to help HR professionals, leaders, and workplace culture champions tackle today’s toughest workplace challenges with practical, research-backed strategies you can put into practice immediately.

Attend the sessions most relevant to your organization, or register for the full series to build your knowledge and stay ahead of the workplace issues shaping the year ahead. Here are the sessions currently available:

• August 26 | Research Says HR Makes Bullying Worse: Let’s Fix That – Learn why that perception exists, what gets in HR’s way, and the practical steps you can take to rebuild trust, respond more effectively, and create better outcomes.

• September 30 | Soft Skills Aren’t Soft; They’re Necessary – Communication, respect, empathy, and collaboration are essential business skills. Learn how to embed these competencies into hiring, leadership development, and workforce planning to build stronger teams.

• October 28 | Redefining Health and Wellness in Today’s Workplace – If burnout is rising despite your wellness initiatives, it’s time to look beyond perks. Discover how leadership, workplace culture, and everyday behaviors shape employee well-being and what you can do to create a healthier organization.

Register Here

Continue the Conversation in Catherine’s Free Office Hours

We’re also opening the door to something a little more personal.

Because sometimes you just need someone to help you think through that one employee, that one manager, or that one culture issue that’s been living rent-free in your head all week.

Join Catherine’s free Office Hours, a live, confidential conversation where you can ask questions, talk through your specific situation, and leave with practical next steps tailored to your organization.

This Office Hours is ideal if:

• You’re facing a workplace issue that keeps following you home at the end of the day.
• You know something needs to change, but you’re not sure what the right next step is.
• Leadership isn’t moving as quickly as the situation demands.
• You’re dealing with a difficult employee, manager, or team and need a trusted sounding board.
• You’ve read the articles, attended the webinars, and still need help applying the advice to your specific situation.

There are no presentations, no recordings, and no sales pitch. Just an open conversation where you can ask questions, hear what others are navigating, and leave with practical next steps you can apply immediately.

It would be on August 20th, from 10am to 11am Pacific Time. 

Think of it as an extension of the Workplace Intelligence Series, where the conversation shifts from learning the strategies to applying them to your own organization.

Reserve your spot today. We’d love to see you there! 

The post Join our Workplace Intelligence Series + Office Hours appeared first on Civility Partners.

“Don’t shoot the messenger. This came from corporate.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what leadership wants.”

“I’m just telling you what they told me.”

Most managers think they’re being empathetic when they say things like this. They want employees to know they’re “on their side.”

Unfortunately, that’s exactly the problem.

Without realizing it, they’ve positioned themselves on one team and leadership on another. Employees hear, “Your manager agrees this decision is terrible.” Leadership hears, “Our managers aren’t backing us.” Before long, every change becomes a battle, every announcement is met with skepticism, and trust starts eroding one conversation at a time.

Managers who consistently distance themselves from organizational decisions create an “us vs. them” culture where employees stop seeing themselves as part of one organization. Instead, they see two opposing camps: the people making bad decisions and the people suffering through them.

The Sneaky Ways Managers Create Division

Most managers don’t wake up intending to sabotage culture. In fact, they’re often trying to protect their teams. The problem is that protection can quickly become separation. 

Employees may appreciate the honesty in the moment, but over time these comments reinforce a dangerous belief: the manager is an ally against leadership instead of a leader within the organization.

Eventually, employees stop bringing solutions because they’ve already decided nothing will change. Managers stop advocating because they believe they have no influence. Leadership assumes managers have buy-in because no one is raising meaningful concerns.

Everyone loses.

How Managers Can Break the Cycle

Managers do far more than communicate organizational decisions. They shape whether employees buy into them. McKinsey found that the odds of a successful transformation increase by 5.2 times when managers help employees understand the case for change.

If you’re hearing a lot of “corporate says…” in your organization, don’t coach managers to simply defend every executive decision.

That isn’t leadership either. Instead, teach them to become translators and problem-solvers.

Get Curious Before You Get Defensive

When someone says they’re frustrated, resist the urge to explain the policy. Start by understanding the frustration. Questions like these often reveal the real issue:

• What part of this concerns you most?
• How is this affecting your work?
• What would make this easier?
• Is this something we can improve internally?

Many concerns don’t require executive approval. They require a manager willing to listen.

Help Managers Recognize Their Sphere of Influence

Managers often underestimate how much authority they actually have. Maybe they can’t rewrite company policy. But they can usually improve communication, adjust workflows, clarify expectations, remove unnecessary friction, or advocate for their teams with better information.

Stop Using “Corporate” as the Villain

The phrase feels harmless. It’s not. Every time a manager distances themselves from leadership, they chip away at organizational trust.

Instead of saying: “Corporate decided this.” Try: “Here’s why we’re making this change. Let’s talk about what concerns you and what we can influence together.”

One statement creates separation. The other creates partnership.

Teach Managers to Carry Information Both Ways

Managers aren’t simply responsible for delivering messages from leadership. They’re responsible for bringing valuable information back to the organization.

That only happens when employees believe their concerns will actually be heard. Listening isn’t passive. It’s intelligence gathering.

The organizations that adapt fastest aren’t necessarily the ones with the smartest executives. They’re the ones whose managers consistently surface problems before they become crises.

Our Manager Evolution Lab helps managers develop these skills through hands-on learning, coaching, and real-world application so they become leaders who build trust, navigate change effectively, and unite teams instead of unintentionally dividing them.

Give Employees the Confidence to Speak Up, Too

Managers play a critical role in preventing an “us vs. them” culture, but they shouldn’t carry the responsibility alone.

Employees also need to know how to speak up when they see conversations becoming divisive, hear colleagues fueling an “us vs. them” narrative, or witness disrespectful behavior that chips away at trust. Unfortunately, many organizations tell people to “speak up” without ever teaching them how.

That’s where our Building a Speak-Up Culture™ Toolkit comes in.

The toolkit gives HR professionals, managers, and internal facilitators everything they need to teach employees how to intervene respectfully and confidently before everyday frustrations escalate into formal complaints or larger culture problems. Instead of hoping people will do the right thing in difficult moments, you’ll equip them with practical tactics they can use immediately.

The program includes ready-to-use presentation slides, a facilitator guide, participant materials, and additional resources so you can deliver the training whenever your organization needs it. It’s the same program organizations have invested thousands of dollars to bring in-house, now available for you to purchase for just $249.

When people know they’ll be supported and have the skills to step in constructively, you’ll see fewer interpersonal conflicts reaching HR, stronger collaboration across teams, and greater confidence in addressing issues early instead of letting them fester.

And if you’re thinking, “What if I deliver this training and someone challenges me by asking, ‘Why do we even need this training?’ Watch our expert facilitator, Dr. Toni Herndon, demonstrate exactly how she responds to that challenge with confidence, curiosity, and credibility. It’s a simple shift that not only answers the question but also reinforces why upstander skills matter in today’s workplace

Watch Dr. Toni Herndon demonstrate how she confidently answers one of the most common questions about speak-up training.

Every healthy workplace starts with one conversation. Schedule a call with our team to discuss how we can help you build a culture where people speak up, step in, and support one another.

Sincerely,

Catherine & The Civility Partners Team

The post Do Your Managers Create an “Us vs. Them” Mentality? Here’s How to Know and What to Do About It. appeared first on Civility Partners.

It isn’t.

The difficult conversations, severance packages, and notifications are emotionally draining, but they aren’t where organizations win or lose their culture. The real challenge begins the next morning, when everyone logs back into work, notices the empty desks or missing names in Microsoft Teams, and starts asking questions leadership may never hear out loud.

Am I next?

Was this really necessary?

Can I trust what leadership is telling us?

How am I supposed to do the work of two people?

Employees don’t stop asking those questions because leadership announces it’s “time to move forward.” If anything, that’s when they begin paying even closer attention to how leaders behave.

Here’s the problem: most organizations spend months planning the reduction in force and almost no time planning what comes after it. They carefully calculate payroll savings, legal exposure, and communication plans, but very few create a strategy for rebuilding trust with the people who remain.

That’s backwards.

The layoff isn’t the end of the crisis. In many organizations, it’s the beginning of a completely different one.

Employees who remain after layoffs often experience what psychologists call survivor syndrome—a combination of guilt, anxiety, reduced trust, and fear about the future. Those emotions don’t simply affect morale. They affect decision-making, collaboration, innovation, and retention.

Mistakes Organizations Make

The reality is that many organizations spend months planning the layoff and almost no time planning the recovery. That’s where the real business risk begins. Here are the four mistakes I see organizations make over and over again.

Mistake #1: Thinking the Crisis Ends When the Layoffs Are Over

The day employees are notified is not the end of the crisis.

It’s the beginning of a new one.

The employees who remain aren’t simply processing the loss of coworkers. They’re trying to determine whether they can still trust leadership. Every executive meeting, every unanswered question, every vague announcement becomes another piece of evidence they use to decide whether the organization deserves that trust.

Researchers have studied what they call survivor syndrome for decades. Employees who remain after layoffs commonly experience guilt, anxiety, uncertainty, and declining trust. Those emotions don’t just affect morale. They influence productivity, collaboration, innovation, and retention.

Most leaders assume employees need reassurance.

What employees actually need is evidence.

Evidence that leadership is present. Evidence that someone has a plan. Evidence that the organization’s values still apply when business gets difficult.

Mistake #2: Expecting Employees to Do More Work Forever

This is where leaders unintentionally create the next wave of turnover.

Ten people become eight.

The work stays exactly the same.

Leadership thanks everyone for “stepping up.”

Initially, employees usually do. They work longer hours because they care about their teammates and want the organization to succeed. But temporary effort eventually becomes permanent expectation if leaders never stop to reassess priorities.

Research bears this out. A 2025 survey of layoff survivors found that 61% experienced an immediate increase in workload, while 60% said those heavier workloads continued well beyond the initial transition period. Even more concerning, 42% reported being assigned responsibilities outside their expertise without adequate training, increasing operational risk while accelerating burnout.

Most organizations eliminate people.

They rarely eliminate work.

Those are two very different decisions.

Leaders should be asking what work can stop, what priorities need to change, and what no longer creates enough value to justify the effort. Otherwise, they’re not building resilience. They’re institutionalizing exhaustion.

Mistake #3: Going Silent When Employees Need Leaders Most

Many executives believe the communication plan ends after the layoff announcement.

Employees disagree.

In fact, the communication that follows often matters more than the announcement itself.

Employees understand that leaders won’t have every answer immediately. What damages trust isn’t uncertainty, it’s silence. When leaders stop communicating, employees fill the gaps with rumors, assumptions, and worst-case scenarios.

Gallup continues to find that employees’ confidence in leadership is one of the strongest predictors of engagement and retention. When confidence declines, performance follows shortly behind.

The goal isn’t to project certainty.

The goal is to demonstrate consistency.

Even saying, “Here’s what we know today, here’s what we’re still figuring out, and here’s when you’ll hear from us again,” goes much further than disappearing until the next quarterly meeting.

Mistake #4: Trying to Repair Trust With Perks Instead of Leadership

This may be the most common mistake of all.

Organizations announce appreciation lunches.

They launch wellness initiatives. They send care packages. They remind employees about the Employee Assistance Program.

None of those things are bad. But they also don’t address the reason trust was damaged.

Employees don’t need another wellness app if they’re carrying two jobs. They don’t need pizza if they’re afraid to ask questions. They don’t need another motivational speech if managers still avoid difficult conversations.

Culture is created through everyday interactions. People repeat behaviors that are rewarded, ignored, or tolerated. If leaders continue rewarding overwork, ignoring employee concerns, tolerating inconsistent accountability, or avoiding transparency, no amount of employee appreciation events will rebuild trust.

Policies don’t change behavior.

People do.

The Real Cost Isn’t the Layoff. It’s What Happens Next.

Leaders often evaluate layoffs by asking one question: “How much money did we save?”

It’s the wrong question.

A better question is: “What is this decision going to cost us over the next twelve months if we don’t actively rebuild trust?”

If your best employees quietly leave, managers burn out, innovation slows, employees stop speaking up, and recruiting becomes harder because of your reputation, the savings from the layoff can disappear remarkably quickly.

In our consulting work, we rarely get called the week after a layoff. We usually get the call six to twelve months later, when leaders can’t understand why morale has collapsed, turnover has increased, and employees no longer trust leadership.

By then, they’re trying to solve problems that actually started the day after the layoff.

The goal isn’t to erase the memory of the layoffs. That’s impossible. The goal is to create enough trust that employees believe leadership will navigate uncertainty with honesty, transparency, and accountability.

Because layoffs don’t automatically create culture crises.

Leadership mistakes afterward do.

If you’re seeing signs of declining trust, burnout, fear of speaking up, or disengagement, don’t assume they’ll resolve on their own. Our workplace culture assessments help organizations uncover what’s really happening beneath the surface and provide leaders with practical, data-driven strategies to rebuild trust and strengthen culture. Schedule a conversation with one of our experts to assess where your culture stands today and what it will take to move forward.

The post 4 Mistakes That Turn a Necessary Layoff Into a Culture Crisis appeared first on Civility Partners.

As I explained that training likely isn’t the answer to solving a longstanding problem, she said she was offended that I would suggest that. Ultimately, she went and found herself a trainer who would deliver upon exactly what she was ordering up for her client. 

While I wish that trainer well, I just can’t fathom that longstanding problems are solved over a two-hour workshop. Understanding root causes and the way in which the organization facilitates those problems is going to be key information for true resolution. And Civility Partners just doesn’t offer performative services.

You know a lawyer wouldn’t file a motion without understanding the full legal situation. An architect wouldn’t start construction before evaluating the site and reviewing the plans. A mechanic wouldn’t replace an engine simply because a customer said the car made a strange noise.

Yet here this attorney had defined the problem, decided she knew the solution, and started shopping for that very solution. She was even offended when we suggested her solution might not be the right one. 

This is an example of the gatekeeper’s actions derailing meaningful workplace change before it even begins.

What Culture Gatekeepers Get Wrong About Change

Gatekeepers want to help. They care about the organization, they want to resolve conflict, and they want employees to have a positive experience at work.

The issue isn’t their intent. The issue is that they often approach workplace culture from the perspective of their own expertise. And it’s hard to help them see that they may be a little off because, well, they’re experts in their own areas of expertise. 

Here are three ways culture gatekeepers unintentionally sabotage meaningful workplace change:

1. They Prescribe Solutions Before Understanding the Real Problem

Many times, an internal or external gatekeeper decides the organization needs coaching, training, or a new policy before anyone gathers meaningful information about what’s actually happening.

Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and saying, “I need knee surgery.” Most doctors wouldn’t immediately schedule the procedure. They would ask questions, run tests, and determine the best course of action.

Workplace culture deserves the same level of investigation.

The best way to begin improving your workplace culture is with a survey that gives you the data needed to make strategic, informed decisions. Our climate assessment identifies both strengths and opportunities in the five areas we know drive your workforce’s perceptions of culture and that can create risk of liability or turnover if not addressed: internal communication, employee engagement, trust and collaboration between peers, departments, and leaders, job satisfaction, and inclusion and psychological safety.

Without a proper assessment, organizations risk solving the wrong problem entirely. It’s throwing spaghetti at the wall. 

2. They Mistake Activity for Progress

Culture gatekeepers often feel pressure to demonstrate action quickly. As a result, organizations launch initiatives that look productive on paper but create little measurable change in practice. 

Employees attend workshops, and leaders hold meetings and town halls. Everyone stays busy, yet six months later, employees report the same frustrations, the same tensions, and the same concerns.

In our recent example, the attorney and her client likely feel some relief that the training is over and the “longstanding problem is finally resolved.” Give it a few months to a few years, and the problems will surely resurface.

Real progress shows up in behavior, relationships, decision-making, and employee experience. Not in the number of initiatives an organization launches or how people feel about them.

3. They Overestimate Their Expertise

This may sound harsh, but it’s true. People often assume that because they work in HR, legal, operations, or leadership, they automatically understand organizational culture.

They don’t.

Culture and how to change it effectively and successfully is a specialized field. It involves understanding human behavior, organizational systems, leadership dynamics, accountability structures, psychological safety, change management and a host of other areas.

Expertise matters because culture problems are rarely as simple as they appear.

The Best Culture Leaders Start with Curiosity

The most successful culture transformations begin with a simple mindset: curiosity. 

Questions like these – and so, so many more – are important:

• How did we get here?
• What people are involved and what role did they play?
• What is the organization doing or not doing that facilitated this problem?
• What could we have done differently in the past?
• What do we need to do differently in the future?
• How will we know our changes stick? How will we measure success?

Curiosity creates space for discovery. It allows leaders to gather data before making decisions, and it encourages experts to do what experts are supposed to do: evaluate the situation, identify root causes, and recommend solutions based on evidence.

Culture problems are expensive to solve, but solving the wrong culture problem or using the wrong solution is even more so.

So, if you’re ready to move beyond assumptions and start making informed decisions backed by real data, schedule a time to talk with our expert. 

Our team has helped organizations across industries diagnose complex culture challenges and build healthier, more productive workplaces. We encourage you to review some of our case studies here.

Sincerely,

Catherine & The Civility Partners Team

The post 3 Ways Gatekeepers Sabotage Real Workplace Change appeared first on Civility Partners.

Bloomberg reports a new generation of AI tools designed to detect misconduct, bullying, harassment, belittlement, and other problematic workplace behaviors.

The promise sounds compelling: use artificial intelligence to identify harmful behavior before it escalates into complaints, lawsuits, turnover, or reputational damage. After all, organizations have struggled for decades to address toxic workplace behavior. If technology can help identify misconduct, yay for humanity, right?

Absolutely not.

As consultants who have spent decades helping organizations address toxic workplace cultures, investigate complaints, coach leaders, and rebuild trust, our reaction to these tools is not excitement.

In fact, I personally am fuming.

The problem was never that organizations couldn’t find bad behavior. The problem is that they weren’t listening when employees told them about it.

Organizations Already Have the Data

Employees have been reporting bullying, harassment, intimidation, exclusion, retaliation, and misconduct for years. They report it to managers, to HR, in surveys, during exit interviews, to coworkers, and both anonymously on hotlines and publicly on Glassdoor.

And many of them can tell stories of concerns being minimized, dismissed, ignored, or explained away.

Indeed, research on workplace bullying from around the world finds that HR often makes the situation worse. According to the global manual, Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace: Theory, Research and Practice (3rd Ed.), edited by workplace bullying researchers Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, and Cooper:“HR managers have frequently been portrayed as at best passive and uninformed in bullying cases, and at worst an accomplice, siding with the bully.”And, “HR managers tried to reframe the bullying situation, provide temporary solutions rather than addressing root causes or even tried to push away help-seeking targets.”

This is one of the reasons I created a LinkedIn Learning course, What to Do When You’re Bullied at Work.

So let’s taper the enthusiasm around AI detection tools, shall we? The message employees will hear is not: “We are committed to creating a healthy workplace.”

The message they’ll hear is: “We didn’t believe you, but we’ll believe the algorithm.”

That is a trust problem.

Detection Has Never Been the Hard Part

Toxic behavior isn’t hidden and it doesn’t need detecting. Employers just don’t listen.

Everybody already knows who the problem is. Coworkers know. Managers know. HR knows. Leadership often knows, too.

The challenge is rarely identifying behavior.

In fact, the article shares some excitement that we can now detect “belittlement” where we couldn’t before because it’s so nuanced and we must read between the lines to see it. But if you listen to your employee describe their perception of being belittled and ask questions like:“What would I have experienced if I was there?” “What was their facial expression and tone of voice when they said that?” Then you most certainly can detect belittlement or other such behaviors just fine.

Instead, the challenge is deciding what to do about it. And whether we’re talking about one toxic boss or a culture of toxicity, organizations tolerate this behavior for a variety of reasons, including:

• The one toxic individual delivers results.
• The CEO is conflict avoidant (known as “weak leadership” in the academic research).
• Managers and leaders lack the skills or confidence to intervene in a meaningful way.
• The behavior isn’t viewed as a business issue until it becomes a crisis.
• HR only addresses unlawful behavior that violates laws and corporate policies but doesn’t know what to do, or doesn’t think it’s important to address lawful but awful behavior.
• Older generations went through it and think younger generations are just being too sensitive.
• They don’t see the ROI on spending resources toward better culture.
• They think their great employee engagement scores mean they have a great culture without understanding that engagement is an outcome of culture, or that their engagement survey only measures enthusiasm but doesn’t measure risk.
• They mislabel toxicity as interpersonal conflict.
• “It’s always been that way here,” or, “They’re like that with everyone,” so, “What’s the problem?”

Adding more data doesn’t solve the problem. It simply creates a larger pile of information that organizations may still fail to act upon.

If you’d like to act on that data, I’ve just the right LinkedIn Learning course for you: Preventing Harassment in the Workplace.

This is not a compliance course. This is my take on how to create an environment that truly prevents harassment (and all bad behaviors).

Coupled with another one of my courses, Creating a Positive & Healthy Environment, you’re definitely covered in the what-to-do-about-toxic-behavior department.

Who Decides What Counts as Misconduct?

One of the reasons workplace bullying remains lawful in the United States is that, in the states where laws have been proposed, legislatures argue that they can’t regulate civility and that people are entitled to have a bad day.

(I’ll save the rant on that for another day!)

It seems these AI tools, however, are happy to take on that challenge.

So, I’ve directly asked Smarsh, one of these new AI tools, to clarify:

• How often one has to be snarky for it to count as misconduct.
• How many times one has to “yell” over email for it to count as workplace bullying.
• How they defined belittling so they could detect it.

I also asked them how they accounted for gender bias, as women who are direct/assertive are generally considered bullies while men engaged in the same behavior are considered leaders.

I’ll let you know when I hear back, or you can follow the conversation here on LinkedIn.

The Compliance Trap

What concerns me most is that these tools reinforce a dangerous pattern we have observed for years:

Employers approach bad behavior primarily as a compliance issue rather than a culture issue.

Compliance Asks:

• Did someone violate a policy?
• Is there evidence?
• Is there legal risk?
• Do we need to investigate?
• What are the facts?

Culture Asks:

• Why is this behavior occurring?
• What conditions allow it?
• What behaviors are being rewarded, ignored, or tolerated?
• What leadership practices are reinforcing it?
• What are the group’s perceptions of the behavior?

Those are fundamentally different questions, and only one of them addresses root causes.

A company can investigate every complaint that AI identifies and still fail to improve its culture.

Because behavior does not exist in isolation. It exists within systems.

Toxic Behavior Is an Organizational Problem, So Stop Villainizing the Toxic Person

When employers do take misconduct to heart and decide to do something about it, they often view it as an individual problem.

Find the bad actor, coach them, discipline them, maybe even terminate their employment.

That’s all fine and dandy, but don’t forget to ask:

“Why did they think they could act that way here?”

That’s the most important question, and the answer is:

“Their work environment.”

A great example is retaliation.

We all know employees fear retaliation for speaking up, but no one ever asks why.

Why, in your organization, do people fear retaliation?

What is your organization doing or not doing that causes that fear?

Don’t blame people for fearing retaliation. Make it your mission to ensure they don’t.

Another great example is burnout.

We all know employees are burned out, and wellness initiatives galore attempt to solve it.

But if you ask why people are burned out in your organization specifically, the answer is almost positively the organization itself:

• The overwork
• The stress of potential layoffs
• The inefficient processes
• The lack of transparency
• Perhaps even the toxic boss

Instead of spending resources on wellness programs, spend resources on making the workplace well.

And if you’re using resources to implement AI to detect toxic behavior, you’d be better served to teach everyone to detect toxic behavior and become upstanders for their work culture and your company core values.

I’ve got a course on that too. Here’s the link to my From Bystander to Upstander course on LinkedIn. Or you can purchase our upstander course and deliver it to your workforce. It’s complete with slides, facilitator notes, a learner handbook, and videos from our facilitators offering tips to create a psychologically safe training environment and deliver high-impact training. 

The Question Isn’t “Do We Need AI?” It’s “Why Do We Need It?”

Before implementing AI to detect misconduct, organizations should ask themselves a simpler question:

Why do we need it? 

If employees trust leadership, feel safe speaking up, and believe concerns will be addressed fairly, the information is already available.

Employees will tell you what’s happening if they believe you care.

The real challenge is creating an environment where they believe it’s worth telling you.

That requires:

• Trust
• Psychological safety
• Skilled managers
• Consistent accountability
• Leadership credibility
• A willingness to act on feedback

Those are human capabilities, not technological ones.

Technology Is Not a Substitute for Leadership

To be clear, technology itself is not the enemy.

AI may eventually become a useful supplemental tool for identifying patterns, monitoring trends, or supporting investigations.

But organizations should be careful not to mistake detection for prevention.

They should not mistake data for action.

And they should not mistake technology for leadership.

The organizations most likely to benefit from these tools are probably the organizations that need them the least: the ones that already take behavior seriously, listen to employees, and act when concerns arise.

The organizations that struggle most with toxic behavior don’t typically suffer from a lack of information.

They suffer from a lack of courage, accountability, and follow-through.

If they need AI to tell them something’s amiss, their building’s already on fire.

That’s why the future of healthy workplace culture will never be built by algorithms.

It will be built by leaders who are willing to listen to people before they need a machine to tell them something is wrong.

The post AI Can Now Detect Workplace Bullying and I’m Mad as Hell About It appeared first on Civility Partners.

Interested in talking more about this topic? Head over to the LinkedIn version and drop a comment or share it with your network.

You’ve been at the receiving end of a steady diet of advice that sounds smart, looks great on conference slides, and earns plenty of LinkedIn engagement.

But it’s wrong. Not all of it. And not completely.

Just wrong enough to keep organizations focused on symptoms instead of causes, policies instead of people, and compliance instead of culture.

And… all those misconceptions are costing organizations more than they realize.

A few months ago, I took the stage at DisruptHR San Diego to challenge some of the workplace culture advice that’s long been accepted as fact.

If you’ve never attended a DisruptHR event, imagine TED Talks with less formality, more energy, and a healthy dose of challenging conventional wisdom. Speakers get just five minutes to make their point, and I used every second of mine.

I’m just sick of hearing the same ol’ advice over and over, and apparently I got a little fired up. To be fair, that was exactly the energy the event called for.

You can watch the full five-minute talk here:

Warning: I used a few choice words.

The Workplace Culture Advice We Need to Unlearn

In the talk, I share several workplace culture myths that continue to shape how organizations approach culture, leadership, harassment prevention, burnout, and employee engagement.

Here are four of them.

Lie #1: Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

I know. This one is practically HR gospel. But think about what it implies: that culture and strategy are somehow separate things, and that culture can either support or sabotage strategy.

That’s not how organizations actually work.

Culture is strategy.

The way people communicate, collaborate, make decisions, resolve conflict, and treat one another directly impacts whether strategic goals are achieved. 

We’ve all seen organizations with terrible cultures continue to hit revenue targets. We’ve also seen organizations with positive cultures struggle strategically.

The lesson isn’t that culture doesn’t matter. It’s that culture should be treated as a strategic asset, not as a side initiative. When culture becomes part of your strategic plan, you will gain a competitive advantage that competitors can’t easily replicate.

Lie #2: Culture Comes from the Top

Leadership absolutely influences culture but culture doesn’t magically flow down from executives and settle over employees like a blanket.

Employees experience culture through daily interactions. They experience it through conversations with coworkers, through how managers respond to mistakes, through how conflicts are handled, and through what behaviors are rewarded, ignored, and tolerated.

That means every employee influences culture.

Waiting for executives to change before addressing culture is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Culture shifts happen through thousands of interactions every day, not through a memo from the CEO.

If you want culture change, start where people actually experience culture: in their daily relationships.

Lie #3: Policies Drive Behavior

HR professionals love policies. Employees don’t decide whether to engage in misconduct by consulting the employee handbook.

Nobody has ever thought: “Well, I was going to bully my coworker today, but page 47 says I shouldn’t.”

Policies establish expectations and provide legal protection. They’re important but they don’t shape behavior nearly as much as social norms. People behave in ways they believe will be rewarded, ignored, or tolerated.

If leaders tolerate disrespect, employees learn that disrespect is acceptable. If managers reward collaboration, employees learn that collaboration matters. Culture, not policy, is what determines how people actually behave.

Lie #4: Harassment Is a Compliance Problem

Harassment prevention has become heavily focused on compliance.

• Training requirements.
• Reporting procedures.
• Investigation protocols.

All important.

But by the time you’re conducting an investigation, your culture has already failed. Harassment is fundamentally a people and culture problem.

When individuals believe harmful behavior will be tolerated, ignored, or even rewarded, misconduct flourishes. Organizations that focus exclusively on compliance often miss the larger question: What conditions allowed this behavior to occur in the first place?

The goal shouldn’t simply be responding to harassment effectively. The goal should be creating cultures where harassment is less likely to occur at all.

There Are More Lies Where Those Came From

In my DisruptHR talk, I also tackle myths about retaliation, burnout, engagement surveys, toxic leaders, and why many workplace interventions fail to create meaningful change.

The entire presentation is just five minutes long, but it challenges some of the most common assumptions HR professionals have been taught for years.

Watch the full talk here and share with your network! Then let me know which “lie” resonated with you the most.

And if you’re ready to move beyond compliance and start building a culture where people actually thrive, schedule a conversation with our expert, Rebecca Del Secco. Whether you need ideas, strategy, or simply a sounding board, we’d love to help. Grab a time on her calendar here.

The post 7 Corporate Lies & The Real Truths (my 5 min DisruptHR talk) appeared first on Civility Partners.

This month, you’ll see rainbow logos, employee resource group events, and social media campaigns celebrating LGBTQ+ employees and communities. But Pride Month wasn’t created as a marketing campaign or even as a celebration. It began as a protest.

Understanding will help you move beyond any performative gestures and toward something more meaningful: creating workplaces where people feel safe, respected, and able to bring their authentic selves to work.

The Origins of Pride Month

The roots of Pride Month trace back to June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Police raids on LGBTQ+ establishments were common at the time, but that night, patrons and community members resisted. The resulting demonstrations lasted several days and became a turning point in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

One year later, activists organized the first Pride marches in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco to commemorate the Stonewall uprising and advocate for equal rights. They were public demonstrations demanding visibility, dignity, and legal protections for LGBTQ+ people.

June was officially recognized as Pride Month in the United States decades later, first through a presidential proclamation by President Bill Clinton in 1999.

Today, Pride is celebrated around the world and its foundation remains rooted in a simple idea: everyone deserves the freedom to live openly and safely.

What Pride Means in the Workplace

Pride Month isn’t just about history. It’s about whether members of the LGBTQ+ community feel comfortable being out and proud at work, not just this month, but every day of the year.

The workplace has made significant progress over the past several decades. Anti-discrimination protections have expanded and employee resource groups have become more common. Yet the experience of LGBTQ+ employees remains uneven.

Research from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found that 84% of LGBTQ+ employees are open about their sexual orientation to at least one person at work. On the surface, that seems encouraging. However, the same research found that nearly 25% of LGBTQ+ employees have hidden their identity at work because of fear of discrimination or a lack of protections. Additionally, 28% reported leaving a job because the workplace environment felt unwelcoming.

These findings reveal an important truth: visibility and psychological safety are not the same thing.

An employee may be “out” to a trusted coworker while still feeling uncomfortable discussing their spouse, displaying family photos, or correcting assumptions about their identity.

For anyone who doesn’t understand this, consider what it’d be like to question whether you should put pictures of your spouse on your desk, or talk about what you did over the weekend with your partner.

True inclusion happens when employees no longer have to calculate whether authenticity will come at a professional cost.

When Do Employees Start Feeling Comfortable?

There is no single moment when LGBTQ+ employees suddenly feel comfortable being themselves at work. Instead, comfort develops through everyday interactions and organizational signals.

All employees tend to feel safer when they consistently experience:

• Respectful and inclusive leadership behavior.
• Clear anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies.
• Colleagues who challenge inappropriate comments.
• Visible support from managers.
• Inclusive benefits and practices.
• Representation of people like them in leadership positions.

The Human Rights Campaign’s workplace research identifies everyday interactions and team culture as some of the strongest predictors of whether LGBTQ+ employees feel accepted and included. Inclusion is often shaped less by corporate statements and more by daily experiences with supervisors and coworkers.

This distinction matters because many organizations focus heavily on symbolic gestures while overlooking the day-to-day behaviors that actually build trust.

According to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, 47% of LGBTQ+ employees have experienced workplace discrimination or harassment at some point in their careers because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The study also found that 46% are not open about being LGBTQ+ with their current supervisor, and 21% are not out to any coworkers.

The emotional energy required to constantly monitor and manage one’s identity can affect engagement, well-being, and retention. When employees are focused on self-protection, they have fewer resources available for creativity, collaboration, and performance.

If you’d like to help employees and managers build the skills needed to foster a more inclusive and respectful workplace, we can help. We offer training programs for employees at all levels, including specialized sessions for managers and leaders. Explore our full menu of training topics here, and let us know if you’d like to bring one to your organization.

What Organizations Can Learn from Pride’s History

The history of Pride Month reminds us that inclusion has always been about more than visibility. It is about creating environments where people can participate fully without fear.

For employers, that means recognizing that belonging is not achieved through a single event in June. It is built through consistent actions throughout the year.

Organizations that want LGBTQ+ employees to feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work should focus on the fundamentals:

• Holding leaders accountable for respectful behavior.
• Addressing incivility and harassment promptly.
• Ensuring policies and benefits are inclusive.
• Supporting employee resource groups and allies.
• Creating cultures where differences are respected rather than merely tolerated.

The goal is not simply helping employees feel comfortable coming out. The goal is creating workplaces where employees never feel they need to hide in the first place.

Looking Forward

Pride Month began with individuals who refused to accept exclusion and injustice. More than fifty years later, that legacy continues to offer an important lesson for organizations: belonging does not happen because a company declares itself inclusive. It happens when employees experience inclusion every day.

As we reflect on Pride Month, perhaps the most meaningful question is not whether you and your employer are open to celebrating Pride, but whether your LGBTQ+ employees genuinely feel they still belong on July 1 and for the rest of their working lives.

The post Pride Month: Performative Vs. Actual Activities appeared first on Civility Partners.

Wait… what? 

That was essentially the message Ryan Breslow, CEO of Bolt, delivered recently when he announced he had eliminated the company’s entire HR team because they were allegedly “creating problems out of thin air.” According to Breslow, once HR was gone, the problems disappeared too. He also suggested that because Bolt operates remotely, HR simply wasn’t necessary. 

The internet, unsurprisingly, exploded. He didn’t just criticize HR but also tapped into a frustration that has been building in workplaces for years. Employees are exhausted, leaders are frustrated, trust is low, bureaucracy feels high, and somewhere along the way, HR became the face of all of it.

However, as someone who works with organizations to create positive work cultures, I can say that people are looking at the wrong problem entirely. Because if your company went from an $11 billion valuation to roughly $300 million, I’d argue that’s not an HR problem at all.

Reasons Eliminating HR Won’t Fix Workplace Dysfunction

Here are five things Breslow, and frankly a lot of organizations, get wrong about HR.

1. HR Is the Scapegoat for Leadership Failures

The reason Breslow received so much support is because many people have had genuinely frustrating experiences with HR. (Just look at the comments section on my Instagram posts. People constantly telling me the workplace problems I discuss will never change because HR is awful.)

Employees often feel like:

• HR protects the company instead of people
• Simple issues become formalized unnecessarily
• Managers avoid direct conversations
• Workplace culture has become overly performative

At the same time, many leaders feel buried under process, approvals, training, investigations, and bureaucracy.

In many organizations, employees feel like they are constantly navigating politics, unclear expectations, and communication breakdowns. Leaders feel afraid to say the wrong thing and the managers hesitate to address performance directly.

And people assume HR created all of those problems. But most of the time, HR becomes the container for problems leadership failed to address early enough – problems HR had been telling HR about for years.

Think about it this way: healthy organizations have leaders who know how to lead, because the organization taught them how through setting clear expectations, training, and mentorship. Managers communicate directly, accountability is clear, and conflict gets handled early and respectfully.

But when trust starts breaking down, organizations compensate by adding more policy, more oversight, more procedures, and more escalation systems. And everyone ends up asking HR for help.

No help? HR’s fault, right? Actually, HR can only solve the problems they’ve been given permission and budget to solve. 

2. Remote Work Doesn’t Eliminate People Problems

Breslow suggested remote companies don’t experience the same level of workplace issues. Anyone who has led remote teams knows that’s simply not true.

In fact, Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace research found that fully remote employees report higher levels of loneliness than on-site workers, which is 25% versus 16%.

Remote environments struggle with (even more so than onsite environments):

• communication breakdowns
• conflict avoidance
• unclear expectations
• performance management
• burnout
• trust issues
• leadership inconsistency

In many cases, remote work actually amplifies those challenges because leaders have fewer opportunities to repair relationships informally. People problems don’t disappear when people are online. They just show up differently.

3. Employees Aren’t Actually Asking for Less Culture

I literally just got off the phone with a potential client who is spending $10,000 on two social events for their workforce this year. But the HR manager is fighting for budget to get a toxic leader coaching, and manager training for all people leaders.

But that’s okay, the happy hour will have a fantastic impact on culture, right? Wrong.

For years, many companies invested more energy into branding their culture than actually building a healthy one.

Employees noticed. 

• They noticed when organizations talked endlessly about values while tolerating toxic behavior behind the scenes. 
• They noticed leaders praising psychological safety while punishing honest feedback. 
• They noticed culture becoming a marketing message instead of a lived experience.

That disconnect created massive cynicism. So when Breslow publicly rejected HR, many people interpreted it as rejecting performative corporate culture altogether. 

But employees aren’t asking for less work on culture. They’re asking for less dysfunction. And that, my friends, comes from the top, not HR.

4. Responsibilities Don’t Disappear Just Because HR Does

Even if you eliminate HR, someone still has to manage:

• Organizational risk
• Compliance
• Benefits and payroll
• Employee conflict
• Communication
• Complaints
• Training
• Hiring and onboarding

Those responsibilities don’t evaporate. They simply fall onto leaders who are probably already overwhelmed and unprepared to handle them effectively.

5. Leadership-HR Misalignment

This controversy highlights something I see constantly in organizations: Many executives still misunderstand the value HR is supposed to bring to an organization. They view HR primarily as compliance, investigations, policies, and paperwork. But that’s only one piece of the role.

Good HR is strategic, builds the organization, and helps leaders navigate growth, turnover, restructuring, conflict, accountability, and culture before those issues spiral into organizational instability.

So when a company is declining, losing talent, experiencing layoffs, or struggling operationally, leadership should be leaning into strategic HR, not dismissing it entirely.

Now, to be fair, there are absolutely HR departments that fail to operate strategically. Some become overly bureaucratic, some lose alignment with business realities, and some focus so heavily on process that they stop helping leaders solve actual organizational problems.

If that happened at Bolt, then yes, that’s a problem. And HR leadership should own their part in that. But removing HR altogether doesn’t solve organizational dysfunction. It usually just removes the people responsible for helping manage it.

What Companies Should Learn From This

The real lesson here isn’t that HR is unnecessary. It’s that organizations function best when leadership, systems, and individuals are fully aligned.

When executives treat HR as nothing more than policy enforcement and paperwork, the organization loses one of its most important strategic functions. At the same time, HR loses credibility when it becomes disconnected from the realities leaders and employees are facing day to day.

Ready to Build a Healthier, More Strategic Workplace?

Right now a lot of organizations are dealing with the same challenges. The solution isn’t to get rid of HR. It’s developing a healthier organization by empowering HR to take that on. 

That’s exactly why we’re offering our Strategic HR Bundle as a free download. It’s designed for organizations that want HR to function as a true strategic business partner instead of just a compliance function.

Whether your organization is experiencing turnover, leadership tension, employee conflict, culture fatigue, or rapid organizational change, our team can help you strengthen workplace culture, improve communication, reduce conflict, and better align your people strategy with your business goals.

To learn more, simply respond to this email to schedule your free culture consultation with one of our workplace culture experts.

The post 5 Things Ryan Breslow (& Most Executives) Gets Wrong About HR appeared first on Civility Partners.

Most people don’t stay silent at work when they witness toxic behavior because they don’t care. They stay silent because they’re unsure. They don’t know what to say, they’re worried they’ll make it worse, or they’re not confident they’ll be supported.

And research backs this up. Employees frequently hold back ideas, concerns, or feedback because they believe it won’t matter or they don’t feel psychologically safe enough to speak up.

But silence has consequences.

Even when unintentional, it can signal agreement, reinforce problematic behavior, and leave others feeling unsupported. Over time, that silence becomes part of the culture.

So this month, we’re equipping people with the language to act.

What to Say (When It Matters Most)

Knowing you should speak up is one thing.

Knowing what to say in the moment is what actually makes the difference. Being an upstander doesn’t require a dramatic speech or a perfectly crafted response.

It’s about small, intentional moments. Here are a few simple, effective ways to respond in real time:

When someone makes a joke that crosses the line: “I’m missing something… why is that funny?”

When someone takes credit for another person’s work: “I want to make sure we recognize that this was originally [Name]’s idea.”

When someone shuts someone down or dismisses someone’s input: “I think they’ve got more to say on that point. Can we give it a bit more space?”

When feedback is delivered harshly or disrespectfully: “I read once that feedback is best if focused on the problematic behavior rather than the person. You can’t fix lazy, but you can fix missing deadlines, so it might be better to try that next time. What do you think?”

When a boundary is being crossed (time, workload, personal space): “That timeline isn’t realistic for me. Can we adjust?” Or, “I need to set a boundary here so I can stay effective and on top of things.”

These moments may seem small, but they’re culture-defining because culture lives in daily interactions. When you describe your company culture to an outsider, for example, whether you know it or not, you’re talking about “how it is” with the people you work with.

Most importantly, these actions are learnable. When you have even one or two go-to phrases, your likelihood of speaking up increases significantly. You can explore more examples of what to say in the moment here.

Where to Start

Bring “What to Say May” into your workplace! You can keep it simple and actionable:

• Share one phrase a week with your team
• Role-play common scenarios in team meetings (keep it low-pressure) so people develop social permission to speak up by learning what others might do
• Encourage leaders to model speaking up in real time
• Tie speaking up to core values (guaranteed at least one of your company’s values makes room for speaking up)
• Reinforce that progress, not perfection, is the goal

Like any skill, it gets stronger with guidance, repetition, and support.

That’s why organizations that are serious about building respectful workplaces are investing in tools that help employees move from intention to action. It’s not enough to tell people to “speak up.” You have to show them how.

This is where structured approaches like our Upstander Training Toolkit can make a real difference. When people have frameworks, language, and examples, they’re far more likely to step in when it counts.

It’s our most requested training program, typically brought in-house for thousands of dollars. But you can access it for just $249! 

Leading in a Speak-Up Culture

“What to Say May” is about building the skill of speaking up. 

And you may have noticed Gen Z is already raising the bar.

This generation is more likely than others to question norms, call out misalignment, and expect workplaces to back up their values with action. They’re not just willing to speak up. They expect to be heard.

And that’s creating both an opportunity and a challenge for leaders. So join our free webinar: “The Gen Z Effect on Leadership and Workplace Culture,” on May 27th at 10am PT.

Attendees will earn 1 SHRM/HRCI PDC, and a few lucky participants will win our Upstander Training Toolkit and copies of Catherine’s book, Navigating a Toxic Workplace for Dummies.

👉 Register here to save your spot.

The post “What to Say May”: Turn Good Intentions into Everyday Courage appeared first on Civility Partners.

In fact, research shows that Gen Z employees are highly values-driven. Nearly 9 in 10 say purpose is critical to their job satisfaction and they increasingly expect to be heard on issues like ethics, inclusion, and leadership decisions. Even more telling, Gen Z employees expect their voices to be heard and taken seriously, and they’re looking for leaders who actively listen and create space for their input.

So, what’s behind this shift? Why is Gen Z more willing, sometimes even eager, to speak up compared to previous generations?

Let’s take a closer look.

1. They Grew Up Using Their Voice

First and foremost, Gen Z has been encouraged to speak up from a young age. Think about it – they’ve been using their voice on social media, their schools offered learning around anti-bullying and other topics older generations didn’t discuss, and they’ve grown up watching global movements. 

They don’t know any difference. Speaking up is just a normal part of their lives. It just is.

As a result, silence isn’t a default. They’re used to sharing opinions, asking questions, and challenging ideas in real time thanks to technology. And when they enter the workplace they bring that same expectation with them.

2. They’ve Seen the Cost of Staying Silent

Gen Z has grown up watching the consequences of silence play out publicly across industries, institutions, and leadership structures.

From workplace scandals to social justice movements, they’ve seen what happens when issues go unaddressed. We all watched the news in horror as we learned that Harvey Weinstein had gotten away with sexual assault for years due to silence. They (and we) have also seen viral stories on platforms like TikTok and LinkedIn, where thousands of workers share experiences of burnout, toxic management, or unfair treatment and the overwhelming response those posts receive.

In many cases, those stories have led companies to publicly respond, investigate, or even change policies.

Moments like these reinforce a powerful message: staying silent doesn’t fix the problem but speaking up can.

3. They See Work as an Extension of Their Values

Thanks to technology, Gen Z has witnessed their parents extend their work into the home. These days, watching TV together no doubt includes some emailing or quick calls with the boss or a client. In line at Starbucks on a Saturday morning before swim practice likely includes some quick texts to a co-worker. Hybrid and remote work models mean a few more hours in the home office after picking the kids up from school. Or, as I’ve personally observed and done myself, some work even gets done on the bleachers during soccer practice.

Previous generations didn’t have that window into their parents’ worklife. Work and life were more intentionally separated. Now, having observed parents whose work and home life greatly intertwine, they don’t buy into having a work life persona that varies from a home life persona.

When something at work conflicts with personal values, speaking up is the way to align the work environment with their personal life. Issues like fairness, inclusion, mental health, and ethics can’t be an employer’s “nice to have.” They’re non-negotiable. 

The Real Opportunity for Leaders

Gen Z’s willingness to speak up isn’t a problem to manage. It’s a signal to pay attention.

When employees raise concerns, share ideas, or challenge the status quo, they’re giving leaders valuable insight into what’s working and what’s not.

The key is in how leaders respond. If leaders listen, stay open, and take action, they build trust and strengthen culture. On the other hand, if leaders dismiss or ignore these voices because, “You just don’t have the experience I do and you have no idea what I went through to get here,” leaders risk losing engagement and talent.

Join our Webinar

If this topic resonates, you’re not alone. We’ve been hearing more and more questions from leaders about how to effectively support and engage Gen Z in the workplace. That’s exactly why we’re hosting a free webinar: “The Gen Z Effect on Leadership and Workplace Culture” on May 27th, 10am PT.

During this session, we’ll break down what’s changing, what it means for leaders, and how to create a culture where Gen Z and every generation can thrive.

As an added bonus, attendees will earn 1 SHRM/HRCI PDC. Plus, a few lucky participants will win our Upstander Training Toolkit, a powerful resource designed to help employees speak up in the moments that matter. (Our clients invest thousands of dollars to bring this training in-house.)

Even if you don’t win, the toolkit is available for purchase at $249. And yes, we’ll also be giving away copies of Navigating a Toxic Workplace For Dummies to select attendees.

👉 Register here to save your spot.

The post 3 Reasons Gen Z Won’t Take B.S. From Their Employers appeared first on Civility Partners.