Your Culture Matters as Much as Your Legal Compliance

by May 23, 2024

Legal compliance serves as the bedrock of any organization. While it lays the foundation, a positive workplace culture breathes life into your organization. A strong, supportive culture fosters employee engagement, boosts morale, and enhances productivity. 

This balance between compliance and culture was at the heart of our discussion on last week’s Catherine’s Corner, where we explored California Laws 2024 and Their Effect on Workplace Culture. 

Catherine was joined by employment lawyer Jenna Leyton-Jones and HR consultant Anita Nygaard, and together they unpacked the significant changes coming our way.

If you missed the live show, don’t worry! You can catch the recording right here:

Here are the new laws in California that are set to make a significant impact:

Here are some key takeaways from the conversation:

  • These new laws underscore California’s dedication to creating safer, harassment-free workplaces.
  • Fostering a positive work environment requires clear organizational values, respectful communication, and a focus on work-life balance. 
  • Upstander training empowers employees to address toxic behavior by teaching them how to intervene and support targets. With that said, we made our course, Bystander Training: From Bystander to Upstander, FREE for you! Check it out now! 
  • Auditing risk factors that contribute to toxic behavior is essential for organizations to identify and address underlying issues. 

As July 1st approaches, it’s a great time to ensure your organization is up-to-date with these changes, especially if you’re in California. But remember, the principles of workplace safety and positive culture are universal and benefit everyone, no matter where your team is based.

Recognize that culture and compliance efforts are two sides of the same coin, each enhancing the other to drive our organizations forward.

PS: We are delighted to announce that Suzanne Hoffman, PhD, has joined our team as our Workplace Violence Expert! She offers an interactive and practical workplace violence prevention training program designed to help attendees recognize and report concerning and threatening behaviors.

For more information on our training programs, check it out here or get in touch with us

webinar

PPS: Don’t forget to register for our upcoming webinar! Our expert speakers, Catherine and Bob, will equip you with invaluable strategies to manage conflicts arising from political conversations at work, whether in the upcoming elections or global conflicts.

Reserve your spot today. You definitely won’t want to miss this!

 

Written by: Jennifer Areola

Civility is the platform for organizational success—it is absolutely necessary for an organization to reach its goals. Download our Ebook on Seeking Civility to learn more on how to create a workplace free of bullying and abusive conduct.

 

Catherine

About Catherine Mattice

Catherine Mattice, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the founder/CEO of Civility Partners, an organizational development firm focused on helping organizations create respectful workplace cultures and specializing in turning around toxic cultures. Civility Partners’ clients range from Fortune 500s to small businesses across many industries. Catherine is a TEDx speaker and an HR thought leader who has appeared in such venues as USA Today, Bloomberg, CNN, NPR, and many other national news outlets as an expert. She’s an award-winning speaker, author, and blogger and has 60+ courses reaching global audiences on LinkedIn Learning.  Her fourth book, Navigating Toxic Work Environments For Dummies (Wiley), is available in all major bookstores and where audiobooks are sold.

An Important Survey Question You’re Not Asking

Employee Appreciation Day is March 6th here in the United States, and with it often come social events, catered lunches, swag bags, and gift cards. It’s kind of annoying, if you ask me.  Not because you shouldn’t appreciate your people, but because leaders are fairly...

Hear From the Experts: What Really Happens in Upstander Training

We can tell you that our Upstander Training Toolkit really works in our emails. But the most powerful proof comes from our expert facilitators who deliver this very same training to our own clients. Dr. Toni Herndon and Dr. Bob Berk have facilitated this program to...

Why Organizations Create Toxic Rockstars (And How to Stop Them)

Research shows that more than 70% of employees report experiencing incivility or disrespectful behavior at work, and over half say these behaviors reduce their productivity and morale. Meanwhile, almost every HR or people leader has heard some version of these...

7 Questions to Answer Before Launching a Training Program

Organizations spend a staggering amount on training, yet the results often fall short.  In the United States alone, organizations invested $102.8 billion in training in 2025, up from $98 billion in 2024, yet research consistently shows that only 10–20% of training...

Is Your L&D Equipped to Support a Healthy Workplace?

Learning and Development (L&D) teams are drowning in activity. Leadership academies, compliance refreshers, microlearning libraries, LMS migrations, another platform, another rollout, another “strategic priority.” Motion is constant and it may be keeping your...

Culture Eats Your Policies for Breakfast

If I see or hear the quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” by Peter Drucker one more time, I might vomit. Everyone loves this phrase, but I’m convinced no one knows what it even means. If they did, Civility Partners would be out of a job. While I haven’t read...

Navigating a Toxic Workplace: Practical Strategies for Leaders, HR, and Employees

When toxic behavior - such as gossip, harsh sarcasm, incivility, rudeness, public shaming, serial interrupting, microaggressions, and unresolved conflict - is brushed off as personality differences or “not that bad” it normalizes the behavior. As leaders look the...

Start the Year on a Good Note (Literally): Your Workplace Playlist

Research consistently shows that music affects how our brains process emotion, connection, and stress. According to the American Psychological Association, music can reduce cortisol levels, helping lower stress and anxiety while improving emotional regulation. In...

Celebrating Your 2025 Wins!

Have you stopped to pause and appreciate everything you’ve accomplished this year? Were you able to make some strides on improving your culture? Did you finally get that one initiative approved that you’ve been working on for a while? Or maybe you finally finished out...

HR in 2025: A Year in Review

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s hard not to look back and notice just how much the world of HR has been in motion.  This year revealed an incredible amount of resilience, creativity, and heart across the profession. Many of you worked quietly behind the scenes,...