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.

 

About Catherine Mattice

Catherine Mattice, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP is President of consulting and training firm, Civility Partners, and has been successfully providing programs in workplace bullying and building positive workplaces since 2007. Her clients include Fortune 500’s, the military, several universities and hospitals, government agencies, small businesses and nonprofits. She has published in a variety of trade magazines and has appeared several times on NPR, FOX, NBC, and ABC as an expert, as well as in USA Today, Inc Magazine, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more. Catherine is Past-President of the Association for Talent Development (ATD), San Diego Chapter and teaches at National University. In his book foreword, Ken Blanchard called her book, BACK OFF! Your Kick-Ass Guide to Ending Bullying at Work, “the most comprehensive and valuable handbook on the topic.” She recently released a second book entitled, SEEKING CIVILITY: How Leaders, Managers and HR Can Create a Workplace Free of Bullying.

3 Savvy Ways to Spend Your Budget Surplus

It’s halfway through the year, and for some companies, the fiscal year is wrapping up, leaving them with an unexpected budget surplus.  While it might be tempting to funnel these extra funds into new equipment or throw after-hours parties, there's a more strategic...

Implicit Bias Training That Works

A significant barrier to achieving a diverse and inclusive workforce is implicit bias. Implicit bias occurs when, for instance, you hear the word "engineer" and immediately assume it is a man, or hear "teacher" and assume it is a woman. Have you ever been guilty of...

Over 50% of Workers Now Value Balance and Belonging Over Climbing the Corporate Ladder

Yesterday, I came across research by Randstad and it really got me thinking about how much the workplace landscape is changing. This study included insights from 27,000 workers worldwide and what really caught my attention was that nearly half of the respondents—47%,...

Your Culture Matters as Much as Your Legal Compliance

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...

How We Create Respectful Work Cultures

For the past 15 years, we have been dedicated to transforming toxic workplace cultures and fostering positive environments through executive coaching, corporate training, and large-scale culture change projects. We’ve serviced over 250 clients and their thousands of...

42% of employees would QUIT over political disagreements

Is it appropriate to restrict employees from expressing their political views at work? On the one hand, you want people to feel free to express themselves. But then, you don't want those water cooler chats to turn into full-blown political showdowns. According to a...

Why Retaining Top Talent is More Difficult Than Ever

Finding and keeping great employees can be tough for companies all over. With changes in employee expectations, advancements in technology, and shifts in the job market, it's a real challenge. In 2019, a whopping 42 million U.S. workers alone said "so long" to their...

Can Your Corporate Culture Influence Workplace Violence?

Workplace violence is a serious concern for organizations worldwide. While there are many reasons why it happens, one thing that doesn't get enough attention is the company culture itself. How people act and treat each other at work can make violence more or less...

How to Utilize Culture Surveys for Cultural Change

Surveys are a wonderful resource for measuring the success of culture change. Many clients approach us with the awareness of a cultural problem…but an inability to identify the cause. And that’s where we step in, often using survey scores as an identifier.  Let’s take...

Microaggressions Can Become Part of an Organization’s Culture. Here’s Why

We're talking a lot about making sure everyone feels included and respected in the workplace. But sometimes, it's not the big, obvious stuff that makes people feel excluded and disrespected - it's the little things. We have likely all experienced situations where...