Changing Workplace Culture Starts in the Bathroom

Culture gets built from the bottom up, not the top down. In this case, I literally mean the bathroom.

Too many CEOs think they can change a culture by decree, or with catchy slogans the marketing people create. Or by what I call “bumper sticker values” that look good on a boardroom wall or in an annual report.

Rather, the first thing you must do is create a physical environment in the business that attracts the kind of people who will support the culture you want.

Case in point: When I took over one company years ago, the culture was a cesspool. I am talking about the worst that you can imagine. The language people in the factory used would make a sailor blush. Sometimes, physical violence would occur. Once, someone in the factory cold-cocked my predecessor.

The leadership would hire anyone who walked in the door if they had a pulse. In fact, if people felt like working on a certain day and came into the plant, the plant supervisor would give them something to do, whether it needed doing or not.

Every culture has a DNA. The DNA of this culture (from top to bottom) was, “We won’t pay you much, and we won’t ask much of you either.”  Accordingly, people acted that way. The DNA in this culture was, “The company doesn’t care about us, so why should we care about the company?”

The women’s restroom was an absolute pit. It made a Greyhound bus lavatory look good. No self-respecting woman would use it. So, what kind of employee would that attract? One who doesn’t respect herself and therefore, wouldn’t respect anyone else. And respect for each other is one of the hallmarks of a strong, productive culture.

So, the first thing I did was gut the old bathroom and remodel it into a nice, comfortable place for women to use.

Next up was the employee cafeteria. The office employees already had a nice cafeteria, but factory employees were not allowed to go in it. They had to take their breaks and eat their lunch at their workstation. What message did this send to factory employees?

I then built a nice, comfortable cafeteria for all employees and eliminated the “office people only” one. A house divided against itself is no way to build a great culture.

One day, I noticed that cars in the employee parking lot would slide into the street during icy winter conditions. This happened because the lot was made of dirt. So, I paved it to fix the problem. Just another example of showing employees that the company does care about them.

Removing or improving physical barriers to building a great culture is only the start. it is a necessary first step. You must do that before you can build a better culture. If you want respect from your employees, you must earn it.

That is only the beginning. You have built the foundation for a better culture; then you must change the DNA. That’s a subject for a future post.