It may seem like semantics, but there really is a difference between “creating a healthy culture”, and “creating the conditions that lead to a healthy culture”.
The culture of an organization is expressed and sustained by the employees themselves. It can be heard in their language, and seen in their actions toward each other as well as management. Because of this, it’s something that can’t be imposed from the outside, but fostered from the inside.
A problem companies can run into is trying to install a healthy culture, like they would a new HRIS system, cafeteria vendor, or air conditioning unit — like it’s a control variable that you impose on the workplace environment to make it better.
But this is the definition of doing wellness TO employees, and then wondering why it’s not working. “Where’s the healthy culture I paid for? Why aren’t our employees all happy and healthy with the increased productivity I was promised?” This attitude is ill-considered, because healthy cultures require time and cultivation in order to mature into a valuable asset. And for that maturity to happen, employees need to sense support, flexibility, and shared purpose.
There is a great deal of conversation now about healthy cultures, what they are, what they produce, and how to get them. And because it’s a relatively new concept, older ways of thinking about corporations (as a series of control variables) have to adapt their thinking. Imposing a healthy culture from the outside is not effective. So the better solution is to create the conditions that lead to a healthy culture, and support it along the way.
