Understand how people’s behaviour in the workplace affects and shapes culture.

About this package

Workplace culture is shaped by what people do, what managers encourage and what colleagues accept, not simply by written policies. This package examines how shared assumptions, values and behavioural norms influence everyday working life. Learners explore organisational culture, cultural types and subcultures, developing an understanding of why teams within the same organisation can have different expectations and experiences. The content connects culture with employee wellbeing, working relationships, retention and performance. It considers the characteristics and effects of positive and negative cultures, including how dependable conduct and fair treatment support trust and effective work. Learners examine how people professionals can understand culture across departmental boundaries, help leaders identify behaviours that need attention and support managers in applying consistent expectations. Diversity and inclusion are considered through recruitment, development and performance management, with a distinction between workforce representation and meaningful participation. The second part examines organisations as whole systems. It distinguishes organisational types, structures, design and operational systems, explaining how authority, purpose and work processes affect coordination. Organisations are also considered as living, adaptable systems in which people’s responses can reshape how arrangements work in practice. Examples such as absence reporting show how a change in one area can affect managers’ workload, payroll information and operational cover. Learners then consider organisation design models and approaches to assessing the wider effects of people decisions. Recruitment, onboarding and capacity planning illustrate interdependence and synergy: related activities need to work together to support organisational goals. The package encourages learners to look beyond the immediate purpose of a change, map connections between functions and assess implications for strategies, policies and procedures. Its practical focus is on making recommendations that support a positive, diverse and inclusive culture while taking account of consequences elsewhere in the organisation.

Who it’s for

This package suits HR practitioners, people professionals and learners developing their understanding of workplace culture and organisational systems. It is particularly relevant to those considering how people policies and everyday decisions affect employees and other organisational functions.

What’s covered

1. Defining organisational culture, values and norms

   Explores shared assumptions, learnt expectations, organisational values, behavioural norms and cultural types. Explains how employees learn what is acceptable and rewarded, and why written policies alone may not change behaviour.

2. Subcultures and cultural diversity

   Examines how groups develop expectations that differ from the dominant organisational culture. Considers how subcultures and cultural diversity influence working relationships, and why one team's experience may not represent the whole organisation.

3. Positive and negative workplace cultures

   Considers how accepted behaviours affect employee experience, wellbeing, retention and performance. Explores the importance of fair treatment, trust and dependable conduct, alongside the effects of behaviours such as humiliation and favouritism.

4. People professionals and cultural consistency

   Explains how people professionals diagnose culture, help leaders identify priorities and support managers in putting agreed expectations into practice. Uses a holistic perspective to consider whether employees encounter compatible behaviours across departmental boundaries.

5. Embedding diversity and inclusion

   Distinguishes workforce diversity from inclusion, participation and belonging. Examines how recruitment, development and performance management can put these principles into everyday practice, including looking at representation by role and level.

6. Organisational arrangements and living systems

   Distinguishes organisational type, design, structure and operational systems, considering purpose, accountability and authority. Explores how people’s responses reshape organisational arrangements and how changes to processes can affect other functions.

7. Organisation design and the wider effects of people decisions

   Explores a holistic systems approach through connected practices, organisation design models, workflow mapping and cross-functional evaluation. Uses recruitment, onboarding and capacity planning to explain interdependence, synergy and alignment with organisational goals.

Learning outcomes

By completing this package, learners can:

• Define workplace culture, organisational values and behavioural norms, distinguishing between culture types and subcultures in organisational settings.
• Explain how people’s workplace behaviours shape positive and negative cultures and influence employee experience and organisational performance.
• Analyse how subcultures and cultural diversity influence working relationships, shared values and norms within an organisation.
• Explain the role of people professionals in fostering a positive organisational culture that supports organisational goals and employee wellbeing.
• Apply diversity and inclusion principles to recruitment, development and performance management practices in a workplace scenario.
• Compare organisational types, structures and models of organisation design in terms of how they shape working relationships and coordination.
• Explain how organisations function as organic, interdependent systems, using examples of synergy and interconnected practices across organisational functions.
• Analyse how a people professional’s decisions and actions in one area can affect people, processes and outcomes elsewhere in an organisation.
• Assess approaches to achieving an effective holistic systems approach, considering their implications for organisational and people strategies, policies and procedures.
• Develop recommendations for a workplace scenario that align people practices with a positive, diverse and inclusive culture and address their effects across the organisation.

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