What Is Work Culture and How Can You Improve It in 2025?

In an era of constant connectivity, work doesn’t always end with the 5 p.m. clock-out, which makes establishing a positive work culture more important than ever. As our rapidly evolving world changes, employers and employees alike have had to start thinking more about work culture and what they need from their workplace. 

While it may sound like a corporate buzzword, work culture’s effect on our quality of life is almost immeasurable. Every company takes a different approach to management, and those choices oftentimes make the difference between a healthy work-life balance and major burnout.

But what is work culture, anyway? And if it’s really all that important, how do you go about creating a positive work culture? Those are big questions, but it’s pretty simple. Knowing how to improve work culture is a relatively simple matter of embracing respect, flexibility and balance — read on to find out how to make positive changes at your place of work.

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• What Is Workplace Culture?
• 13 Great Ways To Improve Work Culture

What Is Workplace Culture?

So, what is work culture? You may have heard that phrase so many times that you’ve started to wonder what it even refers to. And while it seems vague, it’s actually very specific: work culture consists of the behaviors, values and attitudes of a company that shapes interactions between colleagues in a work setting. 

Say you start a new job and notice right away that your colleagues seem to relate to each other easily. They chat in the break room, bounce ideas off of one another and generally seem to get along well.

That’s work culture in action: most probably, the company’s values of community, collaboration and openness are shaping the friendly and positive interactions that you’re seeing. Managers most likely model those values by fostering team building and employee engagement, which further solidifies the work culture.

Company culture can create a wide variety of employee experiences, depending on the company’s values and how it tries to implement them. It can also have a massive impact on employee retention and turnover — if people stay at this business a long time, the work culture has got to be contributing to keeping them happy. 

What Is a Good Work Culture?

That fictional workplace we just talked about is a great example of a positive work culture. On the surface, it’s obviously a pleasant place to work, leading to employee happiness.

But what does it take to create that kind of environment?  Key aspects of a healthy company culture include communication, recognition, openness, compassion, equity, transparency and collaboration:

• Communication: All levels of an organization communicate clearly. Information is readily available, expectations are clearly stated and problems are discussed and addressed. 

• Recognition: Employees are praised, recognized and rewarded for their successes. Wins are acknowledged, and employees feel that their good work is valued. 

• Openness: Team members can express their concerns and ideas without anxiety. Everyone is encouraged to share their ideas and solutions.

• Compassion: Employees’ needs are treated with empathy, not punishment. Employers are understanding and flexible when employees are struggling outside of work. 

• Equity: Employers do not show favoritism and make efforts to create diverse teams where many perspectives can be heard.

• Transparency: Employers are honest with their employees. Information is not withheld, and when necessary, both leaders and employees take accountability for their missteps. 

• Collaboration: Working together is encouraged. Employees are motivated to consider each other’s ideas, ask for help and utilize each other’s strengths. 

Aside from these core traits of a healthy workplace, a good work culture is also one where the company’s core values are being implemented. What exactly this will look like depends on the company, of course, but if you’re in a healthy workplace, you will know what your company values are and work towards achieving them together. 

In addition to an open, dynamic and empathetic environment that all employers should ideally want to create, a sense of purpose and a clear mission are instrumental attributes of a healthy work culture. 

What Is a Bad Work Culture?

When the values mentioned above aren’t held or implemented, it’s easy for a negative work culture to develop. Some hallmarks of unhealthy work culture are backbiting, employee isolation, ineffective leadership and poor communication:

• Backbiting: Employees gossip and express their grievances to each other instead of to the person they’re in conflict with. Employees don’t feel safe expressing their concerns with management, and complaining is rampant. 

• Employee Isolation: There is a poor sense of community and belonging within the company. Employees rarely interact and there is little sense of togetherness or collaboration. 

• Ineffective Leadership: Leaders prefer to use a “hands-off” approach that leaves employees without necessary guidance. There is little incentive for good performance, and employees aren’t motivated to do their best work. 

• Poor Communication: Expectations, instructions and grievances are not communicated clearly. It is difficult to find the necessary information. 

These traits of an unhealthy work culture can and often lead to frustration, disengagement and unhappiness at work. They also make it easy to forget the company’s mission and values, leading to a loss of purposefulness in the workplace that further decreases employee satisfaction and motivation. 

Why Is Good Work Culture Important? 

Simple: it gets results. When employees feel supported, motivated and engaged, employee retention skyrockets, and better work gets done. It takes effort to create a healthy work culture but putting in the legwork to create a workplace people want to work in will make them happier and more productive. 

A strong work culture will also help to attract new talent. A company with a solid reputation and excellent work culture will get good word-of-mouth press. For many talented applicants, that good reputation might be the factor that makes them choose one job opportunity over another.

Once hired, a good work culture will make it more likely that the employee becomes a loyal longtime staff member. To put it simply, cultivating a good work culture creates a positive feedback loop of acquiring, retaining and bringing out the best in talented employees, and it’s one of the most valuable investments a company can make in its own success. 

13 Great Ways To Improve Work Culture

1. Plan Fun Team Building Activities

If you’re wondering how to improve work culture, start with relationships. Collaboration and positive employee relationships are key, so why not jump-start community building in your workplace with team building sessions? 

A company retreat or an office party is a great opportunity to check out team building activities near you and choose something your colleagues will love while enhancing work culture.

These activities will help your team learn to work together, give them opportunities to bond and set a lighthearted, fast-paced tone for your upcoming projects that will help alleviate stress in even the most high-stakes situations. Done right, team building activities are one of the quickest ways to start moving toward a positive workplace culture. 

2. Choose Clear Core Values 

We’ve talked already about how one of the markers of a good work culture is its alignment with the company’s values. But in order to do that, you have to be clear about what those values are — and more than that, they have to be values you can visibly implement. 

The best core values are concrete, actionable and clearly tied to your company’s mission. So if you want to create a sense of purpose in your workplace and enhance your work culture, start by choosing core values that your employees can easily understand and resonate with.

By clarifying what you as a company value, you’re giving your employees something clear to work towards, which will increase motivation and productivity. Everyone wants to know why they’re doing what they do, after all. So to create a productive and healthy work culture, be sure to choose and communicate your core values well. 

3. Celebrate Team Member Successes 

Sometimes it’s hard to do your best work when no one is watching. That’s why it’s so important to celebrate your team’s wins! Recognizing your team members’ successes shows that their leaders are engaged and ready to notice good work, which incentivizes them to do their best. 

It also boosts each employee's confidence in their abilities and belief in the importance of the work they do. Whether that’s by providing perks at work for hardworking, successful employees or simply by letting them know that you recognize their achievements, you’ll foster a work culture where employees feel valued and motivated. 

4. Foster Openness 

This one is key because collaboration, a critical aspect of a healthy work culture, requires people to be comfortable sharing their ideas. Managers who model openness — listening to feedback or others’ ideas, communicating clearly with employees and opening up about their hesitations and aspirations for a project — contribute to a work culture where productivity happens out in the open. 

That means that when it’s time to share ideas, team members will feel comfortable bringing their outside-the-box ideas to the table — but also that they won’t be afraid to share helpful feedback or to address problems that impact work culture. In a collaborative space, transparency and frankness are essential. 

5. Utilize Team Member Strengths 

Even though your team members probably have some key skills in common, they’ll all bring something slightly different to the table. A healthy work culture is one where all of those strengths are valued and given a chance to shine.

Utilizing strengths means observing your employees, noticing what they do well and finding places where those strengths will be able to best contribute to the company’s end goals, but it’s not all transactional. 

It’s encouraging to have someone notice what you do well, and doing so regularly makes employees feel valued and confident in their skills. This is especially pertinent in workplaces where employees frequently work in teams: in a healthy workplace, leaders will take note of strengths when they’re putting a group together. 

6. Stay Flexible 

We’re all human, but in a work world where we’re always plugged in, it can be easy to forget that employees have lives outside of the office that need time and care, too. Some of the healthiest work cultures are the ones that understand that best.

Sure, you’ve got to be firm — punctuality and professionalism still matter. However, if you show patience, understanding and a willingness to be flexible with employees who have things to attend to outside of work, employees will feel that you care about them.

Doing this leads to loyalty and employee retention. Being understanding of someone’s out-of-work needs is one of the quickest ways to communicate care, a key feature of a healthy work culture. 

7. Prioritize Growth 

When you’re working towards a goal, momentum is essential. It feels great to be going somewhere or to know that you’re improving, so if you want to motivate workers, growth should be a priority. 

There are a lot of ways to do this: reminding employees of their long-term goals; providing professional development opportunities; or even setting smaller goals that challenge and push employees en route to their larger end goals. But however you choose to go about it, constantly moving forward makes for a motivational and dynamic work culture. 

8. Give Credit Where Credit is Due 

Credit hoarding is not the way to cultivate a healthy work environment. Sure, leaders feel great when they’re the ones getting a shoutout for their team’s good work at the company banquet or when their name is listed first on the research paper, but the employees who worked hard to make that work happen won’t.

Nor will more reserved employees feel like they’re valued when a coworker who’s a little bit more outspoken ends up getting all the credit for a team’s success just because they were more open about it. 

In a healthy work culture, leaders pay close attention to the dynamics of teams and notice where great work is getting done. That both keeps everyone humble (steamrolling isn’t rewarded) and ensures that great workers are recognized when they deserve it, no matter what their personality type. 

9. Give Helpful Feedback 

Workers are only as good as the feedback they receive: if no one is telling them what they do well and how to improve, they aren’t going to be able to meet the company’s expectations. It’s just not fair to hardworking employees to leave them in the dark about how they’re performing, and it leads to confusion, ambiguity and a lack of motivation. 

To avoid this, give feedback promptly, and clearly address both the things that were great and the ones that could be improved upon. Be specific, concrete and fair.

Doing those things will help your employees determine how to move forward — and it enables growth (see #7 on this list), an essential component of a work culture that keeps employees feeling motivated. Communication is key, and perhaps no type of communication is more important to a healthy work culture than good feedback.

10. Make Collaboration a Habit 

Not every workplace is team-oriented, but all workplaces can be collaborative. How? By encouraging employees to ask for help, utilize each other’s strengths and share feedback about how to make their shared workspace better. 

In a workspace where team projects are frequent, it’s even more essential to create a work culture where team members know how to work together well. One way to do this is by organizing team-building activities; another is to model it yourself, listening to ideas from your colleagues and encouraging them to seek out each other’s advice and feedback. 

11. Promote Work-Life Balance

In a plugged-in world, healthy work cultures give employees permission to log off. Setting boundaries about when you’ll contact employees outside of work hours, working to make time off possible and committing to flexibility when things pop up in employees’ personal lives (see #6) all help to do that.

When you promote work-life balance, you promote a work culture of healthier, happier employees who feel supported and come into the office ready to do their best. 

12. Lead By Example

A healthy workplace starts with healthy management. After all, if you’re not living up to the core values you claim to uphold, who in the office will? Acting out of alignment with those values is one of the quickest ways to convince your employees that they don’t really matter. 

If you want to work towards the company’s mission with a team of motivated, creative and collaborative employees, you’ll have to start with yourself. If you value openness, be open. If you want to foster flexibility, be flexible.

It’s simple but hard to do, and if you’re committed to sticking to your company’s values even when it’s not the convenient choice, you’ll be setting a stellar example of the work culture you want to create. 

13. Invest Personally 

Finally, you can’t create a positive work culture without building relationships. People are at the core of every workplace, and good work cultures care for them; to do that, you have to get to know people.

Showing interest in their lives outside of work and taking time to offer assistance and support to struggling employees are clear ways of communicating that you care. It takes work and time, but at the end of the day, those relationships are the best investment you can make in the success of your workplace. 

A good work culture isn’t easy to find, and it’s not always easy to create, either. But the effort pays dividends in the productivity and generativity of your workplace. A great place to work is a win for everyone involved. 

For even more team building activities, check out other experiences happening on Cozymeal.