5 hard truths for Australia’s leaders

The state of organisational culture has never been more front and centre. The banking and financial services Royal Commission, APRA’s review of CBA’s culture and subsequent cultural self-assessments by other institutions have thrown workplace culture and leaders’ ethics and behaviours into question.

We decided to find out whether cultural problems are isolated to the financial services sector, and if not, how deep and widespread these issues are. We also wanted to know how great Australians think the change needs to be. The response was loud and clear – things need to change soon and change for the long haul.

The 5 hard truths about workplace culture, uncovered by our research in conjunction with AHRI, are:

1. Culture problems are pervasive – change is not only required in the financial services sector
2. Culture problems are often immense – more than one-third of organisations need significant change
3. Larger organisations have larger culture problems – the bigger the organisation, the bigger the problem
4. CEOs have trouble seeing cultural issues – they see a lesser need for change than other employees
5. Organisations need competent and professional HR partners to guide change

These findings are just the beginning. Our detailed survey uncovered a range of different opinions about the state of organisational culture in Australia, which we have distilled into five parts. These five ‘hard truths’ about workplace culture should not be viewed as separate findings. Each truth builds on the others, and together they represent a reality check for Australia.

Download the full report below.