Positive Workplace Culture Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends HR Managers, Organisational Development Specialists and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-OD-005

Before you join: Participants should have experience of working in a team, managing people, supporting HR processes or contributing to organisational change.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Positive workplace culture is not created by values posters, social events or isolated engagement campaigns. It is shaped by daily management behaviour, decision rights, workload, recognition, fairness, psychological safety and the way people respond when standards are breached. When these elements conflict, organisations see avoidable turnover, silence around risks, strained employee relations and inconsistent service. HR and operational leaders need a disciplined way to diagnose culture, identify the conditions driving behaviour and make practical changes that employees can see.

This course examines how culture forms, how it is measured and how it can be improved through leadership practices, people processes and team routines. Participants use Edgar Schein's culture model, the Competing Values Framework, psychological safety principles, employee listening methods and behavioural design techniques. They learn to translate stated values into observable behaviours, assess cultural strengths and gaps, address toxic conduct, improve manager accountability and connect culture priorities with employee experience.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings, sector-based cases, facilitated group analysis, role-played management conversations and structured planning. Cases reflect issues such as poor speaking-up in a bank, fragmented culture after a merger, burnout in a public agency and inconsistent line management in a multinational business. Participants leave with a culture diagnostic, behaviour framework, employee listening plan, manager action plan and measures for tracking progress.

The course is suited to HR professionals, people managers and organisational development practitioners who influence working conditions, employee experience or organisational change. It is particularly useful for those asked to improve engagement, retention, collaboration, trust or management standards without relying on broad statements of intent.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose workplace culture using Edgar Schein's three-level culture model
  • Interpret culture assessment findings using the Competing Values Framework
  • Translate organisational values into observable behavioural standards
  • Design employee listening processes using surveys, focus groups and stay interviews
  • Apply psychological safety practices to improve speaking-up and learning behaviour
  • Develop manager accountability plans for recognition, fairness and team climate
  • Address harmful workplace conduct through proportionate early intervention methods
  • Produce a 90-day culture improvement plan with measures and governance

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Diagnose culture concerns beyond headline engagement survey scores
  • Handle difficult conversations about behaviour, trust and team norms
  • Convert abstract values into clear expectations for managers and employees
  • Present evidence-based culture improvement proposals to senior stakeholders
  • Build a practical 90-day plan for a live workplace issue

For your organisation

  • Clearer behavioural expectations across teams, managers and employee groups
  • Earlier identification of trust, workload and conduct risks
  • More useful employee feedback channels and follow-through arrangements
  • Stronger manager ownership of recognition, fairness and psychological safety
  • Measurable culture actions linked to retention, wellbeing and service performance

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain how workplace culture is formed and identify the management conditions that sustain it.

  • Edgar Schein's three levels: artefacts, espoused values and underlying assumptions
  • Culture, climate and employee experience distinguished for diagnostic purposes
  • Formal systems and informal norms shaping everyday workplace behaviour
  • Leadership attention, resource allocation and reward decisions as cultural signals
  • Map reinforcing conditions behind desired and undesired team behaviours
  • Subcultures across functions, locations and professional groups assessed systematically

Participants can select and interpret evidence to establish a credible culture baseline.

  • Competing Values Framework profiles: clan, adhocracy, market and hierarchy cultures
  • Culture audit scope defined through strategic priorities and workforce risks
  • Review survey results, attrition patterns, absence data and employee relations cases
  • Focus groups structured with neutral prompts and confidentiality boundaries
  • Stay interviews reveal retention drivers, frustrations and management differences
  • Triangulate quantitative indicators with employee narratives before drawing conclusions

Participants can convert organisational values into specific, observable and accountable behaviours.

  • Values statements tested against actual decisions, incentives and accepted conduct
  • Behavioural indicators written for leaders, managers and individual contributors
  • Define behavioural anchors for respect, accountability, inclusion and customer focus
  • Ethical decision tests applied when commercial pressure conflicts with stated values
  • Recognition criteria aligned with behaviours rather than personal visibility
  • Policy language checked for consistency with expected workplace conduct

Participants can create conditions that encourage respectful challenge, reporting and learning from mistakes.

  • Amy Edmondson's psychological safety concept distinguished from comfort and consensus
  • Leader framing makes uncertainty, questions and fallibility discussable
  • Inquiry-based questions replace blame-oriented responses to bad news
  • Speaking-up barriers identified through power, status, workload and retaliation concerns
  • Closed-loop responses show employees what happened after concerns were raised
  • Learning reviews separate system causes from individual accountability

Participants can identify the daily management practices that build trust, fairness and performance.

  • Manager one-to-ones structured around priorities, obstacles, development and wellbeing
  • Fairness perceptions shaped by workload allocation, information access and decisions
  • SBI feedback model: situation, behaviour and impact for specific conversations
  • Recognition routines distinguish genuine contribution from popularity and presenteeism
  • Team charters establish meeting norms, decision rights and escalation routes
  • Address inconsistency between senior messages and line-manager behaviour

Participants can design employee listening arrangements that produce usable insight and visible action.

  • Listening strategy combines pulse surveys, focus groups and stay interviews
  • Survey questions separated into drivers, outcomes and demographic segmentation
  • eNPS limitations considered alongside richer employee experience measures
  • Employee voice channels matched to issue sensitivity and anonymity needs
  • Action prioritisation uses impact, feasibility and employee confidence criteria
  • Communicate findings, decisions and non-actions with clear rationale

Participants can assess whether workplace practices create equitable access, voice and belonging.

  • Inclusion examined through participation, information access, opportunity and interpersonal treatment
  • Belonging signals assessed in meetings, informal networks and career conversations
  • Bias interrupters introduced for recruitment, promotion and talent review decisions
  • Psychological contract expectations compared with the actual employee experience
  • Microaggressions addressed using specific impact statements and agreed boundaries
  • Disaggregated employee data reviewed without exposing identifiable individuals

Participants can respond to damaging behaviour early while maintaining fairness, evidence and confidentiality.

  • Toxic behaviour patterns distinguished from isolated conflict and performance concerns
  • Early intervention options matched to severity, recurrence and power imbalance
  • Restorative conversation principles used where safety and accountability permit
  • Grievance, disciplinary and safeguarding routes recognised within culture responses
  • Document facts, impact, agreed actions and review dates consistently
  • Bystander expectations clarified for bullying, harassment and discriminatory conduct

Participants can protect constructive norms and address cultural friction during organisational change.

  • Cultural due diligence identifies norms, risks and integration priorities
  • Merger integration compares decision-making, hierarchy and customer-service expectations
  • Change impact assessments include trust, workload and identity consequences
  • Leader communication links operational changes with behavioural expectations
  • Remote and hybrid teams establish visibility, inclusion and collaboration norms
  • Culture carriers identified among formal leaders and influential employees

Participants can build a focused culture improvement plan with ownership, measures and review routines.

  • Culture scorecard combines leading indicators, lagging indicators and qualitative evidence
  • Leading measures include manager routines, speaking-up rates and action completion
  • Lagging measures include turnover, absence, grievances and engagement results
  • RACI matrix assigns ownership for actions, decisions and progress reporting
  • Quarterly review rhythm tests progress, barriers and unintended consequences
  • 90-day action plan prioritises high-impact changes within local control

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Workplace culture diagnostic template
  2. Values-to-behaviours framework
  3. Employee listening plan
  4. Psychological safety conversation guide
  5. Manager culture action checklist
  6. 90-day culture improvement plan

Who should attend

  • HR Managers — responsible for employee experience, engagement and retention priorities
  • Organisational Development Specialists — designing culture change and workforce interventions
  • People and Culture Business Partners — advising leaders on team climate and behaviour
  • Line Managers — setting daily norms, expectations and working relationships
  • Employee Relations Managers — addressing conduct concerns and workplace fairness
  • Change Managers — aligning culture actions with restructuring, merger or transformation work

Skills and tools covered

Culture diagnosisBehavioural standardsEmployee listeningPsychological safetyManager accountabilityCulture change planning

Tools and standards

Edgar Schein's Three Levels of Culture, Competing Values Framework, SBI Feedback Model, RACI Matrix

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short briefings to introduce culture models, followed by case analysis, small-group diagnosis and facilitated discussion. Participants examine employee feedback, management scenarios and culture indicators drawn from realistic workplace situations. Simulations focus on listening conversations, speaking-up responses and manager feedback. Groups compare intervention options and test likely unintended effects. Individual application planning helps participants adapt the methods to a current team, function or organisational issue, with instructor feedback on scope, evidence and measures.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience of working in a team, managing people, supporting HR processes or contributing to organisational change. Familiarity with employee surveys, performance management, engagement discussions or workplace policies is useful, but not essential. The course assumes participants can discuss workplace situations professionally and interpret basic qualitative and quantitative feedback. No previous organisational development qualification, statistical training, psychology degree or culture certification is required. Participants do not need authority to redesign policy, although access to a real workplace issue will strengthen their application planning.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should understand basic workplace practices and have some exposure to teams, HR processes or people management. No formal organisational development qualification or prior culture-change project experience is required.

Bring a current culture, engagement, retention, conduct or management issue that you can consider during planning. If permitted, you may also bring anonymised survey findings, policy extracts or team data.

It is designed for HR, organisational development, employee relations and change professionals, as well as line managers with responsibility for team climate. Participants from public bodies, banks, NGOs and multinational employers will find the cases relevant.

Engagement training often concentrates on survey results and motivation, while leadership courses concentrate on individual leadership skills. This course examines the wider system of norms, management practices, people processes and employee voice that shapes culture.

You will have a diagnostic and 90-day action plan that can be adapted to a team, function or organisation-wide priority. The course also provides practical methods for manager conversations, employee listening and progress reviews.

The programme provides approximately 32.5 contact hours across five 08:30-16:30 training days. Modules are delivered in teaching sequence through briefings, cases, group analysis, simulations and application planning rather than as isolated daily topics.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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