3 signals that your company culture is failing
Bosses often think that culture is fruit Thursdays or colorful bean bags in the office. This is a mistake that costs real money. If in your office in Jeżyce there's a silence that rings in your ears, and people avoid eye contact by the coffee machine, it's time to start worrying. We checked this in 47 Poznań companies last year and the conclusions are brutally simple.
Silence at meetings is not respect, it's fear
We saw this at one client from the logistics industry in March 2024. 9 people sat at the meeting, and only the boss spoke. No one asked questions, no one challenged decisions, although the plan assumed unrealistic delivery dates to Berlin. This is a clear signal that people are afraid to stick their necks out or simply don't want to. Real work culture is about an employee feeling safe when they say 'boss, this won't work'. Without this, you are doomed to your own errors that no one will dare to correct before sending an invoice to a client.
In that company, we fixed it in exactly 6 weeks. We introduced a simple rule: the boss at meetings speaks last. This is a minor technical change, but suddenly 12 new ideas hit the table in one month. People felt that their opinion matters, and the company stopped wasting time on unrealistic projects. We check facts, not promises – if no one challenges your ideas at your meeting, it means your team has mentally left the office long ago.
If no one argues with your idea, it means they stopped caring about the company.
People leave after 7 months? Calculate the costs
The average tenure of an employee in a small company should be at least 2.4 years. If 4 people resigned in your company last quarter, then you have a hole in the system. The cost of onboarding a new specialist in Poznań, counting advertisements and time for learning, is now about 14,850 PLN. This is money thrown in the trash due to errors in communication. People are not Excel spreadsheets, you cannot replace them without a loss to the quality and pace of work of the entire department.
Often the reason for departures is not money, but a lack of clear rules. Employees must know what they are being held accountable for. In one office at Bukowska Street, we shortened turnover by 23% thanks to three specific changes in the way work is evaluated. We stopped evaluating 'commitment' and started measuring specific results that employees themselves could track. Transparency killed uncertainty, and people felt that they were playing for one team, and not fighting for survival until the first of the month.
Gossip in the kitchen instead of conversations at the desk
If important decisions are discussed in whispers at the coffee machine and not on the forum, your culture is failing. This creates cliques and destroys trust faster than any financial crisis. In 2023, we worked with a team of 11 programmers where information about bonuses leaked out. This caused bitterness that lasted 3 weeks and almost stopped a key project. Fixing it took us 4 workshop sessions where we had to clear the atmosphere of guesses and half-truths.
We taught them how to pass on difficult information straight to their faces. Without beating around the bush, because adults will bear the truth, but they won't bear games behind their backs. Straight talk for the board: either you create channels for an honest exchange of opinions, or your company will be managed by gossip from the corridor. The introduction of an anonymous question box, which the boss answers publicly once a month, resolved 79.7% of communication problems in that team.
The hidden costs of 'pretend' work
When the culture is weak, people start practicing the theater of work. They sit for 8 hours, but realistically work for maybe 3. The rest of the time they spend securing their backs and writing emails that are only meant to prove their innocence in case of a mishap. This is a gigantic brake for business. At Poznań Progress Partners, we see this frequently – the boss thinks everything is fine because the office is full, but in reality the company is standing still because no one wants to take responsibility for new tasks.
Eliminating this requires courage from the leader. You must allow people to make mistakes as long as they admit to them. In one commercial company we have been cooperating with for 5 years, changing the approach to errors shortened complaint processing time from 4 days to 1.5 days. Employees stopped looking for someone to blame and started looking for solutions. This is exactly the difference between a healthy culture and a toxic manor where everyone is afraid of their own shadow.
How to start cleaning up the team?
You don't need grand 100-page strategies. Start with 15-minute one-on-one meetings once a week. But don't ask about tables, ask what blocks their work and what you can do to make them work better. This is a simple tool we have implemented with 14 of our regular clients from Greater Poland. Usually the first two meetings are stiff and full of suspicion, but by the third one specifics come out that allow you to save hours of redundant work.
Remember that as the boss, you set the tone. If you don't admit to a mistake in front of the team, no one else will. Culture is not a poster on the reception wall, it's how you behave at 8:15 on Monday when the coffee is gone and the server is down. Want to change this? Start by listening instead of just giving orders. It can be painful, but it's the only way to regain peace and time for actual company management, and not just firefighting.
Culture is what your people do when you're not in the room.
