How does organisational culture affect employee mental health, absenteeism and safety? Learn the signs of a healthy culture and the steps you can take.
Picture two factories in the same sector, paying similar wages and working with similar machinery. In one, employees stay for years, mistakes are discussed openly in meetings, and telling the foreman about a problem is taken as natural. In the other, experienced workers leave within a few months, sick leave rises, and nobody wants to say "there is a problem." Much of the difference between the two businesses can be explained by neither technology nor pay; it comes down to organisational culture. An organisation's unwritten rules, in other words the answer to "how do things work around here", are among the most powerful psychosocial conditions employees are exposed to every day. In this article, for business owners, HR managers and occupational health and safety (OHS) specialists, I look at how culture affects mental health and what can be done.
What Is Organisational Culture and Why Is It a Mental Health Issue?
Organisational culture is the sum of the values, beliefs, norms and patterns of behaviour shared within an organisation. It is visible less in the mission statements on the wall than in everyday practice: what happens when a mistake is made, who bad news is passed to and how, how an employee who does not reply to messages outside working hours is regarded, who gets promoted, and which behaviour is rewarded.
The answers to these questions touch mental health directly. The 2024 "Psychosocial Factors Information Guide" of Turkey's Ministry of Labour and Social Security (ÇSGB) lists ten categories of psychosocial hazard, and one of them is defined directly as organisational culture; other categories, such as interpersonal relationships, control, career development and work-life interaction, are also interwoven with culture. The ISO 45003:2021 guidance likewise groups psychosocial hazards under three headings and treats "social factors at work" as a separate category.
In short, culture is not a "soft" subject; it is a working condition that determines whether an employee feels safe, whether they can ask for help, and whether they stay in the job over the long term.
What Are the Signs of an Unhealthy Organisational Culture?
An unhealthy culture usually shows itself not through a single major event but through small, repeated signs:
- A blame reflex: If the first question after a mistake or accident is "who did it?" rather than "what happened and why?", employees learn to hide problems.
- A permanent state of emergency: Presenting every task as work that "should have been done yesterday" creates chronic time pressure. In Europe, 46% of workers say they experience severe time pressure or work overload (EU-OSHA, 2022).
- Poor communication: Decisions announced without reasons, information held by particular people. In the same survey, 26% of workers report poor communication or cooperation within the organisation and 18% report a lack of autonomy.
- A cult of visibility: Treating long hours and being reachable outside working hours as proof of commitment.
- Favouritism and a perception of unfairness: Promotions and rewards handed out on unclear criteria.
- Tolerated rudeness: Shouting, belittling and exclusion accepted with the words, "He's a good engineer, a bit harsh, but..."
- Silence about mental health: Someone who says they are struggling being seen as "weak".
If several of these signs are present together, the problem should be thought of as lying not in individual employees but in the climate. I looked at this picture in more detail in the article on the toxic work environment.
In What Ways Does Culture Affect Mental Health?
The effect of culture on employees works through several mechanisms.
Psychological safety
Team psychological safety is defined as team members' "shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking". The foundational study of this concept was carried out in 51 work teams at a manufacturing company and found that psychological safety was associated with learning behaviour (Edmondson, 1999). In Google's internal research on its own teams, psychological safety also ranked first among the five dynamics of effective teams. This is not a peer-reviewed publication but the internal study of a single company; even so, the direction of the finding matches the academic literature. I described the subject in detail in the article on psychological safety.
Chronic stress and burnout
A culture that does not allow rest, boundary-setting and saying "no" makes chronic stress the norm. The WHO defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed (WHO, 2019). A systematic review of prospective studies showed that burnout is associated with later absenteeism, presenteeism, insomnia, depressive symptoms and serious injuries (Salvagioni et al., 2017). The last finding is a reminder that, for factories, culture is a direct occupational safety issue.
Violence, harassment and mobbing
A culture in which disrespectful behaviour is tolerated also becomes the ground for psychological harassment. According to the ILO's 2026 report, 23% of workers worldwide have experienced violence or harassment at work at least once, and the most common form, at 18%, is psychological violence (ILO, 2026). Article 417 of the Turkish Code of Obligations places a duty on employers to take the necessary measures to prevent employees from suffering psychological and sexual harassment and to prevent those who have from being harmed further. Culture is the arena that shows whether this duty remains on paper or is genuinely lived.
Help-seeking behaviour
Whether an employee will ask for support when they are struggling depends largely on culture. In Europe, 50% of workers think that disclosing a mental health problem would harm their career (EU-OSHA, 2022). If silence is the norm, even the most carefully designed support programme goes unused.
How Culture Appears in Workplaces in Turkey
There are some distinctive dynamics that shape culture in Turkish working life. In family-owned companies, decisions depending on the founder or the family, strong hierarchical relationships and the attitude that "an elder is not to be contradicted" can make it harder for information to flow upwards. High inflation and anxiety about job security can lead employees to avoid raising problems. In production-heavy regions, the norm of "being tough" can be a barrier to talking about fatigue and stress.
The data reflect this pressure. According to Gallup's 2026 report, 66% of employees in Turkey say they spend much of the day under stress and 36% say they experienced anger the previous day; the proportion of employees who are genuinely engaged with their work is only 8% (Gallup, 2026; 2025 data). These figures give every organisation a strong reason to question its own culture.
A finding from Europe is also striking: workplaces that report none of the psychosocial risk factors are found most often in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors, and this may point to a lack of awareness (EU-OSHA, 2025). The sentence "We don't have a problem like that here" sometimes shows not that there is no problem, but that it cannot be spoken about.
Who Shapes Culture?
Culture is formed not by an HR project but by behaviours repeated every day. Processes such as recruitment, induction, performance appraisal and dismissal are each a message telling employees "what matters here". For example, when a manager who hits the production target but wears down their team is promoted, it tells the whole organisation, loudly, which behaviour is valued. The people who most influence these behaviours are managers. What senior management rewards, what it ignores and how it reacts to bad news offers a model to every level.
At this point we should not overlook the managers' own situation. According to Gallup, manager engagement has fallen to 22%, down 9 points since 2022 (Gallup, 2026). It is not realistic to expect a middle manager who is themselves burnt out to create a healthy climate for their team. For this reason, culture work should include supporting managers as well. I covered the effect of leadership style on climate separately in the article on empathic leadership.
Subcultures: the same company, different climates
Speaking of a single culture in an organisation is often misleading. The day and night shifts of the same factory, the head office and field teams, or two production lines under different foremen can have very different climates. A picture that looks positive across the organisation can hide a serious problem in a particular unit. For this reason, in culture work it is necessary not to settle for averages and to assess separately units large enough to protect anonymity. Because the direct supervisor of a unit does the most to determine its subculture, first-line managers such as foremen, supervisors and team leaders are the most critical link in culture change.
Culture in hybrid and remote work
Another reality of working life in 2025–2026 is the hybrid arrangement. When part of the team works in the office and part from home, culture is shaped by the tone in messaging apps, by who is invited to meetings, and by how quickly replies to after-hours messages are expected. Seeing the invisible employee as "working less", the pressure to be constantly online, and misunderstandings that increase as face-to-face communication declines are new cultural risks that affect mental health. In these settings it is especially important to put communication rules in writing and to schedule regular one-to-one meetings.
Culture is not the sum of what an organisation says; it is the sum of what it allows and rewards when nobody is looking.
What Can Organisations Do for a Healthy Culture?
Culture change is a long-term process, but it can begin with concrete steps:
- Turn values into behaviours. Convert an abstract value such as "respect" into observable behaviours such as "nobody is interrupted in meetings" and "an employee who reports a mistake is thanked".
- Review the process after mistakes and accidents. In incident investigations, adopt an approach that questions the system, not the individual. Put the distinction between an honest mistake and a deliberate violation in writing.
- Set limits on rude behaviour. Do not tolerate demeaning and exclusionary behaviour even when performance is high. Establish a clear policy on mobbing and harassment and a reliable reporting channel.
- Clarify workload and working-hours limits. State the organisation's expectations on out-of-hours communication, overtime and use of leave clearly; make sure leaders follow these rules themselves.
- Train and support managers. The strongest-evidence recommendation in the WHO's 2022 guidelines is to provide managers with mental health training (strong recommendation, moderate-certainty evidence). Teach managers both how to support their teams and how to protect their own limits.
- Make fairness visible. Make the criteria for promotion, rewards and assignments transparent.
- Listen regularly to employees' voices. Hold confidential surveys, focus groups and regular meetings with employee representatives; give feedback on what has been said.
- Link culture to the OHS system. Article 5(f) of Law No. 6331 (the Occupational Health and Safety Law) requires the employer to develop a prevention policy that also covers work organisation and social relationships. Include culture-related risks in the psychosocial risk assessment.
Say that at an automotive supplier factory, near-miss reports have been very low for years. Management first reads this as a good sign, but interviews with employees reveal that those who report are seen as "troublemakers". The plant manager openly thanking the first operator to report at a shift meeting and sharing the outcomes of reports on the noticeboard could be a small step that nonetheless transforms the culture.
How to Start in Your Organisation
1. Needs analysis: To understand the current culture, begin with a confidential employee survey, focus group discussions with representatives from the units, and a joint assessment of existing data (absenteeism, turnover, complaint and near-miss records, exit interviews). Note the gaps between written values and everyday practice.
2. Programme: Based on the analysis, choose a few priority areas: for example the process after mistakes, manager behaviour and working-hours limits. For each area, define actions with a named owner and a timeline. Plan manager training, team work and policy updates together. You can look at the corporate support options on the corporate services page.
3. Measurement: Culture change is slow, so measure the same indicators again at six and twelve months. Track indicators such as perceived psychological safety, manager support, number of reports and turnover tendency together. Remember that an increase in reports can be a sign that the culture is improving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can organisational culture be measured?
It cannot be measured directly with a single number; however, dimensions such as psychological safety, manager support, perceived fairness and work-life balance can be assessed through surveys. When this data is read together with indicators such as absenteeism, turnover and number of reports, it gives a reliable picture of the culture.
How long does culture change take?
This depends on the size of the organisation and its starting point. Some behavioural changes can be noticed within a few months, while a deep transformation usually takes several years. Consistency and the steady behaviour of senior management matter more than duration.
Can we talk about culture in a small business?
Absolutely. In small businesses, culture is often identical with the owner's personal style and its effect on employees is more direct. This also makes change easier; if the owner changes a few behaviours, it can affect the whole climate in a short time.
Can high performance expectations and a healthy culture coexist?
Yes. A healthy culture is not an environment where expectations are low. When high standards are combined with clear goals, adequate resources, fair evaluation and the ability to discuss mistakes, employees can be both productive and in better mental health.
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Eda Erkan Alapala
Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.
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