Workplace culture is highly dependent upon who is in charge and how they see the office operating. It is natural for employees to take ownership of their position by making procedural changes. There is no exception to this rule for middle and upper management. As a lowly analyst, I took the approach to first replicate and understand the previous employee procedures to appreciate how they completed their tasks. Concurrently, I identified areas of improvement, and as I felt comfortable, I began making changes. It was as I began to make changes to the processes that I took ownership of my tasks. This method will not work for everyone, but so far, it has been successful for me. More seasoned employees may be more willing to jump into a new organization and make immediate changes, which seems to be the approach my new manager is taking.

Because those who a manager would oversee are typically not involved in the process of selecting a manager, I would caution remaining management and the new manager from making drastic changes upon arrival. While I would hope remaining management would evaluate how prospects subordinates personalities might interact, it is sometimes hard to assess future relationships when every interviewer puts their best face forward.  Likewise, when personality tests are compared, some aspects of how individuals work together are not captured. Proceeding with caution is often a safe bet.

Rather than asking the question of what to do about a change in culture, the question should be how we assess the likelihood and cope with changes in culture. Prospective employees should subtly ask questions about turnover such as, “is the office fully staffed?” Often you will get an answer beyond yes or no, and you can assess turnover by the narrative. One in the job, if we cannot rely on personality assessments and the assessment of a few managers on how well staff will get along, I encourage the department to put a freeze on major office policy changes. Once involved parties can get to know one another without major department projects obstructing the assessment of each other’s personalities, management can consider making policy changes. Just as I took the approach to see how things worked before making changes, it is important to see how individuals interact and complete tasks under existing structures before making changes. Most importantly, when making changes, it is crucial to fully and faithfully discuss the changes allowing everyone to express their opinion.