Happy to Work Here: Understanding and Improving the Culture at Work

Workplace culture explained in an actionable form.

The pandemic, work-from-home, hybrid work modes, and sold-off real estate have dealt organizational cultures a body blow. Here's a book about rebuilding your culture.

Early Praise for Happy to Work Here: “An important book on the topic at exactly the right time.” – Rob Austin, author of Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations.
A no-handwaving treatment of workplace culture. Yes, we all know culture is important, but just exactly what is it? In the first six chapters, the authors lay out the unique and powerful concept of culture drivers. You'll understand culture, both in your own workplace and in that of others, as you've never understood it before.
"Those who loved classics like Peopleware, Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies, and Slack will love Happy to Work Here. The authors, all members of the Atlantic Systems Guild, use storytelling gathered from decades of guiding workplace cultures to give us meaningful insights into organizations." – Michael Mah, Managing Partner of QSM Associates
"The whole section on Culture Killers was hilarious. It will make you laugh . . . and cry."

What readers are saying:

• "What a revelation to find a book on corporate culture that is actually a joy to read! Happy to Work Here is so well-organized, graphically presented and written that even a non-corporate person like myself, who has been a writer and editor for smallish magazines and newspapers, can enjoy reading it and find so many resonant insights. Some of my favorites: leaders should 'be the behavior you seek;' design in products and the work environment is of utmost importance because 'if you don’t pay attention to beauty then you are consigned to expediency;' company structure should include a shared belief that 'no one is threatened by excellent performance;' and the best of all, for me, was the comment by one of the book’s six authors, Tom DeMarco, that the satisfaction of creating something 'as a partnership was better' than doing it alone, proof of how working together with the right group ethos can be so rewarding. — Jefferson, Maine
• "Yes, I recommend this book! It reeks of hard-learned lessons from which we all can benefit, in or outside of the corporate world." — Camden, Maine
• "I was interested to read Happy to Work Here” as the experienced authors carefully lay out the important drivers of a healthy culture in a company, as well as the culture killers. More importantly they provide a detailed blueprint on how one can assess the culture of their workplace and take steps to improve this most important aspect of a successful organization.As I read the book, I was reminded of observations made by Hyrum Smith, the cofounder with Stephen Covey of the FranklinCovey Co. In a recent book, Smith suggested there are three levels of emotion to motivate people to come to work each day. The lowest level is fear of losing one’s source of income and the feeling of having to come to work each day. The second level is duty were coming to work is considered the proper thing to do, and the highest level to motivate people to act is love where they actually look forward to coming to work. Employees at this level need very little supervision and workplace culture is the key to instilling this feeling of looking forward to working at the company. The research and resulting suggestions the authors provide are spot on to assist readers in first assessing, and then improving, the culture and productivity of their organizations.: – Dover, Massachussetts
• "This is a useful common sense guide to improving workplace culture. It is mostly focussed on teams building IT products. I particularly enjoyed the section on Culture Killers - such as the dangers of ‘Unspoken Rules’" — London, England