Cultural Considerations Across Teams, Systems & Practice

Abstract In this third installment of her cultural considerations series, Makenzie Sandler, BCBA, extends cultural responsiveness and BACB Ethics Code standards (treating others with compassion, dignity, and equity; standard 1.07 on cultural responsiveness and diversity) from individual client work to teams, systems, and organizational practice through an Organizational Behavior Management lens. She explains how ethics looks different at the systems level, where practitioners often advise rather than control implementation, enter existing power dynamics, and affect groups instead of individuals. After defining culture as the shared values, beliefs, and practices of a group, she examines workplace microcultures — by job title, clinic versus in-home teams, hybrid versus in-person staff, neurodiversity, meeting participation styles, tenure, region, and hobbies — and how unexamined cultural biases can damage supervision relationships, reduce psychological safety, and distort performance evaluations. Using research on employee recognition, including a 2025 study of over 500 nurses that ranked compensation, private verbal appreciation, and written acknowledgment above public programs like employee of the month, she argues that recognition is most effective when individualized, immediate, and preference-based. Practical applications include the Performance Diagnostic Checklist–Human Services, employee preference assessments beginning at the interview, inclusive performance-evaluation language, floating holiday policies, clarified communication norms and jargon, and ongoing reanalysis of behavior-change systems as preferences and staffing change.