How to build a strong security culture in the workplace

Cybersecurity can’t live in a silo. The threats are too complex, the stakes too high, and the attack surface too large for any single team to handle alone. Leaders who recognize this understand the need for a security culture that’s part of the organizational fabric, not an afterthought. 

The challenge isn’t convincing people that security matters. Most employees already know that. The real challenge is making cybersecurity feel accessible and achievable within the flow of everyday work. 

This transformation starts at the top, with leaders who model the right behaviors, create cybersecurity training programs, and make security a shared responsibility.

A security culture doesn’t emerge from policies or compliance checklists. It’s modeled, reinforced, and normalized through daily leadership behaviors. When executives and managers visibly prioritize cybersecurity, they create a ripple effect that permeates every team and process.​

Leadership commitment isn’t optional. It’s the foundation upon which all other security initiatives rest.​

Foster collaboration across teams, ensuring that IT, HR, and department heads work together to align and implement cybersecurity policies. Provide open communication and regular updates about evolving threats to keep everyone informed and engaged.​

Psychological safety is the belief that speaking up will not lead to negative repercussions. In a security context, this means employees feel safe reporting incidents, admitting they clicked a phishing link, or asking questions when something seems off.​

When employees worry about being punished, they hide mistakes instead of reporting them. These hidden issues inevitably spiral into larger breaches.​

But when leaders foster an environment where mistakes are acknowledged without shame, security incident reporting becomes more vigilant and proactive.​

Leaders foster psychological safety by promoting transparency, avoiding punitive approaches, and treating security incidents as learning opportunities rather than failures. 

This approach requires empathy. Leaders should openly acknowledge their own mistakes and be vulnerable. This creates a culture of trust and openness that defines communication throughout the organization.​

Security teams can extend their reach through security champions. These are individuals embedded within departments who advocate for good security practices, serve as liaisons to the security team, and make security part of daily conversations.​

Champions help you scale security best practices across your organization without massively increasing your headcount. They offer insights into relevant vulnerabilities and tailor security solutions to fit specific departmental needs. Through security awareness training, they also help other employees see security as a shared responsibility, rather than a nuisance.

To set up a security champion program, start by identifying your champions. These should be individuals who are naturally curious about security, great communicators, and influential within their teams. 

Give these security professionals training, support, and clear role definitions. Their responsibilities might include:

• Evangelize security

• Promote best practices

• Contribute to security standards

• Conduct threat modeling

• Perform secure code reviews

• Help run cybersecurity training and other activities

Organizations like AWS and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia have seen significant results from security champion programs. (Think: Fourfold increases in the speed of security reviews and over 1,200 trained champions.) 

The key to success is giving champions proper resources, time, and support.​ Recognition matters too. Acknowledge champions for their efforts through shout-outs in company meetings, awards, or career progression opportunities. When champions feel valued, they stay motivated and continue driving your security culture forward.​

Once you’ve identified potential candidates, start building your security champions with these learning paths:

• Security Champion for Developers

• Security Champion for Data Analysts

Cybersecurity should never feel like an interruption to work. Instead, it should function as an integral part of the work itself. This means embedding secure practices directly into existing workflows. For example:

• Add phishing report buttons to email clients for improved threat detection and response

• Create secure file-sharing prompts in collaboration tools

• Build security assessments into project management methodologies

Leaders should map security processes to existing workflows, identifying natural integration points where security activities can complement—not disrupt—business operations. 

This exercise often reveals opportunities to replace manual checks with automated monitoring. This can reduce the burden on operational teams while improving security visibility.​

For example, consider incorporating security considerations into the software development lifecycle from the very beginning. You might add threat modeling in the design phase, automate code reviews and scanning, and use hardened CI/CD pipelines. When security becomes a natural checkpoint rather than an afterthought, teams adopt secure practices more readily.​

Traditional cybersecurity awareness training often involves long, tedious sessions. As a result, employees quickly forget the cybersecurity practices they’ve learned. 

Microlearning offers a better approach.​ Microlearning delivers training in short, focused modules that last only a few minutes. Each bite-sized lesson covers a single security concept, making the information easier to understand and remember. 

Topics might include: 

• Phishing emails

• Strong password hygiene

• Social engineering tactics

• Security incident response

Research shows that microlearning drives a 50% higher engagement rate compared to traditional methods, and learners demonstrate significantly better knowledge retention. 

When designing microlearning modules, make sure they’re interactive and contain a mix of videos, quizzes, scenario-based exercises, and challenges. Each module should be relevant to specific roles and risks, accessible on any device, and regularly updated with the latest threat information.​

Once you’ve got microlearning modules set up, schedule frequent, short sessions rather than one-time security training events. This continuous approach ensures security remains top of mind without overwhelming employees. Pair it with just-in-time learning, such as brief lessons after someone clicks a phishing link, to turn mistakes into immediate learning opportunities.​

Another easy win you can implement is phishing simulations. These simulated attacks test employee readiness and provide insights into areas that need improvement. Regular simulations build employees’ security instincts and carry over to other processes. 

Uncover seven strategies to implement continuous and  just-in-time learning.

What gets rewarded gets repeated. Leaders should publicly recognize individuals and teams who demonstrate proactive security behaviors. This reinforces positive actions and shows the workforce what "good" looks like.​

Recognition doesn’t always need to be monetary. Certificates, trophies, or public acknowledgement all create impact. Peer-to-peer recognition is particularly powerful, as employees value their colleagues’ opinions.​

Organizations can implement formal systems for recognizing security-conscious behavior. Digital recognition platforms, for instance, allow employees to send appreciation to peers with a tap. Gamifying the recognition process makes it fun, easy, and fast, increasing the likelihood that it will happen consistently.​

It’s also important to build security achievements into performance reviews. This tells employees that security is a core business objective.​

Leaders need visibility into how security practices are performing. This requires tracking meaningful metrics that reflect actual risk reduction rather than just activity.​

Key performance indicators for security culture include:

• Security awareness training completion rates

• Phishing simulation click rates

• Mean time to detect threats

• Mean time to remediate vulnerabilities

• Number of security incidents reported by employees

These metrics assess the effectiveness of cybersecurity training and threat detection and response.

Executives should assess whether cybersecurity KPIs are aligned with business risk or just technical outputs. Your metrics should reflect what could actually disrupt operations or revenue, such as risk reduction rate, mean time to remediate, or critical asset coverage.​

Leaders should also benchmark their metrics against industry standards like NIST CSF or ISO 27001. Without context, numbers lose meaning.​

Last but not least, track metrics over time to reveal trends and understand whether security initiatives are making a difference. Dashboards that provide real-time visibility allow you to manage cyber threats proactively while maintaining operational efficiency.​

Culture doesn’t happen all at once. Define small, achievable goals and build from there.​ For example, discuss security in regular team meetings or embed one security champion per department. 

Injecting security into daily work isn’t about adding more tasks to already full plates. It’s about changing how work gets done so security becomes a natural part of decision-making, communication, and operations.

Over time, as security becomes embedded in your organization's DNA, employees stop seeing it as a separate function and start recognizing it as an enabler of business success. 

Help your people develop the right cybersecurity skills for their role—explore Pluralsight’s hands-on skill development platform.