A toxic workplace can reduce creativity and lower employee productivity. As a leader or individual, it is important to check your working environment to ensure everyone’s working well and functioning to their best. To achieve this, you must know what a toxic work environment is and recognize its signs.
What is a toxic work environment?
A toxic work environment is associated with many negative behaviors deep in the culture. Negative behaviors include antagonistic tendencies, gossiping, bullying, manipulative actions, and other negative attribute that are unethical. A toxic work environment is unhealthy, can limit productivity, cause strife, and fight among employees.
How to spot a toxic work environment?
Many people work in toxic environments but have trouble identifying them because they do not know what a toxic workplace looks like. Also, there are different triggers for different people; however, the common traits should not be ignored. These traits can be a great starting point for people seeking to identify or understand if they work in a toxic workplace. They might include;
No set boundaries at work:
A toxic workplace doesn’t care about your personal life or boundaries. A toxic boss will not care about your time or free time. They will expect employees to stay extra hours at the office without pay and expect employees to reply to their messages and emails regardless of the time they were sent, weekends notwithstanding. A toxic manager will not care about your work-life balance. All he will care about is getting the job done. This is a toxic trait to look out for at your workplace.
Lack of trust among colleagues:
The strength of every work environment is trust. A healthy environment feeds on trust. The management team should trust the team members to do their jobs effectively, and the employee should trust the management too. Lack of trust is seen in actions like the management constantly questioning the decision of employees, incessantly checking up on workers to know what they’re doing at all times, and micromanagement.
Employee growth is not supported:
A healthy workplace is a place of growth and development. Employers ensure that employees grow as they understand how it would improve their output and productivity. A toxic workplace, however, does not care about its employees’ learning process, there is no training system, and they do not want their employees to grow and develop their potential and get better opportunities.
People experience physical stress symptoms:
If your workplace culture is causing constant physical strain due to mental and physical stress, you are in a toxic workplace. When you are in a tensed or stressed atmosphere, your body goes into flight or fight mode. Being in this mode for a long time will cause physical weakness due to repeated anxiety, sleeplessness, depression, and stomach ache. These symptoms are the signs you should look out for.
Lack of communication:
Effective communication is one of the most effective ways to build cordial relationships with co-workers. Organizational operations should be based on communication and trust. The management team’s lack of Transparency and communication is a toxic workplace trait. The workplace culture should be clearly stated, and every team member should know the vision, goals, and duties. This information motivates and engages them. Companies should prioritize communication and have a good communication structure.
