Does your stomach swirl on Monday mornings while preparing to go to work? Do you feel unheard or demoralized during office meetings? Do you consider your place of work as a second home or, does it feel like cyclical torture?
Workplace culture impacts our performance.
Surprisingly, a Toxic work environment is quite common in most workspaces and isn’t even considered a form of psychological abuse. More so how we feel at our workplace has a considerable impact on the productivity & progress in our careers, besides the emotional mindset emoted at our Homefront.
Below are ten listed signs of a Toxic Work Culture and ways to overcome it.
1. Dysfunction & Confusion
Do your job role intrude and interject with other fellow team members leading to bottlenecks in task accomplishment? Is conclusiveness in decision making a challenge leading to impending work?
Unclear roles and responsibilities are one of the first red flags denoting chaos. A Clarity in roles and responsibilities is one of the first steps to untangle confusion amongst staff. Constructive decision-making empowerment boosts team morale resulting in individuals taking onus in task accomplishment and outperforming expectations.
2. Pervasive Fear of Being Ridiculed
Fear of failure in itself isn’t demeaning, as it subconsciously aids a person to succeed. But many fear being disdained for their hurdles. Many choose to suffer in silence to avoid contempt from their counterparts.
It is a deterrent to achieving goals adding mental burnout in the inquirer. “To fail and learn” is human nature. Encourage people to ask for help to overcome obstacles and ineffective communication. Seniors must be approachable and be role models to others on building competency and trust in the team.
3. Persistent Lack of Enthusiasm
If you sense disinterest in fellow mates in getting things done or if the office appears gloomy and lacks enthusiasm, trust your intuition detecting a toxic work environment. When employees feel being unvalued or unchallenged, they tend to lose interest in work. It is then time for people to plan their migration.
It costs heavily for a company to replace their trained fellowmen. Engage employees in upskilling to get them engaged. Put them to test their abilities with newer challenges at work. Employers /managers must delegate tasks to heighten engagement and not to overwork for overall job satisfaction. Too much and too little work is a damper.
4. Dearth in Freedom
Do you feel threatened while working? Does the team dynamics stress you out? Is it difficult to approach for assistance from other fellow team members? Does the team deliberately act to undermine your efforts? Psychological safety has an impact on team effectiveness.
Project Aristotle, a research study by Google, was conducted to study the behavior of most successful teams. It determined that a team’s success depends on how safe its members were in expressing themselves unafraid rather than their educational backgrounds.
Voicing intellectual contention that stimulates creativity and innovation should be a part of the work culture. It also strengthens complex decision-making and problem-solving.
5. Counterproductive Office Politics
Our offices are modern-day jungles where office gossip is pervasive in every office. Quite a good majority admit to being a participant or overhear the ongoing banter.
It is intimidating for employees to then reach for open communication. It hinders trust among co-workers, instigates insecurities and hampers work ethics.
Team members are to be encouraged to build high-quality connections and alliances amongst themselves. One might also consider speaking privately to the person to sort out the differences. Be courteous, polite and respectful to your co-workers and encourage your peers to do the same.
Maintaining equanimity and unbiasedness usually lets one concentrate on bigger goals. If it undermines your sanity, one might consider the transition to a newer scope, however not before reporting to the management. Management must monitor potential hires to diffuse this goal buster.
6. Workplace Abuse
Workplace Abuse can be classified as Racial, based on creed, Sexual, gender, sexual orientation, religious, disability-based, physical, personal, age-based, psychological, power-hunger, cyberbullying, Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment, verbal, etcetera is present relatively at most places.
The ways and means are endless for being a victim at the workplace. Employers’ complacency or failure to act also propels abuse.
An internal complaint forum is an absolute necessity that lets victim anonymously report their issues. And that abuse is tackled with strictness to decrease its occurrence. Employees are to be trained and upgraded on dealing and reporting abuse.
7. A Revolving Door Company
Short hauls of employees, Constant layoffs with recurrent firing denote indecisiveness and mismanagement that costs magnanimously to the company. High turnover of employees is indicative of dissatisfaction in employees in the management.
Transitioning to a new job is a difficult decision, and if many opt-in, it is an alert of the presence of toxicity at the workplace.
Quick fixes like a replacement may seem to work initially, but it is an expense to the organization to replace trained and experienced staff. Thorough screening of potential hirers as per job description and requirement is an initial step to undertake retention.
Apart from this, being empathetic towards employee needs is another aspect many seem to overlook on. People are employees for fixed hours, that does not stop them from being human beings with daily problems.
A little understanding and openness of the management over employee ownership can go a long way to ascertain two-way dependability and trust. Open two-way communication to clarify job descriptions along with addressing challenges faced by the employee is another way management may bring about a change. This way, expectations, clarity, and accountability are set right between both parties.
8. Bad Boss
Bad Managers bring unhappiness, stress, irritation, and demotivation to your job. Retention of good employees is difficult if the leadership is a mix of aggressive, misunderstanding, unapologetic, rude, blame-gamer, micromanager, etcetera.
You Don’t Leave A Job, You Leave A Bad Boss
Counteracting this negativity is a challenge that all of us have to face once in a while. Detailed one on one communication voicing your concerns is a recourse one may choose to set the tone right. It gets mentally stressful to accomplish tasks under the aegis of faulty managers.
Approaching the higher management or HR about the behaviors that incapacitate you to perform is the last option that might be adopted when things go out of bounds.
9. No Work-Life Balance
There has been a trend prevalent of being available for work at all times. Though it may be necessary for healthcare and emergency services, this surely topples down the balance one strives for between work and life.
When individuals look shamefaced on not replying to emails or calls after work hours, when sick or when on vacation, one may sense the toxicity creeping in their personal life. It feels sick to be invalidated for choosing to prioritize one’s personal life. A job that once sounded interesting can become dreadful in no time if it interferes with one’s happiness and content.
It can turn severe from stress to dealing with anxiety and mental health issues. Setting and maintaining healthy boundaries from starting at work in today’s age of interconnectivity and flexibility is essential for the balance one needs in their life.
10. Frequent Burnouts
A surefire for a toxic work culture is mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion due to prolonged work stress. Stress builds up when even after relentless input at work, the outcomes (appreciation, promotion, incentive) are negligible.
Burnout can aggregate from excessive workload, stressful line of work, no work-life balance, no support system to rely on to distorted values at work. Additionally, Burnout can also stem out from boredom or lack of work. When employees are allocated tasks below their capacities they resign to the idea of performing.
Frequent Burnouts signals for job change as prolonged exposure poses a threat to one’s overall well-being. It also hints at the reticence of management to good administration. Self-care is essential by setting boundaries at work. Communication is an additional action that must be adhered to for tackling such tricky situations.
An organization must correlate to its team’s well-being to build value and growth. The work environment whether in physical presence or in a work from home set-up generally indicates the vast scope of improvement needed within an organization.
However, one must trust their gut feeling if one doubts the company’s work culture and lack in resolution. Surviving toxic culture does teach you a thing or two about your worth, patience, self-care, and setting boundaries at work.
At times reigns of improvement do not stay with us, and then one must look out to new endeavors. Transitioning to a new venture is a difficult choice but easier than surviving regular torture. One must embrace to start afresh a new journey with the newly acquired skills and talents to reach newer heights.
Final Word
At times, tough situations are the best personality builders. One must make a conscious effort to enhance ourselves walking through these experiences. Who knows, one may get to discover a new creative angle to embark on a journey of being an entrepreneur.
