Toxic work environments may be defined as any work that has an atmosphere negatively impacting employees and causing disruption in their life path and career. If you believe you are in a toxic environment, it’s important to take action early on, so you can mitigate the worst push on your mental health and career. The following examples are meant to point out the typical signs of a toxic workplace:
Your Input is Ignored
The first sign of a toxic workplace is that whenever you speak, your coworkers and managers simply ignore you. Employees dealing with problems on a day-to-day basis are often reliable sources of information. If your input is ignored, then you are not treated as valuable, being a sign that employees are not prioritised or paid attention to. Companies must invest in their workforce as much as they would with any other asset, so dismissing the input of team members is a slippery slope that allows a toxic environment to bloom.
Rumours and Gossip Everywhere
Although this is more or less human nature, if your office feels like a place full of intrigue and rumour, instead of a professional workplace, this is another sign of toxicity. Rampant rumours and gossip may show that the leadership of the company is indifferent to the privacy of their employees. That kind of behaviour is unprofessional and simply unacceptable.
Bullying
Needless to say, this kind of behaviour is also toxic. Bullying can take many forms, from overt verbal jabs to physical abuse. It may also be something far more insidious, such as psychological and nonverbal abuse. Enduring that kind of abuse may be harmful to the employee’s health and should never be tolerated in the workplace. Toxic environments create conditions where bullies thrive. That kind of behaviour is disruptive at the very least, and dangerous at its worst.
Unfair Policies
Rules that have no point or rules that seem to only apply to specific employees usually shows that management is having favourites. Environments that don’t have the same types of rules for everyone, with special privileges for some people, but not others are toxic. Privileges may take many shapes, from excusing inappropriate behaviours to being tardy, to much worse.
Narcissistic Leadership Behaviour
Leaders that show narcissistic traits are something commonly seen in any field, business or otherwise. These tendencies may manifest in lack of empathy, lack of self-awareness or lack of any other toxic trait. It may be difficult to reason and work alongside a narcissist, this often results in high turnover rates due to employees lacking the patience for that kind of leadership.
Communication Issues and No Transparency
Transparency is a good way of knowing whether your organisation cares about your well-being, as well as having the trust necessary to keep the workplace running like clockwork. Maintaining that trust is a core element of a team, so if it doesn’t exist, things fall apart sooner or later.
There is no Work-Life Balance
Nobody wants to have their boss call them on a weekend, asking them to come in. The importance of a good work-life balance is one of the reasons why most places suffer from this issue. As the value of work-life balance rises in the face of growing tensions from all manner of life issues, employees shouldn’t have to sacrifice their well-being for their job. Companies that feel overbearing and simply don’t allow for a proper balance between work and personal life are one of the worst offenders in toxic workplace culture. Make sure you avoid that going forward.
