Breaking Free from Toxic Work Culture

Toxic work culture

Workplace Toxicity is a serious flaw, or a limitation of an organization’s progress resulting to a faulty managerial process negativity in employee behavior, lack of ethical value, moral and social components.  

A toxic work culture creates a wall against the healthy work environment leading to harming employee’s mental health, emotional, professional well-being. Toxicity in the work culture destroys the team dynamic of a company which results in a lack of trust and understanding among the employees. Finally diminishing productivity not only harms the company but also jeopardizes its reputation. 

Nowadays, many employees resign from their current company due to toxic work culture. Through the blog we will help the employee to know more about the toxic environment in the workplace and what is the cure for it. 

What is a Toxic Work Culture? 

A toxic work culture is an unhealthy workplace deprived of trust and lacking acceptable communication and proper management. It is reared with cruel culture where mistakes are acknowledged with blame, punishment and demotivation rather than constructive criticism. 

This kind of work culture gradually leads to an increase of negativity due to lack of recognition and hence loss of talent. Moreover, in a toxic workplace, negative traits diminish the employee dynamism and team spirit, fostering jealousy and unhealthy competition. 

How to understand the increase of toxicity in the workplace? 

The reasons behind the gradual increase of toxicity in workplace or in any organization are pointed below: 

  • Insufficient Transparency: In some organizations the leadership is very poor and week management leading to weak accountability for the employee. Hence allowance of repetitive wrongdoing within comfort. 
  • Not Addressing Negativity: If any organization’s management does not condemn the behavior of bullying, biasness, favoritism, harassment, gossiping, therefore they are allowing to foster a toxic work culture. The organization is surrounded by negativity. 
  • Spiraling the Conflicts: Failure in addressing or acknowledging conflicts will have serious consequences and disrupting company’s operation and even leading to legal repercussions. In provocatively managing conflicts, organizations can mitigate risks and foster a healthier wok environment. 
  • Emotional Communication: The emotional propagation leading to frustration, anxiety, stress are caused by the toxic work environment leading to the toxicity in the workplace. 
  • Harmful Procedure: In some organizations the increasing number of toxic traits are rewarded and promoted dure to biasedness. They get rewarded without having adequate skills and talent. Hence the response trigger other employee to do the same thing to gain recognition and reward in the company.  
  • Therefore, the organization sets an example of wrongdoing being rewarded and promoted is accepted behavior in the work culture. 

 

What are the signs of toxic work culture? 

The unpleasant evidence of toxic work environment of toxic work culture is given below to help the management to not became clueless in the time of toxic work nature.  

  • Blame Game: The toxic workplace is an active participant of the blame game. For example, if there is a failure of non-competition of work, a situation is created where everyone blames one another rather than completing the task. The leadership majorly fails and failure of trust. 
  • Biasedness Wins: Biasness is an unprofessional way of favoring and promoting an undeserving candidate with recognition, rewards and promotions.  

The toxic workplace is the hub spot of favoritism.   

The negativity is also evident in this workplace where employees with no or few skills and talent are rewarded, promoted and recognized inside the organization. 

  • Workplace Bullying: Bullying, harassment and gossiping are the results of toxic work culture. The environment has become toxic can be felt as most of the employees will be engaged in gossiping, harassing and getting involved in bad policies rather than focusing on work. 

The toxic work environment is the leading zone of mental harassment causing frustration, self-doubt and anxiety leading to unstable while performing. 

  • Failure in Management: Unmanageable workplace is another trait of toxic workplace. Supervisors and managers fail to manage the employees and the situation becomes adversely critical for the employee to work in strain. 

Implementing per-minute work reports and frequent updates can inadvertently create a stifling work environment. Managers closely scrutinize employee activities, potentially hindering their autonomy and freedom. 

  • Disturbance in Work Life Balance: Toxic work culture leads to a major disturbance in work-life balance as teamwork becomes dream work for few employees as most of them get engaged in gossiping. 

What is the solution for the toxic work environment? 

  • Most important way to get rid of the toxic environment is maintaining a proper documentation, in this case a HRMS software can help the organization maintain every detail of the employees. Documentation holds a concrete proof that will highlight a company’s accomplishment and importance that should be maintained with care and caution. 
  • Limit a boundary with the employee where you can feel there is a chance of toxicity creation. It will help you to maintain a cleanse environment and away from negative gossip and harassment. 
  • Self-learning is one of the solutions to prevent the toxic work culture.  In toxic work environments, training and development initiatives often take a backseat, hindering learning and professional growth. However, as an individual, you can break free from this cycle. Prioritize self-learning, seek better opportunities, and refuse to remain confined by toxicity. Your personal growth matters. 
  • Your utmost priority should be your mental health, you will get many jobs again, but you won’t get back your positive attitude once you get surrounded with the toxic work culture. So, think wisely and take time before making any decisions by avoiding burnouts, frustrations, stress from the toxic workplace. 

How FlexiEle can support your organization to make it a toxic free workplace? 

The unique feature of FlexiEle HRMS is the Moodo Meter, it allows employees to express their emotional and mental wellbeing. Particularly effective for large semi-literate or illiterate workforces, this tool serves multiple purposes. It not only enables employees to share their feelings but also triggers notifications in case of harassment incidents, facilitating quick resolution. Additionally, HR can access Moodo Meter reports to analyze employee morale on a timely basis. 

Employee recognition and rewards shape the culture and create meaningful experience. FlexiEle HRMS has an innovative employee engagement software in India that provides platform to showcase individual and team achievements.   

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