Jobhop Jobhop's blog : The Toxic Workplace, 5 Signs To Look Out For
You don’t know how it happened but somewhere along the way your company that you’ve taken years to build may be toxic.
How do you know if you have a toxic workplace?
It’s a toxic workplace because all the signs are there.
Zapped energy
Your employees have started to look like zombies, they’ve lost all facial muscle, and words from their mouths have been replaced by grunts.
You can remember a time when employees would smile, you’d hear laughter from around the water cooler and friendly banter with customer on the phones, what happened?
When you start to build a company you are an energy force and your employees feed off that energy, your passion shines through and they’re passionate too. They know the mission and they feel that they’re with you on a wonderful journey. Then one day the company grows, you employ someone from outside the company to do what you’ve always done whilst you go and secure even bigger contracts. The person you’ve employed sees things differently and has their own style, they form a barrier between you and your employees, they tell your employees what’s expected of them but your words have been almagamated with their words, the message gets diluted, employees become disconnected. Now of course this doesn’t always happen, but it happens a lot!
To stop zombies appearing in your company it may do you good to employ someone from within, get them to lead the team, freeing you to develop the company.
Someone who is passionate about your mission as much as you and can keep the whole team energised. If that person isn’t ready, get them trained up, it will be better to wait than have the energy drained from every employee by an outsider. I’ve spoken with many companies who’ve made the mistake of employing an outsider and they’ve wished they waited longer and trained one of their own up.
If it’s too late and you now have zombies you must take action immediately, zombies are not productive. A meeting with the zombies leader must take place and an action plan given to re-energise the company. The leader may need additional training, they may even realise they’re not suitable for the role and they’re relieved you’ve worked it out.
Once that part has been taken care of you have to reconnect your employees with the mission, the company vision and its values. This isn’t going to happen overnight but it can be done.
Leave me alone
It’s great when your employees just want to crack on with the job and sometimes they’ll let others know not to interrupt. What’s not good though is when your employees come day in, day out, sit in the same place, not interact and rush off home the minute they can. This work attitude is toxic, it’s not inspiring, it’s not creative, it’s not innovative. When people are working like this they will never help each other to develop and if they don’t help each other they wont help the company to develop. Perhaps you’ve inherited these employees, perhaps they learned it was wrong to “chit chat” from the previous managing director.
Going forward you need to show them that it’s good to interact with each other. An easy solution is to create an area where chat naturally flows, have good coffee, have a water cooler, put up a white board for “Best ideas of the day” and a notice board for out of work activities. Another option could include chill down sessions at the end of the day where employees could kick back and share achievements or gratitude. If all else fails get bar football! This will soon encourage plenty of competitive chatting or shouting!
The workplace bully
It’s a toxic workplace if you have a bully in it. A bully may use their position to undermine others, he or she may be manipulative, revel in others misery, lose their temper easily and they go out of their way to embarrass colleagues. Does that sound like someone working in your company? Bullying has to be recognised and stopped immediately otherwise this toxicity will cause sickness within the workforce and a high turnover of employees. Your company will lose good employees because of one bully.
Once you recognise that bullying is going on then HR needs to address the problem, if HR is intimidated by the bully then HR needs addressing. Don’t let the problem get worse, collect evidence about the bully and put a solution in place, that could mean extra training, relocation, alternative working arrangement. Make sure every employee knows about the company’s zero-tolerance bullying policy and encourage every employee to look out for any bullying behaviour.
Chaos
You start to notice your employees are giving different answers for the same questions asked. Customers start calling to say they were promised delivery on Wednesday but when the employees are questioned they swear they never said that, the thing is the same has happened with many customers. No one really knows what’s going on and the whole work place feels chaotic. If this is the case then everyone needs to go back to the drawing board to understand the companies procedures and follow them. Keep systems simple so everyone can follow effortlessly without getting confused.
The office drama
Now and then a drama happens, it’s understandable, it’s life, but if your workplace is like an episode of Eastenders everyday then there’s something seriously wrong. Does nudging go on when a certain someone walks past, are the sounds of sobbing regularly heard in the toilets, do doors get slammed, is there a secret office romance that everyone knows about or regular conflict between a troublesome twosome?
Perhaps your workplace has a drama Queen and King who regularly keep everyone gossiping. Dramas need an audience so you have to stop the show, move everyone along and deal with the people who started the drama. You may need to document dramas, offer conflict mediation, reprimand or suspend drama Queens and Kings. Employees must be able to work everyday in a drama free environment.
Once you recognise the signs you can start the detoxification process.
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Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk
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