Do you feel unhappy about the work you do? Do you feel intoxicated by the people you work with? If the answer is yes, the chances are you are working in a toxic work environment and you are under psychological pressure. Even though the word seems quite heavy, it is exactly the case once your soul and mind are poisoned by the environment you work in.
On the other hand, a toxic workplace is more than a job or colleagues you hate. It is also not a bad manager only. Toxicity at work has much broader effects not only on one’s physical and mental health but also on their loved ones.
So what are the aspects that make a work environment toxic? Do you maybe face any of these without realizing it at your work?
See 10 signs below to discover if you suffer from any of these at your work. Tell me in the comments, if there are other ones you experienced or observed and not included here.
1. Poor communication among the employees
In a toxic workplace, you can never experience open and quality communication. Since most employees –regardless of their rank- stay on the defensive side, they never openly let their opinions and intentions out. When giving tasks or explaining the work, they do not speak clearly and directly. Either with ulterior motives with bad intentions or unintentional neglect, employees of a toxic workplace always are closed off and do not value open communication. Those employees always hide information let it be beneficial or harmful.
2. No creative freedom and resourcefulness, only top-down orders for how to do the job
You cannot observe self-contribution or individual effort to do the work more creatively in a toxic work environment. Simply because it is not appreciated. New ways or personal opinions are not valued. You are expected to follow the orders about how the work is done. Your contribution is seen as rather time-consuming or even an inhibitor to the longstanding processes.
3. No career growth therefore no enthusiasm towards the work
Personal growth cannot be obtained in a toxic workplace. You may end up doing the same work every day for years. And still, you may not improve at all. Because the managers and colleagues are also not in favor of personal improvement, you may not observe any motivation in general. People seem to just lose enthusiasm towards their work. This kind of environment naturally affects you and you will also feel unmotivated.
4. High turnover and sick leaves rates
For obvious reasons, you may see many employees asking for sick leaves and even resigning. This may be due to several reasons such as mobbing, incredibly heavy workload, etc. But in the end, the true reason is that the general workplace is toxic so employees cannot continue showing up every day.
5. Inadequate or even narcissistic leadership
One of the most detrimental aspects of a toxic work environment is inadequate managers. That kind of manager not only limits your growth and improvement but also leaves you standing. When it comes to situations where you need your back covered they will not support you or even blame you for it. You do not feel secure concerning work-related or other matters under this kind of supervisor. They may not even be qualified for their job but still stay in those positions sponging on their subordinates.
6. No life-work balance thus leaves you battling burn-out
When working in a toxic work environment, you lose the track of time because you end up working long hours to complete the unfair workload you are given. You cannot spare time for yourself or your loved ones anymore. Either colleagues or your supervisor calls you in the middle of a weekend or late at night during the week for a question that is not even significant. Thus, your me time is violated and you end up doing work even then. This may not happen to you at first but you should observe other units and employees. If they face these situations, it is just a matter of time before they will be in the same situation.
7. No forward movement or improvement of the general organization
The organization you are working for does not seem to be moving in a clear and definite direction. There are no goals and aspirations as a whole regarding its position in the sector. It seems that everyone is just working to pass the days not caring enough about the future of the organization.
8. Employees’ attitude (everyones’ feelings about work)
People who work in a toxic work environment may show passive-aggressive attitudes, look unhappy, unmotivated, and not cooperative. It is hard to find social circles even during working time. You can find employees always complaining about the work and the place. No one is satisfied with the conditions and mostly does not hold and sense of ownership for their work and place within their workplace.
9. No clear roles therefore additional work piled up
In a toxic work environment, employees do not have clear job roles since the job description is not well identified. Therefore, employees end up doing work that is not related to their role. This creates so much workload that one cannot handle it in a given time. Any additional work or emerging task is given to one who is thought to be taking great care. It may even turn into a battlefield to decide on who is going to handle it because no one wants the work to be their responsibility.
10. How failure and success treated
Failure is not tolerated in a toxic work environment. There is always the need to find a “culprit” when a mistake or problem occurs. Rather than trying to find the main cause or the core problem leading to the problems, employees are put on a target board and left alone to fix the situation. Supporting and fixing the problems and not blaming individuals seem to be not the way to approach a problem.
Not only failure but also how success is treated in an organization is an important differentiation in terms of workplace toxicity. Successful employees are not treated fairly. They will be “punished” with more responsibilities and workload. There will always be jealousy towards them from not only employees but also managers. Their accomplishments are swept under the rug and not appreciated.
If you can pinpoint some of the signs mentioned above, you are also probably in a toxic workplace. You may already know it and just trying to find a way to handle it. So, please follow the next post on how to handle a toxic work environment.
Let me know about other signs that can be of a toxic workplace.