We are now in a post-pandemic workplace where employees have a greater sense of empowerment than ever before with regard to how they are treated by their employers. In spite of this shift, however, toxic individuals, and even more so, toxic workplaces, are still very much prevalent and an issue that has not gone away despite the shift towards a more empowered employee.
Toxic workplaces can be something as simple as “longstanding indifference towards new ideas and innovation”*, or even a working culture where micromanaging out of an “absolute fixation with wanting to control everything”** can turn the workplace into a stressful one, demotivating staff and leading to high levels of turnover when the cause of these toxic practises are not properly addressed. It is simple on paper to point out, yet in practise it can prove increasingly difficult to get rid of…
Management practises that can gradually become set in stone over time and inherited by the next generation without questioning the impact they have on staff, outright hostile individuals who end up placed in positions of power over others and abuse this position of power on those beneath them, an organisation that has been successful in generating revenue whilst mistreating staff in the process to achieve that level of success, the list of reasons that a workplace can become toxic are extensive and present a multitude of challenges to unravel.
The discussion must then turn towards business leaders, and how these business leaders effectively introduce parameters and systems in place that prevent toxic practises from thriving unchecked, along with protections in place to prevent toxic humans from acting in a way that impacts the wellbeing of another employee is the way forward for their organisation to grow. This involves a willingness to be introspective, and a desire to have oneself thoroughly examined in order to push through to improve and facilitate a workplace where employees can thrive.
Toxic practises that are deeply rooted within an organisation must be challenged from the top down in a comprehensive manner, as without a desire from those in charge to fix the issues at hand, there is little hope for healing the problems within without support from the very top. This must be spearheaded by business leaders seeking to find the problems and stamp them out for the betterment of their organisation in the long run overall, and being assessed as to whether you are a Healthy Place to Work® can be the solution to identifying what is creating a toxic workplace.
Assessment by Healthy Place to Work® is the ideal solution to weeding out toxic practises from the workplace, and providing the necessary examination to determine what is allowing them to continue. This will ensure that the underlying reasons can be identified accurately, and steps put in place to facilitate removing them entirely. The methodology of Healthy Place to Work® ensures step-by-step aftercare that puts measures in place, such as workshops, to properly address the root cause of problems, toxic practises in the workplace included.
Want to learn more insights from industry leaders into what makes a healthy and unhealthy workplace? Make sure to visit https://open.spotify.com/show/6umoUC02XRn8YWRLuneJDI
*Work Healthy Podcast – Episode 28 ‘Toxic Humans’
** Work Healthy Podcast – Episode 28 ‘Toxic Humans’
