Toxic Work Environments: Five Corporate Cultures That Kill Productivity, In Pics
The corporate environment is often filled with a focus on growth, collaboration and success – yet amongst all that, many organizations participate in behaviors that are detrimental to worker wellbeing. It can begin by micromanaging, playing the blame game, and lead to overwork being glorified as a badge of honor as it is easy for toxic habits to arise and remain. These behaviors are often accepted or overlooked and create a stressful environment, with drained morale and unproductive employees. If even the most admired companies can find themselves in this position, employees can experience burnout, a lack of support or feeling drained emotionally, companies can experience turnover and low engagement. Here are five toxic workplace behaviors and how they negatively impact people and performance.
Blame Culture
Instead of reflecting on mistakes, we look for someone to blame, shame or punish. This results in a lack of risk-taking, creativity, and trust within teams. Blame Culture is a very common toxic work culture in the workplace.
Overwork Culture
Employees have to put in long hours with no work-life balance. Burnout is the norm, and time off is discouraged, which results in mental and physical depletion.
Micromanagement Culture
Managers micromanage every assignment and lack trust in their teams. This has the effect of suppressing creativity, diminishing collective morale and often leads to apathetic employees. This is a pervasive toxic culture at work.
Favoritism and Office Politics
Decisions on promotions and recognition are made based on familiarity rather than performance. This generates bitterness, unequal competition, and low morale in other employees.
Lack of Transparency and Communication
Critical decisions are taken behind the backs of people, and leadership does not communicate updates or act upon feedback. This generates confusion, gossip, and misalignment between management and teams.
