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10 Signs Your Workplace Culture Is Toxic (And How To Fix It)

10 Signs Your Workplace Culture Is Toxic (And How To Fix It)
by Ross Kimbarovsky

It’s a hard thing to admit … that your work culture may be toxic. But identifying the symptoms and finding the antidotes for them can quickly improve morale, engagement, retention and productivity.

Are your employees tired? Discouraged? Burnt out?

If the answer is yes, you may have a toxic culture at work.

That’s a problem. Unhappy workers are less productive, make more mistakes, and are more likely to seek employment elsewhere.

Work culture exists on multiple levels. It isn’t just behaviors. It’s also an infrastructure of beliefs and values. To create real and lasting change, your business must tackle cultural issues on all levels.

You must act quickly to improve a negative work environment before productivity lags and employees abandon ship.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you turn around a toxic work culture:

1. Identify problem behaviors

Every company is unique. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for repairing a damaged work culture.

The first step is always to examine your business’s culture to identify your specific challenges.

Start by taking a critical look around you. Before you can change for the better, you have to face uncomfortable truths head-on.

Ten common warning signs a workplace is turning toxic are: 

• gossiping and/or social cliques
• aggressive bullying behavior
• poor communication and unclear expectations
• dictatorial management techniques that don’t embrace employee feedback
• excessive absenteeism, illness or fatigue
• favoritism and imbalanced working conditions (discriminatory policies/wage gaps)
• workaholic behavior that sacrifices healthy work/life balance
• unrealistic workloads or deadlines
• little (or strained interaction) between employees or employees and management, and
• unsafe or morally questionable working conditions.