4 causes of a hostile work environment and how to solve them

This week, we’re getting hostile. Just kidding (it’s not our thing), but we will be talking about some of the causes of hostile work environments and how to solve them.

What is a hostile work environment? ??

Some friction or conflict at work is natural – we’ve all experienced it. But when things start to get hostile, it’s a different feeling altogether (and it’s one that’s hard to pin down).?

To help us with the pinning, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has specific criteria for a workplace to be qualified as hostile. They are as follows:

?? Discriminating against a protected identity category, such as race, sex, gender, religion, or disability.

?? Behaving or acting in a way that is so severe, a reasonable person would see it as hostile, intimidating, abusive, and harmful to work or career growth.

?? Demonstrating ongoing behavior or actions. An isolated incident – no matter how disruptive, inappropriate, or harmful – doesn’t meet the criteria.

?? Crucially, the employer must have been found to be aware of the actions but didn’t intervene.?

As if this didn’t suck enough already, toxic workplace can have serious psychological impacts on employees that come with knock-on effects on business performance.

Psychological impacts can include stress, anxiety, fear, and a lack of motivation; whilst business impacts might involve absenteeism, decreased performance, high turnover, and even company liability.

4 common causes of hostility ??

Here’s a (non-exhaustive!) list of things that can cause hostility to creep into your workplace.

1?? Leadership failures

Firstly, remember that, according to the EEOC, individual hostile actions alone do not constitute a hostile environment. Hostile environments develop when leadership is aware of ongoing poor behavior but does nothing to address it.?This inaction is what allows the negative culture to take hold.

In other words, leadership is always responsible for addressing bad behavior and preventing hostile environments.

If leaders fail to do this, hostility undoubtedly will develop.

2?? High levels of stress

On its own, stress doesn’t contribute to workplace hostility. If you have a strong team culture and the stress is shared among the team, it can even bring them together. However, if team culture is weak and communication is poor, stress can be the match that lights the fire, leading to hostile behavior.

Sure, sometimes stress can’t be helped. It’s important to make sure your people are equipped to deal with stress healthily.

?? Fostering psychological safety is crucial – studies show that a lack of it correlates with higher levels of stress and burnout.

3?? Mis-hires

You probably knew this one was coming. If you hire someone who's toxic, and does not respect or adhere to your code of conduct, then this can lead to hostility in the workplace.

The cost of a mis-hire is often greater than we realize, and mis-hires can be culture-related (not just skills-related).

4?? Career stagnation

A 2023 study found a significant link between the negative emotions stemming from a “career plateau” and the anti-social, counterproductive behaviors that follow. In short, when there are no growth opportunities on the horizon and employees feel they’re in a “dead-end” job, they can experience resentment and take it out on others.

7 tips to combat hostility ??

That’s 4 problems. We’re going to raise the bar here and give you 7 quick-fire solutions!

1 - Use personality and culture tests

Shameless plug for our Culture Add test here – it’s a great way to figure out if a new hire brings the values you value.

2- Taking a skills-based approach to hiring

The State of Skills-Based Hiring 2024 found that 90% of employers that use skills-based hiring reduced mis-hires.

3 - Train your leaders

You need to know that they will ACT (and they need to be trained in how to act) in the face of hostility.

4- Provide growth opportunities

Stagnancy = hostility. Keep your people learning and growing – it’s good for business, too!

5 - Clear and open communication

Communication really is everything, and it’s the key to fostering psychological safety.?

6- Keep your code of conduct updated

Also, refer to it, emphasize its importance, and generate buy-in.

7- Team-building exercises

Don’t neglect your culture! Employees who feel connected are less likely to feel hostile.

Do you know what’s not hostile? ??

Our annual report, The State of Skills-Based Hiring!?

TestGorilla is on a mission to cut the BS (bias and stress ??) from the way we hire. The data in this report is crucial reading for anyone who wants to hire better, do skills-based hiring well, and cultivate transparent, effective, very un-hostile hiring practices at their organization.

Check it out if you fancy more reading. ??

This week's highlight on skills-based hiring is brought to you by Claudia Baijens ????