All i want to say is that they don't really care about us

All i want to say is that they don't really care about us !!

Michael Jackson said this in 1996. I was fresh out of college and we grooved to this foot-tapping number possibly without understanding the in-depth message it conveyed, that we live in a racist and insane society in which men of colour are imprisoned unequivocally more often than white men and given much harsher judgements and punishments."The song is about the specific prejudice that Michael Jackson personally faced in 1993 at the hands of the police and the thoroughly racist Santa Barbara District Attorney Thomas Sneddon."

It is quite true that society and workplaces thrive on the flesh of hierarchy. Someone is superior and some are not so superior. Call it reporting structure, org chart, The hierarchical system is probably a time-tested way of functioning imposed by nature. Even the food chain has a hierarchy within the ecosystem of jungle law. Might is right!! But humans aren't animals. The sapiens distinguish themselves from the rest of the world with two distinct emotions (a) The Power of Imagination and (b) the power of empathy. Incidentally, these two aspects are the most essential quality which separates a manager from a leader. A wrong leader at the workplace what we get is a "toxic workplace"

In the last few decades, organizations have had a single focus on “profit”, which was based solely on the stock prices. However, the outliers on the other side of the spectrum have been ignored, which are namely the “employees”, despite their established value as the most important assets of an organization. A few evolved organisations concluded that employees can be categorized as “stars”, who substantially increase organizational output and “toxic workers”, who simply are unsuitable for the organization. Studies have shown that 80% of the issues and concerns regarding employees’ productivity are related to the type of work environment in which they operationalize their assigned tasks.

During different periods, researchers tried to conceptualize the phrase “working environment”. In a simple form, the working environment is the totality of the systems, conditions and situations in which an employee performs his/her tasks. A working environment can be classified into two major spectrums: a collaborative work environment and a toxic workplace environment. On the positive end of the spectrum, collaborative workplace environments refer to a high-spirit workplace with a community-centred approach in which the employee and employer have an empathetic relationship that fosters the physical and psychological well-being of an employee. On the negative end of the spectrum, toxic workplace environments induce repulsive experiences, which lead to negative, adverse and reduced outcomes for the employees. A toxic environment is similar to cancer that damages all the stakeholders of an organization as it creates toxic culture, toxic leaders, and toxic employees, which ultimately create a toxic organization. Toxic behaviours in the workplace can increase the organizational cost due to the loss of a positive company image, low self-esteem, loss of employee morale, high turnover, work-life conflict, high absenteeism, poor employee health, and lowered employee productivity. The term ‘toxic workplace environment’ has multiple facets that include:?

Fear-based leadership. This type of leader motivates through fear, not reward. They may have a “do as I say not as I do” approach to heavy-handed rules.

No recognition of excellence. Because leadership uses fear to motivate employees, they don’t reward or recognize excellent work. After a while, they don’t get excellent work out of their employees.

Gossip, rumor, and speculation. This is often because information is heavily filtered and there’s a lack of transparency from managers. Employee expectations are never defined.

Unhealthy competition. Competition is good as a motivator, unless managers use it to pit employees against each other in negative ways. This leads to fighting, drama, and anger.

Favoritism. A natural outflow of unhealthy competition is favoritism in hours, wages, benefits, and overall discriminatory treatment.?

?Productivity enhancement is a major apprehension of every organization across the globe irrespective of the organization’s nature, operations, functions, area, and sector. However, the meaning and sense of the term ‘productivity’ vary according to the vision and objectives of the organization. Furthermore, some factors play an important role in cultivating productivity in different organizations according to their internal cultures and environments.?Thus a toxic workplace can’t be left alone, because it won’t self-improve. It has to be fixed with purpose.The situation didn’t become toxic overnight, and it’s going to take some time and a bit of real struggle up front to make changes.?

Start communicating in meaningful ways. Everyone talks about the importance of communication, but few rarely do it well. Meaningful communication is about quality, not quantity. It simply means making sure your employees know what they need to know to Do their job well and effectively. Understand situations that affect their job. Know what expectations they need to meet. Quell worries and rumours. You can have one-on-one sessions to help an employee who’s struggling or excelling. You can also use tools that make communication easier so that it’s timely instead of too late.

Why not communicate about shifts and schedules within your scheduling tool? Why not make it easier for your team to talk and swap shifts directly? The importance of meaningful communication is one of the reasons When I Work put team communication directly into the scheduling app. The team should talk about scheduling in the place where the scheduling is done.Your employees are your most valuable asset. Replacing them costs time and money, but even more than that, when they leave they take something unique with them. Your team, including yourself, your managers, and your employees, are all human beings. Everyone has off days, hard days, great days, frustrating failure, and incredible success. If your workplace culture allows room for it all while fostering growth, without being punitive or systematizing negativity, that’s a win.

Are you a brand your employees are proud to be a part of, or are you just a paycheck until something better comes along? Create a positive workplace culture and watch what happens when people feel like they matter. People who know they’re valued work harder. They stick around. They tell their friends. They are productive. They want to contribute and make the team proud. After all people make places and places make people.