A new toxic trend: 'Brilliant jerks' at work

CULTURE: More likely than not, you've had a coworker who was perceived as brilliant at their job but incredibly difficult to interact with. Kimberly Williams , vice president of people, culture and compliance at Walker Advertising , has a name for this type of office fixture: The "brilliant jerk," noting that they typically have leadership roles of some kind and tend to be credited for bringing substantial profits to the company. She believes employers are long overdue to rethink their value to the team, since they often cause more damage than employers think.?

"A 'brilliant jerk' is usually a highly valued employee whose behaviors are permitted, even if those same behaviors wouldn't be allowed for other folks," says Williams. "Especially in large organizations, that [behavior] can ripple through teams and have a chilling effect on innovation and loyalty. There are real dollars being lost."

Check out Williams' formula for calculating the cost of a toxic workplace on employees: Are 'brilliant jerks' ruining your workplace? How to spot one and call it out

STRESS REDUCTION: Employees have accepted a certain level of stress to be the norm, but learning self-awareness could be the key to reducing work anxiety for good. To facilitate this mind-body connection , Edward J. Beltran 's company Fierce Conversations is developing an app called Pulse, which connects to an employee's smartwatch. The app gathers data around how a person's body is responding to stress, and then offers interactive tools and coaching support to reduce those triggers.?

"Our bodies don't lie, and they're constantly responding to stress," Beltran says. "We've created an app where we're actually able to take data and show people what they're responding to in their environment, and more importantly, what to do about it."?

Read more about the app and how to overcome a challenging work environment: Why chronic work stress doesn't have to be the norm

COMPANY PRIDE: Thirty-one percent of employees 30 and under would choose to remain in their current roles — even if offered a better?salary elsewhere — if they felt proud of their company, according to a recent survey from employee engagement and recognition agency WorkProud . Additionally,? 43% would be more likely to consider a long-term career with their present company .

"Pride is really an emotional driver and we know that people are emotional by nature," says Rick Garlick , a consulting partner at WorkProud. "Employees like the idea of having pride in what they do and the companies they're doing it for; they want to feel that sense of a job well done at the end of a day."?

See what traits employees appreciate the most in their organization that will get them to stay: Young employees want to feel pride in their work — or they'll quit