Are you working in a Toxic Workplace?

An average person, spends most of their awake time in their workplace. Basically, you spend more time with your office colleagues than you spend with your own family. Therefore, you can call the office your second home and your work life has a direct influence in your personal life. This is a simple guideline on how to identify or avoid a typical toxic workplace.

Are you unhappy at work? Even while you are at home, you tend to think about office related issues. DO you feel that you are undervalued, overlooked or unimportant at work. Do you feel trapped inside your work? Do you feel depressed, just by thinking that you have to return work tomorrow. If any of the above describes your situation, you might be working in an environment called "Toxic Workplace". The unhappiness and dissatisfaction you feel at your workplace might badly affect your self-esteem, personal life or even your health (depression, fatigue, burnout).

If you are in a toxic workplace, it’s better to take some time, think through your situation and evaluate whether you can fix it or leave it for good. So first here are few key red flags that you need to look out for.

You have a toxic boss

In popular norm it says; employees leave their bosses, not their companies. Does your boss always trying to punch you in the face, controlling your every step, trying to rub your mistakes on your face and you feel like that he is always trying to make an example out of you. 

Toxic bosses are often self-centered, unwilling to listen or respect to ideas and always believe that their way of doing is always correct. They love to show that they are in-charge but they never intend to help or give a hand in tough times.

Quite often toxic bosses are workaholics, who work till night at office, skipping lunch, sacrificing weekends and expects everyone to follow their way of work. From top management perspective he might look good and making all ends meet. But all employees under him might be already burnt out and stressed.

“If you feel as if your boss would expect you to come to work even if you were on your deathbed, you might be experiencing a toxic boss” (Wilding M,2017)

A story I heard about a boss; A small earthquake hit the workplace and employees were requested to evacuate the office. A certain boss who was working remote that day, requested his team to remain in office stating “Oh it’s a small earthquake, nothing to worry. Just make sure the work is done”.

Poor communication

Proper communication is the key to a positive work culture. If you feel like you are left out of the loop of information all the time, get little or no feedback of your performance, even when you get its always negative.

Maybe you are working for 12 hours straight, doing the work of a team single handedly, but still get no positive encouragement or feedback, and sometimes your boss or colleagues take the credits for your work. Did the company recently made drastic changes to the workflow, employment, benefits without seeking the feedback of employees?

You had multiple discussions with HR about growth, career plan, compensation and recognition but you’ve seen no changes whatsoever. If above ticks your checkboxes, it's time to pack your bags.

Bad attitudes at work and office drama

When you walk in to work, no one says good morning, everyone look miserable or hostile. You might notice, no one has the enthusiasm to work and the work has lost its wow factor. You never heard anyone genuinely saying “I love this company”, “ I love working here” or “I love my team”.

Everyone is suspicious about others and you feel that there might be people talking behind your back. Frequently you come across co-workers gossiping behind the back about others. Employees spend more time on rumors, misunderstandings, favors and other bad things. Theys tend to take sides and talk behind the back of each other. If you are experiencing these, you are in a toxic workplace.

Disorganized chaos

Do you feel that you waste too much time on meetings and accomplish nothing at the end. No one seems to be in control and no one seems to have the power to change anything, But people arrange meetings, just for the sake of having it.

Are you constantly getting bombarded with new policy changes, process changes? Do you feel like that the management has lost their touch, and never being there to solve the real problems. These are common symptoms of an organization lacking proper leadership.

Your body is reacting abnormally

Just like white blood cells attack and protects your body against a parasite, when you are in a certain toxic environment your body will react against it. Have you recently noticed raised heart beat, raised blood pressure, stress, headaches (migraines), sleeplessness, sweaty palms, feeling vigilant or even itchy skin.

These might be possible symptoms that your body is trying to prepare or defend against the negative environment you are working in. As mentioned earlier, working for years in a toxic workplace will eventually affect your physical health.

Conclusion/Solution

Working in a toxic environment drastically reduces your work efficiency and negatively affect your personal wellbeing. If you identify your workplace as to be toxic as described above, you got two solutions.

1.      Talk with your company or manager and try to get in to an agreement. Discuss with them about negative factors you are facing and how they can improve it. Try to show how it’s affecting you and your colleagues work efficacy and turnover. But confronting a toxic boss will rarely ends well for the employer. It takes a lot of effort from you to confront the toxic environment head on and get a solution of out if.

2.      Put your mental wellbeing and family above all and find an another job soon.

Other interesting articles by the Author:

• Do you love your current job? Maybe it's a Velvet coffin
• Job hopping, is it the modern way of getting a pay raise?

Sources and based on:

1. "It’s Not You–It’s Your Job: 7 Signs of a Toxic Workplace", Wilding M, 2017 Retrieved from https://goo.gl/2SDKGm
2. "IDENTIFYING A TOXIC WORKPLACE", Heibutzki R, 2017, Retrieved from https://careertrend.com/identifying-toxic-workplace-4939.html
3. "5 Ways to Identify a Toxic Workplace During Your Interview", Glazer R, 2017, Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/robert-glazer/5-ways-to-identify-a-toxic-workplace-during-your-interview.html
4. "How To Identify A Toxic Culture Before Accepting A Job Offer", Lindzon J, 2017, Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/40476040/how-to-identify-a-toxic-culture-before-accepting-a-job-offer

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