Toxic Workplace - One toxic person can bring down more than 20 team members

In this article author is explaining the impact of toxic workplace and how to deal with.

toxic workplace

A while back I went to a meet-up and got opportunity to interact with people out there, It was awesome to seen their enthusiasm, brightness in their eyes, and courage to change the world. I am sure that most of you are the same, and of course very passionate towards your profession. Even after I have seen people who are not able to grow accordingly, I have seen professionals who are not able to maintain their skill set, I have seen people who have no learning hunger, I have seen people who are frustrated with their work, I have seen people who are not able to do justice what they do, and I have seen people who do because they have been asked to do.

And most wondering part is that with majority of these people, organizations are performing very well. Do you know why?

Because organizations are creating these kind of people as they need it for their best, and from bottom to top managements are aware with this truth and you might be shocked to know that it is getting pushed from top to bottom management in various ways. As we all know that most of the work in any industry is so repetitive in nature and in huge quantity, that management wants a low paid employee to do that and big thing is that in this process accidentally they are killing their employee's learning hunger.

And this kind of workplace is for sure known as Toxic workplace.

A very famous saying –

"One toxic person can bring down more than 20 team members"

How to recognize a Toxic workplace?

There are few bad smells which can help you to identify this kind of workplace.

    • No judgement for work that who is a right person to do -

      Your boss should be enough intelligent to understand that who is the right person for a piece of work, and he should ask to his employee that whether he is liking what he is doing or not.

    • Negative Co-workers -

      If most of the time your co-workers talks/shares negative thoughts, it may make you negative as well and sometime restless.

    • Lack of Training to employees -

      Lack of training can stop your learning growth and it's a kind of self suicide situation, so be alert.

    • Politics at workplace

      Try to understand that if co-workers or manager is playing any politics around which may harm your creditability or may panic you. Politics is very common at most of the workplaces but react if it hurts you.

Politics by some bad employees at workplace Employee threats to other Employee under emotional force
  • No Skip level meeting to raise your issues -

    In most of the organizations employees have the right to speak with their skip level managers, but practically it's all in air. This meeting helps you to raise yours and team related concerns, but if there is no such meeting whom you will report to?

  • Abusive Management and co-workers -

    Any harassment's should not be ignored even if it comes from your boss. The harassment could be a lewd, racist or anything which may disturb you.

  • Physical threats -

    Any kind of physical danger at workplace should not be ignored.

  • Annoying work environment -

    Anything which is annoying at workplace should not be compromised.

  • Dual standard within team by your manager -

    Sometimes your manager may be very nice to your one of the colleague may be for different reasons, or he speaks lie in different forums.

  • 365 Days Work Pressure -

    Every piece of work comes with a deadline but it should not be very tight as you need to spend more than the office hours frequently.

  • Fearing -

    There should not be fearing at workplace, your boss and colleagues should be very friendly.

As an employee we all know very well the importance of workplace. It's really doesn't matter that which field you are associated with, workplace is the one which impacts you the most and even more than your home. So take the decisions at right time to quit from there before it kills you.

Handling at Toxic workplace?

First question which you should ask yourself is that, are you a part of the problem or part of solution? And answer should be 'Yes' always, if not then change yourself first as you are the one who is making the workplace toxic.

 

Keep in mind that everything is not under your control, so try to adopt all the positive aspects and discard any negative aspect. Be introspective and optimistic, it will help you a lot to cope up at toxic workplace. Be straight forward and professional at workplace, doesn't matter whom you are speaking with, it will helpful to create a healthy environment.

Boss is not always right

A very important point to remember is that,

"Boss is not always right!"

There is no typo, you read it correctly I said Boss is not always right. So don't echo what your boss is saying, analyze it and disagree if you think so.

Another very important point is to note that, you are not just going office to finish your work, it's a place where you are spending almost whole day and you can't afford to ignore anything wrong around you, so be vocal, raise concerns, escalate it and try to resolve as per your best.

Lastly Quit from the job if you think, you are not able to handle the situation, as toxic workplace is a kind of cancer which is treatable only when it is getting cure at right time by right people.

Stay positive at workplace to help co-workers.