{"id":9468,"date":"2019-04-18T11:13:19","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T11:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/?p=9468"},"modified":"2019-04-22T07:11:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T07:11:59","slug":"%d0%ba%d0%b0%d0%ba-%d0%b4%d0%b0-%d1%81%d0%b5-%d1%81%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b2%d0%b8%d0%bc-%d1%81-%d1%82%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%81%d0%b8%d1%87%d0%bd%d0%b0%d1%82%d0%b0-%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b1%d0%be%d1%82%d0%bd%d0%b0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/%d0%ba%d0%b0%d0%ba-%d0%b4%d0%b0-%d1%81%d0%b5-%d1%81%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b2%d0%b8%d0%bc-%d1%81-%d1%82%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%81%d0%b8%d1%87%d0%bd%d0%b0%d1%82%d0%b0-%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b1%d0%be%d1%82%d0%bd%d0%b0\/","title":{"rendered":"Toxic work environment and how to deal with it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div  class='avia-slideshow av-av_slideshow-5edb3aac88bf58f0863f6ab4c6f32112 avia-slideshow-no scaling av_slideshow avia-slide-slider  avia-builder-el-0  el_before_av_textblock  avia-builder-el-first  av-slideshow-ui av-control-default av-slideshow-manual av-loop-once av-loop-manual-endless av-default-height-applied avia-slideshow-1' data-slideshow-options=\"{&quot;animation&quot;:&quot;slide&quot;,&quot;autoplay&quot;:false,&quot;loop_autoplay&quot;:&quot;once&quot;,&quot;interval&quot;:5,&quot;loop_manual&quot;:&quot;manual-endless&quot;,&quot;autoplay_stopper&quot;:false,&quot;noNavigation&quot;:false,&quot;bg_slider&quot;:false,&quot;keep_padding&quot;:false,&quot;hoverpause&quot;:false,&quot;show_slide_delay&quot;:0}\"  itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" ><ul class='avia-slideshow-inner ' style='padding-bottom: 56.25%;'><li  class='avia-slideshow-slide av-av_slideshow-5edb3aac88bf58f0863f6ab4c6f32112__0  av-single-slide slide-1 slide-odd'><div data-rel='slideshow-1' class='avia-slide-wrap '   ><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9476 avia-img-lazy-loading-not-9476\"  src=\"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3.png\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" title='3' alt=''  itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3.png 1920w, https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3-1030x579.png 1030w, https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3-1500x844.png 1500w, https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3-705x397.png 705w, https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/3-450x253.png 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n<style type=\"text\/css\" data-created_by=\"avia_inline_auto\" id=\"style-css-av-av_textblock-c7b0ef6bc33b4c9818e2b6cf12397816\">\n#top .av_textblock_section.av-av_textblock-c7b0ef6bc33b4c9818e2b6cf12397816 .avia_textblock{\ncolor:#0c0004;\n}\n<\/style>\n<section  class='av_textblock_section av-av_textblock-c7b0ef6bc33b4c9818e2b6cf12397816'  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock av_inherit_color'  itemprop=\"text\" ><h1><u>Toxic work environment and how to deal with it<\/u><\/h1>\n<p>Just one person out of the whole team is able to do some serious damage to the work environment by turning it into a toxic one. According to some surveys, 3 to 15% of people have a toxic attitude when they are at work.<\/p>\n<p>Such a persona can be everyone from the cleaning lady to the CEO of the company. Here\u2019re a few characteristics of toxic people:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They have narcissistic behaviour<\/li>\n<li>They underestimate the work of others<\/li>\n<li>They think they are perfect and are not open to changes<\/li>\n<li>They attract other toxic employees to the team<\/li>\n<li>They don\u2019t know when to stop when giving tasks to other employees<\/li>\n<li>They don\u2019t commit to their own responsibilities<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In 2018 WARBLE conducted a survey that was aiming to identify the reasons behind the existing of a toxic work environment in companies. It was anonymous so that the employees would be as honest as possible.<\/p>\n<p>The results are more than interesting:<\/p>\n<p>63% of the participants shared that they witnessed a destructive attitude or a toxic environment but they didn\u2019t report to anyone.<\/p>\n<p>46% didn\u2019t share anything about leadership-related problems because they didn\u2019t believe that there would be any consequences for the people with destructive attitude.<\/p>\n<p>I can tell from my personal experience that when we work with a supervisor who has destructive attitude towards the job, usually we as employees feel that we can\u2019t do anything about it or that our opinion won\u2019t matter no matter what position we are on.<\/p>\n<p>39% from the participants in the survey were afraid of sharing this kind of a problem with their supervisors because they were afraid of looking too emotional and wouldn\u2019t want to attract any compassion that they don\u2019t need.<\/p>\n<p>38% see destructive attitude in their supervisor but they wouldn\u2019t report it because he or she is their boss. They are afraid of future consequences such as revenge from the supervisor. Unfortunately, that reaction is really common and employees really do have a reason to be afraid of that.<\/p>\n<p>32% don\u2019t believe that the HR department would be discreet when it comes to what they shared.<\/p>\n<p>26% are afraid of being fired because they shared their feelings.<\/p>\n<p>5 signs that we work in a toxic environment<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It is scientifically proven that the toxic work environment can cause some serious damage to employees\u2019 health. Our bodies tell us when we have to be aware of our environment by often getting sick, anxiety, headaches, lack of any desire for physical activity.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>When your employees start to frequently take days off, this is one of the clearest signs that the work environment is toxic. In that case, your employees are often absent from work and the reasons they give you are similar to: being too tired, burnouts, stress. It is even worse if your employees show up sick at work.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>Lack of enthusiasm \u2013 you can notice that easily \u2013 observe your employee\u2019s body language. If they constantly look like they\u2019re sad, their pose is always arched, they are not energetic when talking on different topics or they don\u2019t talk at all in between each other.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>According to Robin Rose (a consultant that works with leaders and teams to enhance skills, integrate new behaviours, and improve performance), the social danger can lead to the same mental symptoms as the physical danger. That\u2019s why they are very similar to each other. She shares that we should observe our employees and watch for verbal and nonverbal symptoms:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>if there\u2019s a persona that needs to always dominate all the discussions and to impose their opinion<\/li>\n<li>if there\u2019re situations when all the employees talk without listening to each other and ignoring other people\u2019s opinion<\/li>\n<li>if when the dominant persona in the team speaks, the other employees have bad body posture, they are hunchbacked<\/li>\n<li>if the face mimics of the employees are defensive, tense.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All of the signs above say nothing but fear.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>Lack of communication or negative communication \u2013 employees don\u2019t get instructions on how to do their job properly and therefore, they don\u2019t know how to do it. If they\u2019re doing too much without getting feedback, or at least not a positive one, this leads to demotivation and is a clear sign of a toxic work environment.<\/li>\n<li>One of the most powerful signs for a toxic environment is the staff turnover. Often leaders stand behind the reason for that. Pay attention to all the methods that managers and supervisors use to work with their employees. Employees don\u2019t quit from bad companies, they quit from bad managers.<\/li>\n<li>Check if there\u2019re friend groups in your team and if gossiping is happening on a daily basis. This is something that you can easily notice. A person can feel the talking behind their back, if it\u2019s there, from their first day at a new job. There\u2019s no strong leader that would miss this sign.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>How to deal with a toxic environment<\/p>\n<p>STEP ONE &#8211; SCARF<\/p>\n<p>David Rocky invented the SCARF model which contains of 5 different factors and it helps us identify the pressure in the social environment. He believes that those 5 factors influence our behaviour in social situations.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Status \u2013 identifying the people who misuse their status, they try to overrule their colleagues<\/li>\n<li>Certainty \u2013 identifying bad communicators. Those are the people that are the most critical in their behaviour, they demotivate the whole team. What is different about them is the fact that they are critical and they use the information they have by turning it into a negative one. Example: Even if only a tiny detail from the whole project is not done, they can turn this in a huge problem by starting to use expressions like \u201ca failure\u201d, \u201cnothing goes as planned\u201d etc.<\/li>\n<li>Autonomy \u2013 in this step we are looking for the lack of autonomy or in other words \u2013 who are the people that refuse to take responsibility for their actions. Their presence of those people in a team, even if the team is really strong in general, can demotivate other employees. These are the people that stay out of responsibility and even if it\u2019s possible they would stay out of participating in a project.<\/li>\n<li>Relatedness \u2013 how your employees identify themselves with the culture of your company. Are they feeling valuable to the team? We should watch for gossiping or for groups of people that would spread rumours. If we find out about this kind of groups, we should put those people in different departments so they can work on different projects so that we can stop their negative influence on other parts of the team.<\/li>\n<li>Fairness \u2013 we should watch if leaders recognize the accomplishments of their employees and if they are fair to what the employees do.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>STEP TWO \u2013 ACTION<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>We analyzed and we determined which ones of our employees are causing the toxic environment. We tried to talk to them and solve the problem but nothing worked. Nothing led to a positive outcome. It may sound drastic but for the good of the company, this type of demotivating toxic personas should be dismissed. These people don\u2019t have a place in the company because they spread their negativity amongst other employees.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>They are the main reason for the staff turnover so if you don\u2019t want to lose a big part of your employees, dismiss demotivating people, no matter how valuable you think they are, even if you consider them top talents. Without them, your team will be more motivated and that will lead to higher engagement, higher productivity and better results.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>Once we are sure that we no longer have any toxic people in our team, we have to get rid of the toxic culture that stacked overtime. The way to do this is by replacing everything that may be a symbol of old habits and toxic environment. This can represent a change in the office interior, a change in the social rituals of the company, changing some brand elements etc.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Experts advise us to develop a positive and healthy work environment which will help gaining focus on work tasks instead of personal ones.<\/p>\n<p>A good manager should pay attention to the work environment and to take care of their employees.<\/p>\n<p>Once you see satisfaction and a good relationship between your employees you\u2019ll know you succeeded.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>To avoid the part where employees don\u2019t listen to each other when on meetings, be ready with a strict agenda for how the meeting will go. Have some key points that you have to go over. Focus on solving problems, not on the problems themselves. This way you will avoid spreading negativity from your critical employees. Try to get your employees to think with positivity.<\/li>\n<li>To get your employees to connect with your brand, create more possibilities for them to get to know each other.<\/li>\n<li>Try to give constant feedback to your employees and reward them when they\u2019re doing a good job so that they won\u2019t feel demotivated.<\/li>\n<li>Engage your employees in making decisions. By doing that, your employees will be more motivated, more proactive and will spread that attitude to others.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>One advice: Acknowledge the achievements of your employees in front of others. My previous employer used to reward their employees for good results, successful projects or taking part in charity, on every three months. Create different occasions to reward your employees\u2019 success.<\/p>\n<p>What to do in case you are an employee, you love your job but your work environment is toxic?<\/p>\n<p>If you are in similar position, report that to your supervisor or at least to the HR department. You\u2019ll be defended by the law for that, it would be no reason for someone to dismiss you.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s it for this week. We hope that we brought value to you and your company. Be free to contact us on info@tothetop.bg<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,47,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employer-branding","category-hr","category-recruitment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tothetopinternational.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}