Is Your Workplace Toxic?

Have you worked at a place that had a toxic environment? How did you handle this? Were you able to work through the situation? Did you wait it out, hoping it would change, or did you exit when you could?
 
A toxic environment is a place marked by personal conflict; serious toxic conflict can harm productivity, and cause absenteeism and job turnover. If employees are feeling harassed or bullied and their well-being is not taken into consideration, then they may feel another job would be a welcome change. Consequently, employers would be stuck again with posting the job, rounds of interviews, candidate selection, reference checking, re-training, and possibly the threat of the same toxicity.
 
Different events impact people in various ways, but here are some tests for toxicity that do not include bullying or harassment:

• Do people feel supported and have people they can talk to about issues?
• Can employees rely on coworkers to support and assist them personally and with their projects?
• Does each one feel their job safety is taken seriously?
• Are there unrealistic workloads? Is there often overtime work and weekends slotted to meeting another deadline?
• Is job stress being dealt with by employees through overuse of alcohol, drugs, or eating?
• Does work stress impact family life or the team member’s relationships with friends?
• Is there favoritism at work and constant employee turnover or tardiness?
• Do employees feel their work is appreciated or are they only noticed for what is going wrong?

Are you aware of what lies behind the terse greetings at the water cooler, the quiet lunchroom, the five-o’clock silent march to punch out?
 
While everyone has a bad week or a challenging period at work, a toxic environment is more complicated than that and could involve hidden conflict or job abandonment.  It is also a workplace where drama negatively impacts mental health causing employees to become unproductive; ultimately, it becomes so untenable that no reasonable person would return.
 
Job abandonment or rapid job turnover are two red flags that something is very wrong. If this is your workplace and you want to be in the loop about the everyday atmosphere your employees face, you can use exit interviews and hold a full employee review to highlight challenges a corporation or department might be experiencing.
 
Employees often feel on the spot doing an exit interview; however, having a third party do an arms-length away interview can help an organization receive candid responses from employees and can help uncover workplace trauma. An exit interview is an opportunity for an employee to offer feedback on job satisfaction, company policies, and the direction they feel the company is heading; this is valuable information to resolve issues.
 
If you have been having rapid job turnover and job abandonment concerns, Inline Reference Check can assist with exit interviews, collect extra data, and clarify issues. We can follow up with exiting employees to take the pulse of your workplace and give you documented findings to make changes or to highlight motivating events. In either case, it is worth your while to get valuable information to strengthen your team and resolve issues.

With knowledge there is power: Let Inline Reference Check make your company stronger 

Susan Brooks
Business Development Manager
Inline Reference Check