5 Toxic Cultures to Avoid

Great places to work. They exist, we promise. In the US this year, Fortune’s 100 Best Companies To Work For list is in its 21st year of publication.

Closer to home, The Top Employers Institute releases an annual list of certified top employers in South Africa – Old Mutual tops the 2018 list, in case you’re wondering!

Great Place to Work US measures companies across a range of characteristics, including a cultural element they call, ‘Great Place to Work For All’. Within this characteristic, employees are asked to rate their company’s trustworthiness, leadership, as well as pride in their work, and camaraderie among colleagues.

Beyond the 315 000-strong employee survey, Great Place to Work US also assesses companies through a complementary and comprehensive culture audit.

In a similar vein, The Top Employers Institute evaluates companies across different workforce areas, including culture.

But what is workplace culture, exactly?

HR resource provider, ERC defines it as ‘the character and personality of your organisation. It’s what makes your organisation unique and is the sum of its values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviours, and attitudes.’

International thought leader on values-based leadership, Richard Barrett says that vibrant cultures ‘have high levels of performance because they create internal cohesion, attract talented people, and inspire employees to go the extra mile.’

But what of workplaces that lack this ‘internal cohesion’? Places typified by division, dissatisfaction and dysfunction? In a 2017 study by Rand Corporation, Harvard Medical School and the University of California,

almost one in five workers in the US say they face a hostile or threatening environment at work; a share the study describes as ‘disturbingly high’.

So, how can you identify if you’re working in an environment in which the culture is toxic, and whether it’s making you, and the people you work with, sick?

Here are five types of toxic culture to look out for:

1. Sleepy Hollow

This workplace has a strange sense of somnambulism about it, as though people are sleepwalking through their days, almost. Employees lack energy and enthusiasm – procrastination is rife. You’ll seldom see people being proactive, and volunteerism… that’s unheard of.

The problem with this type of culture is that it’s usually deeply entrenched.

Typically, the Sleepy Hollow-type workplace has evolved through a series of systemic losses over time; of innovation, of organisational purpose, and of dynamic leadership.

The experience of losses such as these sees people slip into states of stagnation and inertia, and in the workplace, low productivity manifests in poor morale.

2. The Autocracy

This workplace runs by the rules of a single, all-powerful leader, where obedience is the only ticket to promotion and advancement. It’s not unusual to find this leader surrounded by yes-men and women.

In this workplace, meetings run like briefing sessions.

Debate is non-existent and contrarian points of views are not only not welcomed, they are systematically silenced and shut out.

Exclusion characterises this workplace; either fit in and follow directives, or leave. Typically, these organisations lose a lot of individualistic, entrepreneurial-minded employees – if they even made it through the job interview to begin with, that is.

3. Mayhem Central

Disorganisation and disarray characterise this workplace. People lack focus and direction. Often, a sense of disorder, even chaos, prevails. Regularly, meetings break down into blame sessions.

Generally, these are symptoms of a larger, more serious cultural affliction in this workplace – a lack of accountability.

What is often found in the Mayhem Central-type workplace, is people in leadership positions, who lack the necessary knowledge and skills to perform their roles successfully.

As a result, deadlines are missed routinely and projects are plagued by inefficiency and incompletion. Inevitably, these performance failures trigger the blame game, and so the downward cycle of negativity advances.

You’ll see high turnover in this kind of organisation. And all too often, those who haven’t left yet are busy job hunting.

4. The Under-Recognised

What typifies this kind of culture is that people work hard, but with little recognition or appreciation. There may not be an overt sense of dissatisfaction (yet), but that’s because employees fear the prospect of retrenchment and unemployment.

So, while you may not hear the expression of dissatisfaction and disgruntlement in this workplace, what you will see is a lot of tired, disengaged people, who don’t smile much.

The Under-Recognised workplace is common in times of economic constraint, when management calls on employees to do more, but without providing additional compensation.

Discretionary effort may be given by staff members, but it happens in silent protest.

5. Bullyville

Very often, this hostile workplace is deceptively hidden. For, beneath the surface of what appears to be a reasonable culture, is an insidious reality: A thriving sub-culture of back-stabbing, slander and derision.

More often than not, upper management remains oblivious to this sub-culture because it sees what it is presented with – usually by mid-managers – a picture of satisfactory performance and productivity.

Yet, it is often these same managers who are the creators and controllers of negative cliques. The tell-tale signs of toxic cliques is exclusion and ostracism. There’s an in-crowd; usually the manager’s, and then there are the people shunned, and even vilified, by it.

Left unchecked, a culture of bullying and victimisation erodes a workplace, just as sure as damp or rot.

We’re toxic, now what?

All of these cultures are harmful to people. Employees in toxic workplaces report increased anxiety and depression, sleeplessness, lack of wellbeing, and a loss of confidence and self-worth.

Toxic culture isn’t good for business either. Employee engagement practitioners agree that toxicity can have material impacts on business. The fact that culture is increasingly finding consideration as an issue of risk management points to the truth of culture’s impact on business.

The good news is that toxic culture can be removed.

With positive and professional intervention, culture can be redirected in ways that unleash employees’ full potential, and that create places of work where people want to be.

But as with any sickness or disease, toxic culture should be treated immediately. The road to recovery and wellness benefits everyone.