While no workplace environment is perfect, there are some companies that have toxic cultures. A toxic work environment can severely impact productivity, zap motivation, and significantly reduce employee retention. Not surprisingly, company leaders and managers have a great deal of influence over workplace culture. Here are two signs of a toxic workplace environment — and some steps to take to fix it:
Poor communication. Communication is one of the biggest issues companies struggle with, both in the workplace and in their personal lives. Business leaders must make a commitment to communicating effectively and often to their employees. Yet some companies provide little information to their employees on a daily and weekly basis. In good times and bad, employees need to understand their company’s mission, their individual roles in their companies, their company’s current condition and where their company is headed. They also need to get constructive feedback regularly — each employee deserves to know what they are doing right and wrong — not just at their annual performance review. An employee should never have to guess whether how they are doing.
Favoritism. Everyone deserves an equal opportunity to succeed. Leaders can experience unconscious bias just like anyone else, which might entail favoring some employees over others for reasons other than pure achievement and dedication to their jobs. For instance, unconscious gender bias is still common in workplaces, where women are sometimes perceived to be less focused in their jobs due to children or more likely to leave their jobs in the future when they want children. As a business leader, it’s your job to make sure that employees aren’t under the impression that only a select few favorite employees are liked by management and get opportunities to advance.