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Time’s Up for Toxic Workplaces

• Manuela Priesemuth

Three ways to create an environment that doesn’t tolerate abuse.

Direct interactions with “bad bosses” can be traumatic, but the problem often goes further than a single individual. Research has shown that abusive behavior, especially when displayed by leaders, can spread throughout the organization, creating entire climates of abuse. But organizations also can also structure work environments that combat abuse by: 1) educating managers about all costs associated with abusive conduct; 2) strengthening anonymous feedback channels where employees can report their experience without fear of retribution; and 3) upholding and enforcing fair and equitable norms throughout the organization.

Millions of people face abusive supervisors and bullies at work . These employees are targets of ridicule, threats, or demeaning comments by their manager on a daily basis, which results in decreased satisfaction, productivity, and commitment to the job as well as the organization at large.

• MP Manuela Priesemuth is the Megan ’07 and Matthew ’06 Baldwin Assistant Professor of Management at Villanova University. Her research focuses on destructive leadership, workplace aggression, organizational fairness, and behavioral ethics.

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A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

So Your Workplace Is Toxic: How Can You Fix It?

May 21, 2019 • 14 min read.

Many workers believe that toxicity has become the new normal at work. Still, employees and managers can do a lot to combat it.

In a recent survey of tech workers, more than half the respondents said they believed they were working in an unhealthy work environment. Of 9,000 participants in the 2018 poll by Blind, an anonymous workplace app, a quarter of the Google employees who responded said they viewed their workplace as toxic; more than a third at Facebook thought so, too; and almost half at Amazon and Intel said they were laboring away under toxic conditions.

Nearly a fifth of American workers across a wider swath of industries said they faced a hostile or threatening work environment in a 2017 survey conducted by the Rand Corp., Harvard Medical School and UCLA.

Has toxicity at work become the new normal? Many workers believe that it is. “I think what we are seeing is more people resigned to the fact that toxicity is a natural state of the workplace, and that is inherently problematic,” says Wharton management professor Stephanie Creary.

But is the workplace really any more toxic than it once was? Not that long ago, after all, women were expected to endure sexually inappropriate overtures from bosses, LGBTQ+ workers quietly acquiesced to compartmentalizing their personal and professional lives, and African-American workers routinely met with various indignities, exclusions and a professional dead-end in many sectors and professions.

“I think what’s important to keep in mind is that perception is reality. Trying to track down the question of whether there is a real increase in toxicity is missing the point – the perception is clear that there is,” says Wharton marketing professor and identity theorist Americus Reed.

A good deal of that perception is being fueled by social media, Reed points out. Before social media, workers might have just tolerated a toxic environment with a that’s-just-the-way-it-is attitude. “Now, the echo chamber is happening, and so when people feel like things are toxic in the workplace there is this heightened sense that there is something that needs to be done in these environments. Now people are saying this affects the work, it affects good employees, it affects everyone. Social media has become a call to action.”

Employees and managers sincerely interested in modifying their environment will heed that call, but will do so smartly. “If people really want change to happen, they really need to take it upon themselves to propose solutions to change their environment. Not accepting the culture of toxicity or negativity is really important,” says Creary.

And there is actually quite a bit both employees and managers can do to combat the toxicity around them.

“I think what we are seeing is more people resigned to the fact that toxicity is a natural state of the workplace, and that is inherently problematic.” –Stephanie Creary

Defining Toxicity

Arriving at solutions is difficult when there’s no clear definition of what the problem is. “What’s the definition of a toxic workplace?” asks Peter Cappelli, Wharton management professor and director of the Center for Human Resources . “I’ve heard people talk about it as the result of a boss or even a coworker who is toxic. There can be cultures, like the Trump White House, where tearing each other down is encouraged. Does that count? I just saw it defined as any workplace where ‘the work, the atmosphere, the people, or any combination of those cause serious disruptions in the rest of your life.’ Wikipedia says ‘significant drama and infighting, personal battles.’ … I think that’s the problem – if it doesn’t have an understood definition, it isn’t possible to pin down the cause or talk about what to do about it.”

The most common situation, perhaps, is where “the boss acts like a dictator and actively punishes people who articulate different views or express disagreement,” Cappelli says. “In addition to people quitting, the big problem for the performance of the organization is that people sit on their hands, they don’t take the initiative to do anything, and they may actually sit back and watch the boss’s ideas fail even when they could be salvaged. Bosses like this usually have issues that no subordinate is going to address. Without an organization that is looking to see what is going on and is willing to intervene, there isn’t a lot subordinates can do except get out.”

Bosses as dictators are one thing, but often the problem is a boss who either doesn’t see a toxic environment developing, or sees it and underestimates its severity and the toll it is taking on productivity, turnover and the health of workers.

“I suspect much of the time they are unaware,” says Wharton’s Maurice Schweitzer, professor of operations, information and decisions. “Because our experiences at work are so profoundly shaped by the power we have, it very well could be that high-power people see the behavior and don’t perceive it to be a big problem, while lower-level people see it and perceive it to be extremely stressful. There is often a perspective-taking failure in the workplace. As people gain more power they fail to take the perspective of those with less power.”

A manager should be prepared to react quickly to a potentially toxic situation, and it’s smart to “err on the side of reacting too quickly but to do it in a trust-but-verify model,” says Reed. “And if it’s a serious problem in terms of psychological well-being and productivity, then something has to be done.”

One of the best strategies, he says, is for everyone to “come together as a group to create a new community norm about which the group agrees, and say, ‘We are going to call out this behavior and signal that this is not the culture we are going to accept and promote in our work environment.’ It takes some courage to do that, because it causes short-term pain to have those conversations, but it makes it harder to sweep things under the rug.”

Such a “peer review” method is a powerful way of articulating what the norms are, Reed says. It illustrates “social proof,” one of the “Six Principles of Influence” identified by psychologist and marketing expert Robert Cialdini. “When communities come together and tell you something in a common voice it’s very compelling. It’s a diverse set of voices telling you the same thing, so you perceive it as more credible and it’s not a top-down kind of thing.”

What the top leadership can do is to cultivate an atmosphere in which risk and failure are not only tolerated, but also celebrated. “If you want to be creative you have to generate ideas, and a lot of ideas won’t be good,” says Schweitzer. “If you stifle creativity and stifle important voices, people won’t speak up because they won’t want the attention that follows when others challenge and criticize their ideas. How do you fix that? Change the rules around how you hold meetings: Impose a no-interruption rule, have senior leaders speak last, promote anonymity as people share ideas, ask someone to play the devil’s advocate to channel opposing ideas in an endorsed way.”

“Trying to track down the question of whether there is a real increase in toxicity is missing the point – the perception is clear that there is.” –Americus Reed

Creary notes that HR is good at setting policy around respectful engagement and other factors that alleviate toxicity, but it matters that workers see everyone in the organization, from top to bottom, engaging each other in ways the organization values.

“It starts at the front desk with the person who engages with anyone who comes in and out,” she says. “Then, consider the most senior people – how do we see them engaging with people lower down and with each other? If we see respectful behavior between the top and bottom, it is easier to enforce at middle management. The way desirable behavior gets baked into culture is to create artifacts, whether it’s signage, or rewards and recognition programs that recognize people who model this behavior well. The goal isn’t to just reward people who bring in a lot of money, but also to reward people who engage respectfully.”

Much is at stake for just about any employer. A toxic workplace not only discourages creativity, but also increases turnover and stress, “so it is a very costly experience,” says Schweitzer. “And if any of those people experience anything that crosses the line into harassment they are more likely to sue rather than settle with the organization. So it’s risky and costly, and there are some managers who believe that the way to manage people is to intimidate them by bluster or fear. I worry that the current president models a leadership style that endorses yelling at people and calling people you disagree with derogatory nicknames. This is not the way to generate creative ideas, maximize performance of your team, attract the best talent, or reduce turnover. It is the hallmark of a manager who lacks other tools.”

Buffering Stress and Negativity

But if you’re in a toxic workplace and can’t or don’t want to leave, what can you realistically do to turn things around? How does an employee frame the argument for a better atmosphere without acting or appearing to act in critical way?

“Start with little actions. Be a role model,” says Christine Porath, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and author of Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace . “We find that civility spreads in social networks at work.”

Above and beyond how one person deals with the toxic perpetrator, another factor can buffer incivility’s toxic effects: a sense of thriving. “If you do nothing else, be sure to focus on yourself, cultivating an internal sense of being energized, alive and growing,” says Porath. “In studies conducted across a range of industries, I have found that people who experience a state of thriving are healthier, more resilient and more able to focus on their work. When people feel even an inkling of thriving, it often buffers them from distractions, stress and negativity.”

“It very well could be that high-power people see the behavior and don’t perceive it to be a big problem, while lower-level people see it and perceive it to be extremely stressful.” –Maurice Schweitzer

In a study of six organizations spanning six industries, employees characterized as highly thriving demonstrated 1.2 times less burnout than their peers, Porath and Gretchen Spreitzer wrote in “Creating Sustainable Performance: Four Ways to Help Your Employees — and Organization — Thrive,” published in 2012 in the Harvard Business Review . High thrivers were 52% more confident in themselves and their ability to take control of a situation, wrote Porath in “An Antidote to Incivility,” published in HBR in 2016. They were also far less likely to have incivility “drag them down a chute of negativity, distraction, or self-doubt,” she said. “One of my friends, a talented life coach, likes to ask people faced with adversity, ‘What are you going to make this mean?’ … How you interpret a situation is crucial. How much are you going to let someone pull you down? What useful lessons might there be for you in the situation?”

According to Porath, research shows that about 50% of our happiness is based on brain wiring; 40% stems from how we interpret and respond to what happens to us; and 10% is driven by circumstances like whether we have less power and whether we’re more or less dependent on the job or the offender.

“In large part, you really do get to decide how you interpret incivility, the meaning you assign to it, and the stories you tell yourself,” says Porath. “You also get to control whether it makes you feel bad or not. It may not be realistic for you to ‘toughen up,’ but you can choose not to worry about what was said or done to you. If you’re thriving, you’re less likely to worry about the hit you took or to interpret words or deeds negatively. In fact, you’re more likely to craft an interpretation that validates yourself and your behavior.”

One intriguing body of recent research involves the concept of respectful inquiry: encouraging leaders to ask employees questions and listen intently to their answers. “It sounds simple and perhaps even obvious, but it’s a rare form of commanding others because it moves beyond merely being respectful and courteous. It involves relinquishing some control and thus is a huge sign that you trust other people,” says Wharton management professor Andrew Carton. “It’s empowering.”

Respectful inquiry is a multi-purpose tool because it accommodates three basic needs that all people have: control, competence and belonging, argue Niels Van Quaquebeke and Will Felps in “Respectful inquiry: A Motivational Account of Leading Through Asking Questions and Listening,” published in 2016 in the Academy of Management Review . “This increases peoples’ sense of autonomy and meaningfulness at work,” says Carton, adding that although the idea is preliminary, it is thought-provoking and actionable. “This latter issue, an idea that is actionable, is important because it involves moving beyond simply imploring leaders to be more respectful and gives them a concrete suggestion on how to improve their organizations’ culture, one small step at a time,” he notes.

Research shows that people are better able to improve at what they do when they are given feedback that involves a specific behavior – for instance, saying, “please try to be more punctual for our Monday meetings” rather than offering general guidance like “please try to be more conscientious.” This kind of concreteness is all the more important when it comes to soft skills, says Carton.

“It’s just people being themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and being told something isn’t quite right is enough to make them stop.” –Jody J. Foster

Although there might be a lot of toxicity in the air right now, very few workplaces are irretrievably toxic, and most people want to do the right thing, says Jody J. Foster, assistant dean for professionalism at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Schmuck in My Office: How to Deal Effectively with Difficult People at Work .

Addressing someone behaving badly at work in a kind, concise manner makes the offending co-worker change his or her behavior in 75% to 80% of cases, she says. “It’s just people being themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time,” notes Foster, “and being told something isn’t quite right is enough to make them stop.” Another 10% of those behaving badly will know there’s a problem but don’t know how to stop, and they might need coaching or intervention, she says.

“And then there is a small number of people who just don’t get it, and those are the people who need limits and rules. And if those are the people in authority, sometimes you are the one who has to leave.”

It’s important for those who feel wronged by a toxic co-worker to ask themselves whether they are over-reacting, and to not let resentments fester, Foster adds.

One unknown at the moment is how much toxicity is being generated in the workplace, as opposed to how much is seeping in from outside the office via politics, general social upheaval, and the ugly tone of social media. Is there a way to insulate the workplace as, potentially, a safe haven from the greater societal ills making themselves apparent right now?

“We’ve found incivility is a bug – it’s contagious,” says Porath. “And you can catch it anywhere – at work, at home, online or in your community. So, yes, I think it’s seeping in from outside the office.”

But “the organizations that are able to build stronger, more respectful communities will gain competitive advantage,” she says. “People are so hungry for connection and community. They’re desperate to escape toxicity. Organizations are primed to make a difference. They are bright spots in an increasingly negative and noxious environment.”

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How a Toxic Work Environment Affects Mental Health

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

 Antonio Guillem / Getty Images

• How to Cope
• Reducing Workplace Toxicity

At a Glance

A toxic work environment can be caused by weak boundaries, low trust, and incivility. The impact on mental health can be serious. This not only hurts employees; it also harms organizations, which is why it is worth it to take steps to reduce workplace toxicity.

A toxic work environment is characterized by negative behaviors such as bullying , incivility, manipulation, discrimination, and a lack of trust. Not only is incivility in the workplace on the rise, but according to a recent study, it is compromising one of our most critical assets—our mental health .

One study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology looked at the correlation between toxicity in the workplace and symptoms of insomnia, a common symptom of clinical depression .

On May 19, 2022, Verywell Mind hosted a virtual Mental Health in the Workplace webinar, hosted by Amy Morin, LCSW. If you missed it, check out  this recap  to learn ways to foster supportive work environments and helpful strategies to improve your well-being on the job.

Signs of a Toxic Work Environment

There are several signs that a work environment might be toxic. Some common features include:

• Excessive stress
• Lack of organizational support
• Poor group cohesion
• Poor interpersonal relationships
• Low enthusiasm
• High turnover
• Fear of failure
• Employee disengagement
• Harassment and discrimination
• Poor communication
• High absenteeism
• High employee turnover

What Causes a Toxic Work Environment?

Some factors that can contribute to a toxic work environment include:

Poor Boundaries

Toxic work environments are often characterized by a lack of boundaries . Employers may have excessively high expectations of their employees and push them to prioritize work above everything else.

This contributes to a poor work-life balance , which can ultimately undermine both mental health and workplace productivity.

Lack of Trust

In a toxic work environment, employees don't trust management or each other. And employers often demonstrate that they don't trust their workers. Micro-managing is the norm, and people are often left feeling like they are always being monitored.

This can put workers on edge and make it difficult to feel supported. This creates stress and reduces team collaboration.

Workplace Incivility

Workplace civility, as described by McKinsey and Company, is “the accumulation of thoughtless actions that leave employees feeling disrespected—intentionally ignored, undermined by colleagues, or publicly belittled by an insensitive manager.”

It is also defined as "low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect."

One of the hallmarks of toxic relationships is the presence of contempt. This is characterized by insensitivity, disgust, mocking, name-calling, and outright hostility.

Such behaviors undermine people's sense of self. It is also associated with decreased well-being.

Poor Sleep Quality

Sleep is a critical factor in our overall well-being , including our work performance. It has long been established that poor quality of sleep has significant implications for both our physical and psychological well-being.

For example, insufficient sleep increases a person's risk of developing serious medical conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Additionally, lack of sleep over time has been associated with a shortened lifespan.

Negative Rumination

In examining the indirect effects of workplace incivility on symptoms of insomnia and thus overall health, the determining mechanism was found to be negative rumination , or the mentally replaying of an event or disturbing interaction with a co-worker long after the workday has ended."

Workplace toxicity causes people to ruminate over negative work events. This preoccupation contributes to increased workplace stress.

Given that most of us spend the better part of our days and our energy at work, increasing hostility in the workplace doesn’t bode well for our emotional or physical well-being. Research has associated toxic work environments with increased depression, substance use , and health issues among employees.

Further research has shown that organizations are suffering as well. These adverse effects include decreased productivity, lower levels of employee commitment, and increased turnover.

How to Cope With a Toxic Workplace

The good news is that sufficient recovery or coping techniques may be able to mitigate the negative effects of a toxic work environment on employee well-being. In particular, relaxation and psychological detachment.

The ability to psychologically detach from work during non-work hours and relaxation were shown to be the two mitigating factors that determined how workers were affected or not by a negative work environment.

Employees who were better able to detach psychologically are able to relax after work and sleep better even in the face of workplace incivility.

Below are descriptions of these recovery experiences and how they were shown to reduce the negative effects and enable employees to thrive in the most toxic of work environments.

Psychological Detachment

Psychological detachment represents an avoidance of work-related thoughts, actions, or emotions. Some of the items used in the study to measure employees' levels of psychological detachment in the evenings included the following: "I didn’t think about work at all" and "I distanced myself from my work."

Those who were able to detach themselves mentally from this cycle do not suffer as much sleep disruption as those who are less capable of detachment.

Detachment can be fostered through a variety of specific activities, including exercise. Planning future events, such as vacations or weekend outings with family or friends, are examples of positive distractions outside of work.

It should come as no surprise that prioritizing work-life balance was shown to be another effective buffer against the detrimental effects of workplace incivility. Relaxation has long been associated with fewer health complaints and less exhaustion and need for recovery.

Relaxation during non-work time can help buffer negative work rumination and insomnia symptoms. Additionally, it has been identified as a moderator between work characteristics and occupational well-being, between time demands and exhaustion, and between job insecurity and the need for recovery from work.

Relaxation provides an opportunity for individuals to halt work-related demands, which is critical for restoring individuals to their pre-stressor state.

Some activities outside of the office that can foster recovery include volunteering, meditation , taking a walk, listening to music, spending time with friends, and other positive social supports .

Press Play for Advice On Dealing With a Toxic Workplace

Hosted by Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast , featuring business expert Heather Monahan, shares how to survive a toxic workplace. Click below to listen now.

Subscribe Now : Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts

How to Change a Toxic Work Environment

Based on the results of the study, the authors suggest the following interventions that companies can address to reduce workplace incivility.

• Raise awareness
• Ensure protection for employees
• Ensure accountability
• Train and model appropriate behavior
• Train supervisors on aggression-prevention behaviors
•  Improve emotional resilience skills
• Offer training on recovery from work, mindfulness practices, emotional/social intelligence skills

You may not be able to control certain events during work hours or the characteristics of your workplace environment. However, what you do have control over is how you choose to cope. Most importantly, finding time to relax, spending time with friends and family, and engaging in activities that will shift your focus away from work during non-work hours.

If you find that you are still experiencing distressful symptoms and that they are interfering with your functioning, it may be a good idea to speak to a therapist who can help you learn additional strategies for coping.

If despite having done all you can still nothing has changed, it might be time to consider the possibility of removing yourself from the toxic environment and looking for a new, more fulfilling and less distressful job. Your health may depend on it.

Demsky CA, Fritz C, Hammer LB, Black AE. Workplace incivility and employee sleep: The role of rumination and recovery experiences . J Occup Health Psychol . 2019;24(2):228-240. doi:10.1037/ocp0000116

McKinsey & Company. The hidden toll of workplace incivility . 2016.

Torkelson E, Holm K, Bäckström M, Schad E. Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others . Work & Stress . 2016;30(2):115-131. doi:10.1080/02678373.2016.1175524

Xia B, Wang X, Li Q, He Y, Wang W. How workplace incivility leads to work alienation: A moderated mediation model .  Front Psychol . 2022;13:921161. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.921161

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sleep and chronic disease .

Grandner MA. Sleep duration across the lifespan: implications for health . Sleep Med Rev . 2012;16(3):199-201. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2012.02.001

Torkelson E, Holm K, Bäckström M, Schad E. Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others . Work Stress . 2016;30(2):115-131. doi:10.1080/02678373.2016.1175524

Bridger RS, Day AJ, Morton K. Occupational stress and employee turnover . Ergonomics . 2013;56(11):1629-39. doi:10.1080/00140139.2013.836251

Demsky CA, Fritz C, Hammer LB, Black AE. Workplace incivility and employee sleep: The role of rumination and recovery experiences. J Occup Health Psychol . 2018. doi: 10.1037/ocp0000116 .

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Measuring Culture

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How to Fix a Toxic Culture

To address toxicity in the workplace, research shows there are three critical drivers companies should focus on: leadership, social norms, and work design.

• Workplace, Teams, & Culture
• Leading Change
• Organizational Behavior

More than 90% of North American CEOs and CFOs believe that improving their corporate culture would boost financial performance. 1 Most of these executives ranked a healthy culture as one of the top three among all factors — including strategy, innovation, brand, patents, and others — in terms of its impact on results. More than 80% also acknowledged that their organization’s culture was not as healthy as it should be.

If leaders view culture as crucial and needing improvement, you might expect them to focus on improving it. Surprisingly, among executives who said their culture wasn’t working as well as it could, nearly all agreed that leadership failed to invest enough time upgrading corporate culture. 2 Lack of leadership investment was, by far, the most important obstacle to closing the gap between cultural aspirations and current reality.

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If corporate culture is critical and needs work, why don’t top leaders do more to improve it? Part of the reason is that many leaders aren’t sure where to start. For many executives “fixing culture” feels like a hopelessly daunting and amorphous undertaking. Which specific aspects of corporate culture should they focus on fixing? What concrete actions can they take? And how can they measure progress over time?

In an earlier study, we analyzed 128 topics that employees discussed in Glassdoor reviews, to identify those that best predicted extremely negative reviews. Our analysis identified five attributes of culture — disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat, and abusive — that rendered a culture toxic in the eyes of employees. 3

Toxic workplaces impose serious and lasting harm on affected employees. Workers who experience the elements of a toxic culture are more likely to suffer from greater stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout. 4 They are also 35% to 55% more likely to be diagnosed with a serious physical disease. 5

Over time, a toxic culture also takes a heavy toll on organizational performance. For employees with medical benefits, their employer typically pays for health care costs, including those caused by a toxic workplace. When toxic subcultures are allowed to fester within an organization, affected employees are more likely to disengage from their work, bad-mouth their employer on employee review sites like Glassdoor or Indeed, or look for another job. 6

Toxic workplaces are not only costly — they are also common. Our research on large U.S. employers found that approximately 1 in 10 workers experience their workplace culture as toxic, an estimate that is in line with other studies. 7 Even companies with healthy cultures overall typically contain pockets of toxicity, due to abusive managers or dysfunctional social norms among certain teams.

By identifying and addressing these toxic subcultures, a process we refer to as a cultural detox , leaders can dramatically improve employees’ experience and minimize unwanted attrition, disengagement, negative word of mouth, and other costs associated with a toxic workplace.

Approximately 1 in 10 workers experience their workplace culture as toxic, an estimate that is in line with other studies.

The Drivers of Toxic Culture

For leaders who want to detox their culture, the next question is where to begin. The biggest obstacle, in practical terms, is not too little guidance but too much . A search for “culture change” in Amazon’s Business & Money section returns more than 10,000 books that offer conflicting advice and approaches. 8 It’s difficult to know which recommendations to follow because most are grounded in personal anecdotes rather than systematic research.

To find evidence-based insights on culture change, we began with the large body of existing research on unhealthy corporate culture. 9 We first identified 11 meta-analyses, each of which synthesized existing research on specific elements of toxic culture. 10 One meta-analysis, for example, aggregated the results of 140 separate studies analyzing the drivers of unethical behavior.

We then looked for common findings across the meta-analyses. 11 Although they focused on different aspects of toxicity, such as disrespect, unethical behavior, and abusive management, the 11 meta-analyses converged on the same three factors as the most powerful predictors of toxic behavior in the workplace: toxic leadership, toxic social norms, and poor work design.

The figure below shows the average correlation between each driver and the elements of toxic culture. (See “Leadership, Social Norms, and Work Design Drive Toxic Culture.”) When looking at these values, the most important aspect is the relative magnitude of each driver. How leaders behave and the social norms in work groups, for example, are an order of magnitude more important than age or seniority in predicting whether an employee is likely to experience toxic behavior.

Leadership consistently emerged as the best predictor of toxic culture. The importance of leadership will surprise no one, but it does underscore a fundamental reality: Leaders cannot improve corporate culture unless they are willing to hold themselves and their colleagues accountable for toxic behavior. Our discussion of leadership will focus on both senior executives who set the tone for the organization as a whole, and middle managers and front-line supervisors who create distinctive microcultures within their teams.

Social norms define what behavior is expected and acceptable in day-to-day social interactions. 12 A company might list “respect” among its core values, but its social norms, such as taking “take the time to learn employees’ names” and “don’t keep colleagues waiting for meetings” translate abstract values into concrete behaviors. Social norms can exist within a specific team or unit and shape its subculture. Alternatively, they can be shared across the organization as a whole and constitute an element of corporate culture. 13

Leadership and social norms are densely intertwined. Managers reinforce or undermine norms through their actions, and entrenched social norms influence who is promoted to leadership positions. It is important, however, to recognize that norms and leadership are distinct drivers and not to reflexively blame bad culture on jerk managers. Toxic social norms can take on a life of their own in a team or an organization and persist through multiple changes in leadership.

Along with leadership behavior and social norms, work design is the third area where leaders can focus effort to detox culture. More than a century of research has pinpointed a handful of elements of work design, such as overall workload and conflicting job demands, that consistently predict important outcomes, including toxic behavior. 14

When it comes to whether employees experience a culture as toxic, most demographic attributes — such as age, tenure with the organization, or educational background — have virtually no effect, with a few crucial exceptions. Women and racial minorities are more likely to experience their employer’s culture as toxic for reasons rooted in discrimination and harassment. (See “Race, Gender, and Toxic Culture.”)

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to fixing a toxic culture. The best approach will depend on the individual organization, its strategy, and specific situation. 16 In the following sections, we summarize a variety of evidence-based interventions that leaders and companies can implement, organized around these key drivers of toxic culture: leadership (with top leadership and distributed leadership interventions broken out separately), social norms, and work design. (See “Key Drivers for Addressing a Toxic Workplace.”) Leaders can select the approaches best suited to their own context.

Key Drivers for Addressing a Toxic Workplace

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Top Leaders Commit to and Sustain Focus on Cultural Detox

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture,” observed Ed Schein, who pioneered the study of corporate culture. 17 The tight link between leadership and culture is underscored by a survey of North American executives, who identified the CEO as the single most important factor in setting corporate culture. 18

Without a commitment from the top team, any organizationwide culture change — including a cultural detox — is destined to fail. Cultural change requires a holistic approach that incorporates multiple interventions and a sustained focus over time. 19 Only the top team has access to all the levers of cultural change, including hiring and promotion decisions, budgets for coaching, organizationwide measurement, and the ability to roll out these actions in a coordinated fashion.

A large body of research highlights the powerful effect the top team has on corporate culture. If a company’s CEO has served in the military, for example, it is 70% less likely to engage in corporate fraud compared with similar organizations. 20 Unfortunately, toxic management also trickles downward. 21 If a senior team tolerates opportunistic behavior, employees are more likely to commit accounting fraud and insider trading. 22

Top leadership can use the following evidence-based interventions to effect positive cultural change throughout their organizations.

Quantify the benefits of cultural detox to keep it on the top team’s agenda. Employees are understandably baffled when the top team fails to address toxicity. In the C-suite, however, dozens of worthwhile objectives vie for the leadership team’s attention. 23 Once you layer on external shifts that demand executive attention, including ideological polarization, the pandemic, geopolitical instability, and macroeconomic uncertainty, it’s easier to understand why senior leaders lose focus on cultural change.

In our experience, the vast majority of CEOs are genuinely concerned about their employees and want to do the right thing. They can keep cultural detox on the agenda by explicitly linking cultural improvements to bottom-line benefits, such as lower attrition or employee health care costs. To be clear, leaders should address cultural toxicity because it’s the right thing to do, but quantifying the benefits can help keep culture detox a priority for top teams that are being pulled in many directions.

Publicly report progress to keep the pressure on. Transparency and external pressure can help senior leaders maintain focus when it comes to detoxing their culture. Top teams can invite external pressure to stay the course by publicly reporting progress against their cultural aspirations (rather than simply posting a list of core values on the corporate website).

Any U.S. employer with more than 100 workers is required to file an annual report with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission listing the race, ethnicity, and gender of employees by job category. These reports are confidential, but companies can voluntarily disclose how well they are doing in terms of diversity. As of September 2021, only 11% of the largest 1,000 U.S. companies disclosed their results or more granular data. 24 Large public companies might feel more pressure to report progress in the future as institutional investors push for clarity on how they treat their employees. 25

Model the behavior you expect from employees. Employees look to leaders for guidance on culture, but they tend to discount lofty statements about abstract values. Instead, they closely observe what leaders do for signals about what behavior is encouraged, expected, and tolerated.

Many employees are justifiably skeptical about how well their leaders live corporate values in their daily actions. More than 80% of large U.S. companies have official core values, with integrity, respect, and diversity among the most frequently listed, but there is no correlation between what companies aspire to and how employees assess them on corporate core values. 26 When leaders act consistently with core values, however, it is one of the most powerful predictors of how positively employees rate their corporate culture. 27

Leaders cannot afford to disregard external employee reviews when trying to assess their corporate culture, warts and all.

Track progress with honest data. In many organizations, bad news about toxic behaviors gets filtered out as it moves up the hierarchy. As a result, top leaders often think they’ve done a better job addressing toxic culture than they actually have. 28 In a survey of 16,000 managers across nearly 500 companies, top executives were 24% more likely to say that they addressed unethical behavior quickly and consistently compared with how well middle managers thought the C-suite dealt with unethical actions. 29 Top executives were 48% more likely to believe they dealt effectively with cutthroat managers.

External data from job sites like Glassdoor or Indeed can provide unvarnished feedback on how well an organization is doing in addressing toxic culture throughout its ranks. The topics employees discuss in online reviews can reliably predict whether a company is likely to commit corporate misconduct or be sued. 30 Leaders cannot afford to disregard external employee reviews when trying to assess their corporate culture, warts and all.

Distributed Leaders Shape Healthy Microcultures

Senior leaders shape corporate culture through their actions and the example they set. They also influence culture indirectly based on the distributed leaders they hire, retain, and promote. Middle managers and supervisors at every level in the organization can create distinctive microcultures, even when they are subject to the same corporate policies, compensation plans, and other organizationwide practices.

Misconduct among financial advisers illustrates the profound influence distributed leaders have when it comes to creating a toxic subculture. 31 A recent study found that middle managers are 2.5 times more important in predicting employee misconduct compared with companywide factors. The relative importance of middle managers was even greater (six times the company-level effect) among managers who were farther away from headquarters and could exercise more discretion with less oversight. 32 Empowering managers has many advantages, but autonomy also leaves more scope to create a toxic subculture.

Local leaders are twice as important as company-level policies in terms of whether an employee with a track record of misconduct is promoted or fired. Not dealing with unethical employees comes at a high cost because, for example, financial advisers who have committed misconduct in the past are five times more likely to do so in the future. 33 Cumulatively, the personnel decisions made by distributed leaders can have a large impact on overall corporate culture. At USAA Financial Advisors, for example, less than 3% of brokers had committed misconduct, compared with nearly 20% at Oppenheimer & Co. 34

Below are some evidence-based interventions to decrease toxic behavior among distributed leaders. These same steps can, of course, also help top teams improve their behavior.

Coach distributed leaders on nontoxic behavior. A substantial body of research finds that coaching enhances managers’ attitudes, helps them achieve work goals, and boosts resilience. 35 There is less evidence on toxic behavior, but a few studies suggest that coaching may help managers avoid toxic behaviors.

In one study across four hospitals, nursing supervisors were randomly assigned to coaching sessions offering practical tips to treat employees with dignity and respect, demonstrate emotional support, and avoid bullying behavior. 36 The researchers measured the impact of the coaching by tracking insomnia among the nurses who reported to the managers. Insomnia is a well-documented and objectively measurable consequence of a toxic workplace. Nurses whose managers had received the coaching had much lower levels of insomnia, and those benefits persisted at least six months after the training ended.

Not all managers, however, respond well to coaching. Some are primarily concerned about presenting a positive public image rather than genuinely treating people better. 37 Managers who score higher on measures of psychopathy, for example, are more likely to abuse other people. 38 These managers, characterized by aggression and a lack of empathy, are also less likely to modify their behavior even when they understand the pain they cause subordinates. Although the term “psychopath” is bandied about frequently in the business literature, the actual prevalence of such individuals is very low. Approximately 1% of the total population qualify as psychopaths (with a slightly higher percentage among managers), which suggests that the majority of managers struggling with toxic behaviors might benefit from coaching. 39

Make distributed leaders aware of the negative impact of their toxic behavior on colleagues. Organizations can reduce toxic behavior by making managers aware of the pain their behavior causes for their team, along with the impact that abusive behavior has on their own reputation. Two studies analyzed 271 managers across a range of industries and found that managers felt less valued at work after they mistreated a subordinate. 40 To regain their feeling of social worth, managers treated team members better afterward to make amends for their earlier abuse.

Initiatives to improve workplace safety show that informing leaders about how their behavior affects subordinates can inspire positive change. Half of the supervisors in a manufacturing factory were randomly assigned to receive two coaching sessions. In each session, the shop supervisors received feedback on how their subordinates perceived the supervisor’s prioritization of safety (relative to other concerns, such as productivity or speed). 41 The shop-floor supervisors also received tips and discussed tactics for reinforcing social norms that promoted safety. The teams led by leaders who received coaching reduced unsafe behavior and accidents, while there was no change in the control group. 42

Make behavioral expectations crystal clear. Organizations can also decrease the odds of toxic behavior simply by ensuring that managers are clear about the behavior that is expected of them. Financial advisers must pass an exam (known as the Series 66) to be licensed. Studying for the exam requires a significant time investment, typically at least 50 hours of preparation. Historically, 80% of the questions focused on knowledge of rules and ethical considerations, while the remaining 20% were devoted to technical topics like financial reporting and finance theory. 43 Studying for the ethical component of the exam helped potential brokers build a clear understanding of exactly which behaviors were not acceptable.

In 2010, the Series 66 exam reduced the ethics and rules portion to half of all questions. Advisers who passed the exam with more emphasis on ethics were 25% less likely to commit misconduct than colleagues who took the ethics-light version of the exam. The advisers who passed the more ethics-intensive version of the exam were also more likely to quit companies that tolerated financial misconduct, such as Wells Fargo.

Promoting uncollaborative employees to management can foster cutthroat subcultures that ultimately hurt the bottom line.

Deal with distributed leaders who deliver results but create toxic subcultures. Top leaders can send a strong signal about their commitment to a healthy culture by dealing with managers who achieve their financial objectives but contribute to a toxic culture. Unfortunately, this is more rare than one might imagine. In a survey of 16,000 managers, only 39% of respondents said that leaders dealt promptly with employees who hit their numbers but cut corners ethically. 44 In the same survey, fewer than 1 in 5 managers reported that top executives promptly and consistently addressed leaders who delivered results but failed to collaborate with other teams.

Companies can nip the problem in the bud by not promoting toxic individuals to management positions in the first place. Unfortunately, companies too often make promotion decisions based on performance as an individual contributor rather than on a candidate’s ability to create a healthy subculture. A recent study of sales representatives and managers at 131 companies across multiple industries found that companies were more likely to promote “lone wolves” (who did not share leads or sales credits) to sales management positions, and bypass candidates who collaborated better with their colleagues. 45 Promoting uncollaborative employees to management can foster cutthroat subcultures that ultimately hurt the bottom line. Sales teams led by lone wolves booked 30% less sales compared with teams led by more collaborative managers.

Firing abusive managers is another way to address toxic culture, and leaders should not shy away from making that decision when it’s warranted. But we view this as a last rather than first resort for a few reasons. In many cases, managers can be coached to smooth out their rough edges. It’s also important to verify that a manager truly is toxic rather than outspoken, demanding, or gruff. As Robert Sutton argues in his 2007 book The No Asshole Rule , it’s critical to exercise caution when labeling someone a jerk. 46

Finally, it’s critical to guard against implicit biases when dealing with managers who are perceived as toxic. In the financial advising industry, for example, women are less likely to commit financial misconduct than men, and their misconduct is, on average, less serious. 47 Women nevertheless are 20% more likely than men to be fired for misconduct and 30% less likely to find a new position after losing their job.

Establish Healthy Social Norms

It’s hard to overstate how powerfully social norms shape behavior, as the case of workplace safety illustrates. Although every worker has a strong incentive to avoid personal injury, there were over 2 million workplace injuries in the U.S. in 2020. 48 The strongest predictor of on-the-job accidents is social norms around safety, which have a greater impact on workplace injuries than employees’ individual characteristics (such as how conscientious or risk-averse employees are), work pressure, or the riskiness of the job itself. 49

Toxic social norms increase the odds that even good people will behave poorly. Less than 8% of financial advisers commit financial fraud. 50 If a broker moves to a branch office where colleagues have a history of misconduct, however, they are 37% more likely to commit misconduct in the following three years. 51 To give another example, when groups tolerate disrespectful behavior, their rudeness invites retaliation. Reciprocal retaliation hardens into social norms that fuel a downward spiral of continued incivility. 52

Toxic social norms increase the odds that even good people will behave poorly.

When it comes to improving toxic norms, the most important thing to remember is that norms act at the group level rather than the individual level. People follow social norms because their colleagues do the same. Any improvement of social norms, therefore, requires a coordinated change in expectations and behavior for the group as a whole, rather than one or two team members making unilateral changes. 53

The following evidence-based interventions provide concrete guidance on improving toxic norms.

Let work groups define their own social norms. The best-documented case of changing social norms to improve a toxic culture comes from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the health system that provides medical care to veterans of the U.S. military. 54 The Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workplace (CREW) intervention was launched in 2005 after a series of internal studies revealed that disrespectful and abusive behaviors were widespread and contributed to increased medical staff stress, employee attrition, and patient dissatisfaction.

The CREW process takes place in an intact work group (typically 10 to 15 employees) who meet weekly for six months to brainstorm, test, and adopt new social norms to improve respect in the workplace. In the early sessions, teams discuss evidence on how respectful interactions improve outcomes and discuss what respectful interactions look like in their context. (Norms of civility in a rural Southern clinic might vary from those in a large hospital in New York City, for example.) The teams collect initial data on employee and patient perceptions of civility to establish a baseline and measure future progress. Rather than implementing a one-size-fits-all methodology dictated by corporate, each group develops social norms customized to its unique situation — and is thus more likely to adhere to those norms. 55

Throughout the course of their weekly meetings, participants brainstorm concrete ideas to improve respectful interactions. Facilitators help keep the discussions on track, but the team members themselves identify the sources of incivility in their work group and take responsibility for developing and incorporating new ways of interacting, tailored to their unique team dynamics. 56 Team members track progress over the course of the week, logging acts of civility or disrespect they observe during the week, for example, or calling out colleagues who violate emerging norms.

The initial pilots of the CREW process significantly improved respectful behavior in the VHA work groups, and these benefits persisted over time. As of 2022, the VHA has rolled out the CREW program to over 1,200 work groups. 57

CREW has proved to be effective outside the VHA network as well. An experiment in a Canadian hospital system, for instance, found that compared with control teams, groups that implemented CREW achieved significant improvements in respectful behavior, job satisfaction, and trust in management, while employee burnout and absenteeism dropped. 58 The CREW model works only when team members voluntarily choose to participate and they have the slack and staffing to participate in the weekly discussions. 59

Have distributed leaders lead discussions of social norms. Leaders at every level in the organization can reduce toxic behavior by explicitly discussing social norms with their teams. Consider, for example, a program to bolster ethical behavior among combat troops in the U.S. Army. In the wake of human rights violations and detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the U.S. Army administered a survey to assess the state of battlefield ethics among soldiers. 60 The results were sobering. Fewer than half of the soldiers said they were willing to report a member of their unit for unethical behavior, 13% said they had damaged a civilian’s property, and 6% admitted to striking noncombatants.

In response, the commanding general in Iraq commissioned a program to improve battlefield ethics. The program was designed to ensure that every soldier participated in at least one highly interactive discussion of the norms of acceptable behavior in combat situations. 61 The sessions focused on common battlefield scenarios, including the treatment of noncombatants, rules of engagement, and the reporting of ethical violations. 62 Soldiers watched short vignettes of battlefield scenes from movies like Platoon and Black Hawk Down , discussed them, and then talked through similar situations they faced in Iraq.

The discussions were led not by external consultants but by commanders in the field — signaling that officers from the top brass down considered battlefield ethics important. Each officer led a discussion with their immediate subordinates in a small group setting using the video vignettes as a framework to discuss common ethical dilemmas. After participating in a discussion led by their commanding officer, a subordinate would then lead a similar discussion with their own direct reports. Similar to medical education, which has long relied on the approach of “see one, do one, teach one” to accelerate and solidify learning among interns, this cascading approach allowed combat leaders to consolidate how they would approach ethical dilemmas by discussing it with their commanding officer and then with their subordinates. 63

The Army surveyed a random sample of soldiers a few months after the training program and found sharp reductions in unethical behavior. Soldiers reported a 63% reduction in damage to private property and an even larger reduction in the mistreatment of noncombatants. Soldiers also said they were 80% more likely to report a member of their unit for destroying private property.

Collect credible, granular data on subcultures and leaders. When it comes to toxicity, you cannot manage what you do not measure. Unfortunately, in most organizations, formal reporting procedures do not surface bad behavior. One study of sexual harassment found that only 30% of employees told anyone at their employer about their experience and an even smaller percentage lodged a formal complaint. 64

A comprehensive study by one mining company found that less than 8% of employees who experienced bullying, sexual harassment, or racism reported the incidents through formal reporting channels. 65 Employees, especially women and minority men in management positions, avoid speaking up because they are afraid of being fired or passed over for promotions in retaliation for surfacing issues. 66

Most large organizations collect cultural and leadership data from multiple sources, including engagement surveys, pulse surveys, upward feedback, 360-degree reviews, and exit interviews. They often fail, however, to combine these data sources into a holistic view of leadership and culture throughout the organization.

Leaders need holistic, granular data to identify toxic microcultures, root out abusive leaders, and understand the perspectives of distinctive demographic groups. The principles below summarize what we’ve learned about translating the voices of employees into actionable insights to eliminate toxicity and achieve other cultural objectives.

How to Identify Toxic Leaders and Subcultures

• Mine the powerful insights buried in free-text responses. Most employee surveys include a series of multiple-choice questions, with one or two open-ended questions tacked on as an afterthought. Employees’ free-text responses, however, often provide the most powerful and actionable insights. The choice of which topics an employee mentions surfaces the issues that matter most to them rather than limiting their feedback to the topics covered by the multiple-choice questions. Free-text responses provide rich and nuanced insights on the reasons underlying employees’ numerical ratings. Free-text questions also prevent employees from switching to autopilot. We’ve found that when employees are faced with a long list of multiple-choice questions, nearly three-quarters of them answer virtually every question — regardless of topic — with the same two responses.
• Check in on a regular basis. Short surveys that ask a few open-ended questions are less cumbersome to complete compared to a long list of five-point items. With short, free-text based surveys, organizations can check in with employees on a regular basis without overwhelming them with long surveys.
• Benchmark against competitors and peers. Managers sometimes dismiss toxic behavior as par for the course in their industry, but companies like HEB and Costco have built extremely healthy cultures in industries plagued by toxicity. Benchmarking allows leaders to understand what is possible. Employee review platforms such as Glassdoor or Indeed are valuable resources for understanding how a culture compares with those of industry peers and an aspirational set of benchmark companies.
• Measure microcultures at a granular level. When fielding surveys and opportunities for feedback, it’s important to remember that distinctive pockets of culture can coexist within the organization and diverge widely from one another. Relying solely on corporate culture averages obscures crucial differences across teams.
• Measure subcultures created by individual leaders. A front-line supervisor or middle manager is often the most powerful determinant of toxicity at the team level. By aggregating employee feedback from a manager’s direct and indirect reports, you can build a rich picture of the subculture distributed leaders have built.
• Measure leadership traits and capabilities. The free text of performance reviews or terms employees use in upward feedback often provide important clues about toxic behavior among managers. Even if employees avoid harsh criticisms like “toxic” or “abusive,” their feedback couched in disclaimers (“could appear that you are aggressive”) or watered-down terms (“overly assertive”) collectively provides important clues to potentially toxic behavior. Similarly, if a leader is never described as “supportive” or “inclusive,” whereas such terms are frequently used to describe their peers, you may have uncovered a problem. Combining feedback on individual managers with the subcultures of their teams provides powerful insights on which leadership traits have the biggest impact on culture.
• Make it safe for employees to provide useful feedback. Psychological safety is critical to surfacing and rooting out toxic behavior. Employees will not provide candid feedback if they fear that managers can figure out who said what and retaliate for negative comments. Managers must guarantee anonymity and protect employees from retribution.
• Take action based on employee feedback. One of the most common complaints we hear is that management administers survey after survey but never acts on the feedback it receives. If employees are going to take the time and effort to provide their insights, leaders owe it to them to act on the key findings, communicate actions taken, and make progress visible.

Redesign Work to Reduce Stress

A large body of evidence supports what most of us know instinctively — that high-stress workplaces contribute to negative outcomes, including employee attrition, mental health issues, physical illness, burnout, and increased risk of death. 67 Less well known, but equally important, is that stressful jobs are a breeding ground for toxic behavior. 68

Regulating emotions and resisting negative impulses require energy. 69 Mental stress depletes limited stores of energy, making it harder for people to control their negative impulses. Research has documented that managers who are stressed out and exhausted are more likely to lapse into abusive behavior. The employees on the receiving end of abuse are themselves more likely to exhibit toxic behavior when they, too, are stressed. 70

Dozens of factors go into work design, but a few specific aspects are especially important in predicting employee stress. 71 When rethinking work design, it’s best to focus on elements of the job known to influence employee stress, such as the following.

Reduce nuisance work. It might seem that the most obvious way to mitigate occupational stress is to reduce workloads by removing tasks from employees’ plates, capping the number of hours they work per week, or providing more resources and staffing without increasing job demands. Not all work, however, has the same effect on stress.

Employees may frame certain elements of a heavy workload, such as expanded job responsibilities or tight deadlines, as a challenge that will help them advance their career or develop new skills. When work is framed as a positive challenge, it is still associated with higher levels of stress but also with increased employee engagement. 72

Other elements of the job, such as dealing with red tape, unclear roles and responsibilities, or insufficient resources, are typically viewed as nuisances that provide no tangible benefits to employees. Annoying job demands are more highly correlated with employee stress and burnout than work that employees frame as challenging. 73

Clarify job descriptions and responsibilities. Employees are more likely to find their job stressful and their workplace toxic when their duties are ambiguous, or when their job requires them to balance conflicting demands. 74 Leaders can reduce stress by clearly structuring job descriptions and defining roles and responsibilities. One recent study found that team members who work for an abusive boss are less likely to resort to toxic behaviors themselves when they have more structured job descriptions. 75

Although role conflict is a major source of stress, eliminating it is difficult in cases where jobs require employees to manage trade-offs across multiple stakeholders and objectives. 76 In these situations, providing employees with more frequent, high-quality feedback on their performance can help them manage conflicting demands with less stress. 77

Give employees more control over their work. In our synthesis of toxic culture meta-analyses, giving employees autonomy over their work was almost as powerful at predicting reductions in toxic behavior as reducing employees’ workloads. Providing employees more control over their work can mitigate the negative impact of unclear or conflicting roles and responsibilities. 78 Leaders should not, however, view this as a license to pile ever more tasks on their employees, because empowerment cannot offset extreme levels of work. 79

Allowing remote work may — or may not — increase employee stress and the likelihood of toxic behavior. A few studies conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic provide suggestive evidence that remote work may reduce employee stress. 80 The physical demands of a job — including temperature, noise, and ergonomics — are strongly correlated with stress. 81 To the extent an employee’s home workspace is more pleasant than their office, working from home might well reduce stress. On the other hand, social support is an important factor in reducing workplace stress, and remote work may increase worker isolation. 82 At this stage, the jury is still out about whether, and under what circumstances, remote work reduces employee stress.

Help employees get a good night’s sleep. A stressful job can cause insomnia, both by leaving fewer hours to sleep and causing stress that results in sleepless nights. 83 Sleep-deprived managers are more likely to abuse their subordinates or act in an unethical manner. This can fuel a vicious cycle, because a toxic workplace further interferes with employees’ sleep. 84

Fortunately, interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy have proved effective in helping employees improve their sleep. 85 Although improving sleep hygiene might not directly reduce workplace stress, it does help employees cope, and can attenuate the link between stress and toxic behavior.

Employees can respond to a toxic workforce through exit (disengaging from their work or quitting the organization), voice (lodging complaints with management or posting negative reviews of their employer), or loyalty (sticking with the employer despite the toxicity). 86 Employers that have ignored feedback about toxic behavior — whether widespread or in small pockets — should not be surprised when employees’ loyalty wears thin and they head for the exits.

Related Articles

Many leaders bemoaned employee turnover during the Great Resignation. High rates of job switching, however, provide powerful signals that corporate culture is not working for many employees. A tight labor market can also provide a much-needed impetus to address toxicity. Surgical interns complained about 100-hour workweeks for decades, but it wasn’t until applications for surgical internships dropped in the early 2000s that teaching hospitals began to improve working conditions for doctors in training. 87

Employees who vote with their feet send a clear signal that they will no longer tolerate disrespect, exclusionary behavior, abuse, and other toxic behaviors. In such situations, organizational leaders face two choices. They can detox their corporate culture or lose the war for talent. We hope this article serves as a useful resource for leaders as they begin to address toxic culture, stop unwanted attrition, and create a healthy work environment that respects the dignity of all employees.

About the Authors

Donald Sull ( @culturexinsight ) is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a cofounder of CultureX. Charles Sull is a cofounder of CultureX.

1. J.R. Graham, J. Grennan, C.R. Harvey, et al., “ Corporate Culture: Evidence From the Field ,” research paper 16-49, Columbia Business School, New York, July 2016, table 4. Findings from a survey of 1,348 North American CEOs and CFOs.

2. Graham et al., “Corporate Culture,” table 7.

3. D. Sull, C. Sull, W. Cipolli, et al., “ Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture ,” MIT Sloan Management Review, March 16, 2022, https://sloanreview.mit.edu. The elements of a toxic culture (which we call the Toxic Five) are distinct but frequently co-occur in organizations. Jingxian Yao and her coauthors found strong evidence that the elements of toxic culture are part of a more general construct, which is sometimes referred to as “workplace mistreatment” or “employee victimization.” In their meta-analysis, the authors ran a confirmatory factor analysis and found that the elements of a toxic culture loaded significantly on a single factor, including incivility at 0.82, ostracism at 0.73, abusive supervision at 0.63, sexual harassment at 0.51, and undermining (which we call “cutthroat”) at 0.50. See J. Yao, S. Lim, C. Guo, et al., “ Experienced Incivility in the Workplace: A Meta-Analytical Review of Its Construct Validity and Nomological Network ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 107, no. 2 (February 2022): 193-220.

4. M. Robbins, M.T. Ford, and L.E. Tetrick, “ Perceived Unfairness and Employee Health: A Meta-Analytic Integration ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 97, no. 2 (March 2012): 235-272.

5. J. Goh, J. Pfeffer, and S.A. Zenios, “ The Relationship Between Workplace Stressors and Mortality and Health Costs in the United States ,” Management Science 62, no. 2 (February 2016): 608-628, table 3.

6. For a more detailed list of the corporate costs of toxic culture, along with references, see the figure “The Organizational Costs of Toxic Culture” in Sull et al., “Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture.”

7. A comprehensive study found that 13% of U.S. employees encountered workplace aggression on a weekly basis. See A.C.H. Schat, M.R. Frone, and E.K. Kelloway, “ Prevalence of Workplace Aggression in the U.S. Workforce: Findings From a National Study ,” in “Handbook of Workplace Violence,” eds. E.K. Kelloway, J. Barling, and J.J. Hurrell (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 2006), 47-89. In a Gallup poll, 6% of U.S. and Canadian employees reported that they had been disrespected in the previous 24-hour period. See “ State of the Global Workplace: 2021 Report ,” PDF file (Washington, D.C.: Gallup, 2021), www.gallup.com.

8. A search for “culture change” in Amazon Books’ Business & Money section (English language only) on April 19, 2022, returned more than 10,000 results.

9. The research on the elements of a toxic culture is characterized by multiple, overlapping constructs. See M.S. Hershcovis, “ ‘Incivility, Social Undermining, Bullying … Oh My!’: A Call to Reconcile Constructs Within Workplace Aggression Research ,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 32, no. 3 (April 2011): 499-519. To organize our literature review, we first mapped the Toxic Five to related constructs in psychology: disrespectful (incivility, identity threat), noninclusive (sexual or racial harassment, sexual or racial discrimination, ostracism), cutthroat (social undermining), and abusive (abusive supervision, emotional abuse, petty tyrant, mobbing, bullying, physical aggression, verbal aggression). The Toxic Five also includes unethical behavior, which is not typically included among the elements of workplace mistreatment or employee victimization. For comprehensive discussions of these elements, see M.A. McCord, D.L. Joseph, L.Y. Dhanani, et al., “ A Meta-Analysis of Sex and Race Differences in Perceived Workplace Mistreatment ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 103, no. 2 (February 2018): 137-163; K. Aquino and S. Thau, “ Workplace Victimization: Aggression From the Target’s Perspective ,” Annual Review of Psychology 60 (February 2009): 717-741; and Hershcovis, “‘Incivility, Social Undermining, Bullying … Oh My!’” 499-519.

10. The meta-analyses measured antecedents and outcomes of incivility/disrespectful behavior (three meta-analyses), sexual harassment and discrimination (two meta-analyses), and one meta-analysis for each of the following: racial harassment and discrimination, ostracism (exclusion unrelated to an employee’s sex or race), abusive manager, workplace aggression, general harassment (unrelated to an employee’s sex or race), mistreatment (including workplace harassment, mobbing, petty tyranny, bullying, emotional abuse, abusive supervision, social undermining, identity threat, and incivility), and unethical behavior. See McCord et al., “A Meta-Analysis of Sex and Race Differences,” 137-163; Yao et al., “Experienced Incivility in the Workplace,” 193-220; M. Howard, J. Cogswell, and M.B. Smith, “ The Antecedents and Outcomes of Workplace Ostracism: A Meta-Analysis ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 105, no. 6 (June 2020): 577-596; S. Han, C.M. Harold, I. Oh, et al., “ A Meta-Analysis Integrating 20 Years of Workplace Incivility Research: Antecedents, Consequences, and Boundary Conditions ,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 43, no. 3 (September 2021): 497-523; C.R. Willness, P. Steel, and K. Lee, “ A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Consequences of Workplace Sexual Harassment ,” Personnel Psychology 60, no. 1 (spring 2007): 127-162; J.D. Mackey, R.E. Frieder, J.R. Brees, et al., “ Abusive Supervision: A Meta-Analysis and Empirical Review ,” Journal of Management 43, no. 6 (July 2017): 1940-1965; L.S. Park and L.R. Martinez, “ An ‘I’ for an ‘I’: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Instigated and Reciprocal Incivility ,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 27, no. 1 (February 2022): 7-21; M.S. Hershcovis, N. Turner, J. Barling, et al., “ Predicting Workplace Aggression: A Meta-Analysis ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 92, no. 1 (January 2007): 228-238; N.A. Bowling and T.A. Beehr, “ Workplace Harassment From the Victim’s Perspective: A Theoretical Model and Meta-Analysis ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 91, no. 5 (September 2006): 998-1012; L.Y. Dhanani, A.M. Main, and A. Pueschel, “ Do You Only Have Yourself to Blame? A Meta-Analytic Test of the Victim Precipitation Model ,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 41, no. 8 (October 2020): 706-721; and J.J. Kish-Gephart, D.A. Harrison, and L.K. Treviño, “ Bad Apples, Bad Cases, and Bad Barrels: Meta-Analytic Evidence About Sources of Unethical Decisions at Work ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 95, no. 1 (January 2010): 1-31.

11. For each of the 11 meta-analyses, we took the estimated population correlation coefficient (sample size weighted mean correlation corrected for unreliability in both measures) between reported antecedents (e.g., employee age, unethical leadership, code of conduct enforced in the organization) and the element of toxic culture (e.g., incivility, abusive management). All reported correlation coefficients were bivariate. We aggregated the most commonly reported antecedents into five categories: (1) employee demographics, excluding race and gender; (2) employee personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience); (3) leadership traits and styles; (4) workplace climate and social norms; and (5) work design (e.g., role conflict, role ambiguity, overload). Several meta-analyses reported correlations for the same demographic attributes (e.g., age, tenure), Big Five personality traits, and elements of work design (e.g., role ambiguity, workload). There was much more variation in which elements of leadership (e.g., ethical leadership, leader member exchange, Machiavellianism) and social norms (e.g., norms of civility, ethical behavior). To estimate the relative magnitude of the population correlation coefficients for the five categories of antecedents across meta-analyses, we averaged the absolute value of the population correlation coefficients for each category by outcome pairing. This analysis provides a robust estimate of the relative relationship between the five categories of antecedents and the elements of toxic culture. In some cases, the antecedents were framed positively (e.g., ethical leadership) and in other cases, negatively (e.g., unethical leadership). In reporting out the bivariate relationships between antecedents and toxic culture, we expressed the average of the absolute value of all antecedents in negative terms. For example, all leadership measures (whether framed positively or negatively in the original meta-analysis) are expressed as a correlation between toxic leadership and toxic culture.

12. This follows Cristina Bicchieri’s definition of a descriptive norm: “a pattern of behavior such that individuals conform to it on the condition that they believe that most people in their reference group conform to it.” See C. Bicchieri, “Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 19. In social psychology, the definition of “norms” is “behaviors of group members that act as implicit rules, considered to be both descriptive of what group members are and prescriptive of how they should be,” from S.T. Fiske, “Social Beings: A Core Motives Approach to Social Psychology” (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Wiley, 1984): 484. In the psychology literature, social norms are often referred to as “climate.” “Ethical climate,” for example, is defined as shared employee expectations that “arise when members believe that certain forms of ethical reasoning or behavior are expected standards or norms for decision-making within the firm,” from K.D. Martin and J.B. Cullen, “ Continuities and Extensions of Ethical Climate Theory: A Meta-Analytic Review ,” Journal of Business Ethics 69, no. 2 (December 2006): 177. The definition of a “climate of civility” is “policies and practices that communicate important information to organizational members with respect to expectations for how members should treat one another and the consequences for failing to do so,” from Han et al., “A Meta-Analysis Integrating 20 Years of Workplace Incivility Research,” 501.

13. Charles O’Reilly and Jenny Chatman explicitly define “corporate culture” in terms of shared social norms as well as values that are shared throughout the organization. See C.A. O’Reilly and J.A. Chatman, “ Culture as Social Control: Corporations, Cults, and Commitment ,” in “Research in Organizational Behavior: An Annual Series of Analytical Essays and Critical Reviews, Vol. 18,” eds. B.M. Staw and L.L. Cummings (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, 1996), 166.

14. S.K. Parker, F.P. Morgeson, and G. Johns, “ One Hundred Years of Work Design Research: Looking Back and Looking Forward ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 102, no. 3 (February 2017): 403-420.

15. McCord et al., “A Meta-Analysis of Sex and Race Differences,” table 5. McCord and her coauthors express all relationships as mean population Cohen’s d value (weighted by the inverse of the sampling error variance and corrected for attenuation) rather than population correlation coefficients. Converting the Cohen’s d reported in table 5 to correlation coefficients results in correlation of 0.23 between gender (female = 1) and sexual harassment/sexual discrimination and correlation of 0.01 between gender and other forms of mistreatment. The correlation between race (non-White = 1) and racial harassment/discrimination is 0.34, and between race and other forms of mistreatment 0.05.

16. One of the most rigorous experiments in long-lasting organizational change offered executives a menu of possible improvements and let them choose which interventions worked best in their specific contexts. See N. Bloom, B. Eifert, A. Mahajan, et al., “ Does Management Matter? Evidence From India ,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 128, no. 1 (February 2013): 1-51. That article describes a randomized control trial where leaders of Indian textile firms selected from a menu of 38 practices and implemented them in their mills. The average treatment firm adopted about 60% of the practices. The treatment plants experienced a 17% gain in productivity relative to carefully matched control firms. The treatment companies were still using about half of the practices they initially adopted nine years after the experiment, and they continued to outperform the control firms. See N. Bloom, A. Mahajan, D. McKenzie, et al., “ Do Management Interventions Last? Evidence From India ,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 12, no. 2 (April 2020): 198-212.

17. E.H. Schein, “Organizational Culture and Leadership” (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985), 2.

18. Graham et al., “Corporate Culture,” table 7. Fifty-five percent of respondents chose the current CEO as the most influential factor in setting culture when they could select up to four factors from a list of 12.

19. R. Huising and S.S. Silbey, “ From Nudge to Culture and Back Again: Coalface Governance in the Regulated Organization ,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14, no. 1 (October 2018): 91-114.

20. E. Benmelech and C. Frydman, “ Military CEOs ,” Journal of Financial Economics 117, no. 1 (July 2015): 43-59; and I.F. Koch-Bayram and G. Wernicke, “ Drilled to Obey? Ex-Military CEOs and Financial Misconduct ,” Strategic Management Journal 39, no. 11 (November 2018): 2943-2964.

21. M.B. Mawritz, D.M. Mayer, J.M. Hoobler, et al., “ A Trickle-Down Model of Abusive Supervision ,” Personnel Psychology 65, no. 2 (2012): 325-357.

22. X. Liu, “ Corruption Culture and Corporate Misconduct ,” Journal of Financial Economics 122, no. 2 (November 2016): 307-327. If a company’s CEO or CFO has been convicted of driving under the influence or other illegal behavior outside work, their company is 42% more likely to commit corporate fraud. See R. Davidson, A. Dey, and A. Smith, “ Executives’ ‘Off-the-Job’ Behavior, Corporate Culture, and Financial Reporting Risk ,” Journal of Financial Economics 117, no. 1 (July 2015): 5-28. See also M. Mironov, “ Should One Hire a Corrupt CEO in a Corrupt Country? ” Journal of Financial Economics 117, no. 1 (July 2015): 29-42.

23. In an earlier study of the strategic priorities of the S&P 500 companies, we identified 42 separate topics, including innovation, customer experience, sustainability, and revenue growth, that compete for space on the top team’s agenda. See D. Sull and S. Turconi, “ How to Recognize a Strategic Priority When You See One ,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Sept. 28, 2017, https://sloanreview.mit.edu.

24. K. Vaghul, A. Radeva, and K. Ira, “ Workforce Diversity Data Disclosure ,” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, March 9, 2022, https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu. A 2020 update of human capital disclosure requirements under S-K may create more pressure for disclosure among public companies listed in the U.S. See “ Modernization of Regulation S-K Items 101, 103, and 105 ,” PDF file (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2020), www.sec.gov.

25. “ Institutional Investor Survey 2019 ,” PDF file (New York: Morrow Sodali, 2019), https://morrowsodali.com. A survey of 46 global institutional investors managing a combined $33 trillion in assets revealed that 83% of investors requested more detail on human capital management when they asked for additional disclosure from companies. The impact of inviting external pressure by publicly posting progress is highest for large firms. Carly Knight and her coauthors find that discrimination lawsuits have no impact or even lead to small decreases in diversity among small firms, whereas discrimination lawsuits increase diversity in large organizations, primarily in their headquarters. They argue that highly visible firms will be most susceptible to institutional pressures to comply with legal and social norms. See C. Knight, F. Dobbin, and A. Kalev, “ Under the Radar: Visibility and the Effects of Discrimination Lawsuits in Small and Large Firms ,” American Sociological Review 87, no. 2 (April 2022): 175-201.

26. D. Sull, S. Turconi, and C. Sull, “ When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk? ” MIT Sloan Management Review, July 21, 2020, https://sloanreview.mit.edu.

27. In another study, we found that the fourth-strongest predictor of how employees will rate their employer’s corporate culture on Glassdoor is their assessment of whether leaders’ actions are consistent with the organization’s core values. See D. Sull and C. Sull, “ 10 Things Your Corporate Culture Needs to Get Right ,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Sept. 16, 2021, https://sloanreview.mit.edu.

28. S.M. Ochs, “ The Leadership Blind Spots at Wells Fargo ,” Harvard Business Review, Oct. 6, 2016, https://hbr.org.

29. The survey comprised 16,129 employees from 469 organizations. The sample and survey design are described in D. Sull, R. Homkes, and C. Sull, “ Why Strategy Execution Unravels — and What to Do About It ,” Harvard Business Review 93, no. 3 (March 2015): 58-66.

30. D.W. Campbell and R. Shang, “ Tone at the Bottom: Measuring Corporate Misconduct Risk From the Text of Employee Reviews ,” Management Science, forthcoming; C.R. Forgues and D.S. Lee, “ Using Big Data Analytics Tools to Predict Litigation Outcomes ,” New Hampshire Bar News 30, no. 7 (Dec. 18, 2019): 1, 24-25; and D. Chhillar, D. Sull, M. Kraatz, et al., “ Organizational Culture and Wrongdoing: A View Through the Glassdoor ,” working paper, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, 2022.

31. Z.T. Kowaleski, A.G. Sutherland, and F.W. Vetter, “ Supervisor Influence on Employee Misconduct ,” working paper, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, July 2022.

32. In “Supervisor Influence on Employee Misconduct,” Kowaleski, Sutherland, and Vetter estimated supervisors’ discretion by measuring how far away from the firm’s headquarters their branch was located, under the assumption that more distant branches are more difficult for corporate leaders to monitor.

33. M. Egan, G. Matvos, and A. Seru, “ The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct ,” Journal of Political Economy 127, no. 1 (February 2019): 233-295.

34. In table 6 of “The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct,” Egan, Matvos, and Seru reported that financial advisory firms with at least 1,000 employees had the highest rates of broker misconduct as of May 2015.

35. T. Theeboom, B. Beersma, and A.E.M. van Vianen, “ Does Coaching Work? A Meta-Analysis on the Effects of Coaching on Individual Level Outcomes in an Organizational Context ,” The Journal of Positive Psychology 9, no. 1 (2014): 1-18, table 4; and R.J. Jones, S.A. Woods, and Y.R.F. Guillaume, “ The Effectiveness of Workplace Coaching: A Meta-Analysis of Learning and Performance Outcomes From Coaching ,” Journal of Organizational and Occupational Psychology 89, no. 2 (June 2016): 249-277, table 3. Coaching appears to work best for improving managers’ attitude toward their work, with population correlation measures between coaching interventions and affective outcomes 0.48-0.51, with moderately strong results for self-regulation in achieving work goals (0.32) and resilience and coping (0.26), and the weakest relationship with individual skills (0.18-0.28).

36. J. Greenberg, “ Losing Sleep Over Organizational Injustice: Attenuating Insomniac Reactions to Underpayment Inequity With Supervisory Training in Interactional Justice ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 91, no. 1 (January 2006): 58-69.

37. S.T. McClean, S.H. Courtright, J. Yim, et al., “ Making Nice or Faking Nice? Exploring Supervisors’ Two-Faced Response to Their Past Abusive Behavior ,” Personnel Psychology 74, no. 4 (winter 2021): 693-719.

38. See C. Mathieu and P. Babiak, “ Corporate Psychopathy and Abusive Supervision: Their Influence on Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intentions ,” Personality and Individual Differences 91 (March 2016): 102-106; and E.H. O’Boyle Jr., D.R. Forsyth, G.C. Banks, et al., “ A Meta-Analysis of the Dark Triad and Work Behavior: A Social Exchange Perspective ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 97, no. 3 (May 2012): 557-579.

39. In S.A. De Brito, A.E. Forth, A.R. Baskin-Sommers, et al., “ Psychopathy ,” Nature Reviews Disease Primers 7 (2021): 1-21, the researchers report the prevalence of psychopathy among the general population as approximately 1%. In P. Babiak, C.S. Neumann, and R.D. Hare, “ Corporate Psychopathy: Talking the Walk ,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 28, no. 2 (March-April 2010): 174-193, the researchers report that 3.9% of their sample of 203 managers met the clinical definition of psychopathy (versus 15% in the male prison population). Their estimate is, however, based on a small sample, and it is not clear how representative the managers were of the broader population. Overall, there is some weak evidence that the prevalence of psychopaths may be higher among business managers than the general population, but the magnitude of that difference is not clear. See S.F. Smith and S.O. Lilienfeld, “ Psychopathy in the Workplace: The Knowns and the Unknowns ,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 18, no. 2 (March-April 2013): 204-218.

40. M. Priesemuth and B. Bigelow, “ It Hurts Me Too! (or Not?): Exploring the Negative Implications for Abusive Bosses ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 105, no. 4 (April 2019): 410-421. Z. Liao, K.C. Yam, R.E. Johnson, et al., “ Cleansing My Abuse: A Reparative Response Model of Perpetrating Abusive Supervisor Behavior ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 103, no. 9 (September 2018): 1039-1056 also found that leaders engaged in positive behavior the same day they mistreated an employee, as a way to make amends for their earlier mistreatment.

41. D. Zohar and T. Polachek, “ Discourse-Based Intervention for Modifying Supervisory Communication as Leverage for Safety Climate and Performance Improvement: A Randomized Field Study ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 99, no. 1 (January 2014): 113-124.

42. A similar experiment with more frequent coaching sessions found a sixfold increase in how frequently supervisors emphasized safety in their interactions with subordinates, including verbal and nonverbal interactions, and a significant decrease in minor accidents. See D. Zohar, “ Modifying Supervisory Practices to Improve Subunit Safety: A Leadership-Based Intervention Model ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 87, no. 1 (February 2002): 156-163.

43. Z.T. Kowaleski, A.G. Sutherland, and F.W. Vetter, “ Can Ethics Be Taught? Evidence From Securities Exams and Investment Adviser Misconduct ,” Journal of Financial Economics 138, no. 1 (October 2020): 159-175.

44. The survey comprised 16,129 employees from 469 organizations. The sample and survey design are described in Sull, Homkes, and Sull, “Why Strategy Execution Unravels,” 58-66.

45. A. Benson, D. Li, and K. Shue, “ Promotions and the Peter Principle ,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 134, no. 4 (July 2019): 2085-2134.

46. R.I. Sutton, “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t” (New York: Business Plus, 2010).

47. M. Egan, G. Matvos, and A. Seru, “ When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct ,” Journal of Political Economy 130, no. 5 (May 2022): 1184-1248.

48. “ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Summary, 2020 ,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Dec. 16, 2021, www.bls.gov; and “ Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries and Illnesses, 2020 ,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nov. 3, 2021, www.bls.gov.

49. M.S. Christian, J.C. Bradley, J.C. Wallace, et al., “ Workplace Safety: A Meta-Analysis of the Roles of Person and Situation Factors ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 94, no. 5 (October 2009): 1103-1127, table 5.

50. Egan, Matvos, and Seru, “The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct,” 233-295. The authors estimate that less than 8% of brokers have committed any financial misconduct.

51. S.G. Dimmock, W.C. Gerken, and N.P. Graham, “ Is Fraud Contagious? Coworker Influence on Misconduct by Financial Advisors ,” The Journal of Finance 73, no. 3 (June 2018): 1417-1450.

52. C.M. Pearson, L.M. Andersson, and C.L. Porath, “ Workplace Incivility ,” in “Counterproductive Work Behavior: Investigations of Actors and Targets,” eds. S. Fox and P.E. Spector (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2005), 177-200.

53. Bicchieri, “Norms in the Wild,” ch. 4.

54. K. Osatuke, S.C. Moore, C. Ward, et al., “ Civility, Respect, Engagement in the Workforce (CREW): Nationwide Organization Development Intervention at Veterans Health Administration ,” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 45, no. 3 (September 2009): 384-410.

55. See F. Dobbin, D. Schrage, and A. Kalev, “ Rage Against the Iron Cage: The Varied Effects of Bureaucratic Personnel Reforms on Diversity ,” American Sociological Review 80, no. 5 (October 2015): 1014-1044; and L. Legault, J.N. Gutsell, and M. Inzlicht, “Ironic Effects of Antiprejudice Messages: How Motivational Interventions Can Reduce (but Also Increase) Prejudice,” Psychological Science 22, no. 12 (December 2011): 1472-1477.

56. The facilitators draw these exercises from a CREW toolkit that provides more than 40 facilitation exercises and tips. For some examples, see Osatuke et al., “Civility, Respect, Engagement in the Workforce (CREW),” appendix A.

57. “ Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workforce (CREW) ,” National Center for Organization Development, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, last modified Jan. 8, 2022, www.va.gov.

58. M.P. Leiter, H.K.S. Laschinger, A. Day, et al., “ The Impact of Civility Interventions on Employee Social Behavior, Distress, and Attitudes ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 96, no. 6 (November 2011): 1258-1274.

59. For a concise summary of CREW, including its benefits and when the approach works best, see the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2016 brochure on CREW civility .

60. C.H. Warner, G.N. Appenzeller, A. Mobbs, et al., “ Effectiveness of Battlefield-Ethics Training During Combat Deployment: A Programme Assessment ,” The Lancet 378, no. 9794 (Sept. 3, 2011): 915-924.

61. Warner et al., “Effectiveness of Battlefield-Ethics Training,” 918.

62. Warner et al., “Effectiveness of Battlefield-Ethics Training,” panel 1 provides a concise overview of the training program.

63. S.V. Kotsis and K.C. Chung, “ Application of See One, Do One, Teach One Concept in Surgical Training ,” Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 131, no. 5 (May 2013): 1194-1201.

64. Based on a study of all complaints made to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about sexual harassment between 2011 and 2016. See C. McCann, D. Tomaskovic-Devey, and M.V. Badgett, “ Employer’s Responses to Sexual Harassment ,” Center for Employment Equity, University of Massachusetts Amherst, accessed Aug. 31, 2022, www.umass.edu.

65. “ Report Into Workplace Culture at Rio Tinto ,” PDF file (Sydney: Elizabeth Broderick & Co., 2022), www.riotinto.com.

66. Dobbin, Schrage, and Kalev, “Rage Against the Iron Cage,” 1014-1044.

67. For an overview, see J.J. Mazzola and R. Disselhorst, “ Should We Be ‘Challenging’ Employees?: A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of the Challenge-Hindrance Model of Stress ,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 40, no. 3 (September 2019): 949-961; J. Goh, J. Pfeffer, and S.A. Zenios, “ The Relationship Between Workplace Stressors and Mortality and Health Costs in the United States ,” Management Science 62, no. 2 (February 2016): 608-628, table 3; D.C. Ganster and C.C. Rosen, “ Work Stress and Employee Health: A Multidisciplinary Review ,” Journal of Management 39, no. 5 (July 2013): 1085-1122; and E. Gonzalez-Mulé and B. Cockburn, “ Worked to Death: The Relationships of Job Demands and Job Control With Mortality ,” Personnel Psychology 70, no. 1 (spring 2017): 73-112.

68. A portion of the negative outcomes associated with a toxic culture are attributable to on-the-job stress. Even controlling for stress-inducing aspects of the job, however, toxic culture significantly increases the likelihood of employee burnout and physical illness, and the likelihood that an employee will leave the organization. See Bowling and Beehr, “Workplace Harassment From the Victim’s Perspective,” 1003.

69. See R.F. Baumeister, E. Bratslavsky, M. Muraven, et al., “ Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource? ” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, no. 5 (May 1998): 1252-1265; and H. Lian, D.J. Brown, D.L. Ferris, et al., “ Abusive Supervision and Retaliation: A Self-Control Framework ,” Academy of Management Journal 57, no. 1 (February 2014): 116-139.

70. Mawritz et al., “A Trickle-Down Model of Abusive Supervision,” 325-357.

71. S.E. Humphrey, J.D. Mahrgang, and F.P. Morgeson, “ Integrating Motivational, Social, and Contextual Work Design Features: A Meta-Analytic Summary and Theoretical Extension of the Work Design Literature ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 92, no. 5 (October 2007): 1332-1356; Parker, Morgeson, and Johns, “One Hundred Years of Work Design Research,” 403-420; E. Gonzalez-Mulé, M. Kim, and J.W. Ryu, “ A Meta-Analytic Test of Multiplicative and Additive Models of Job Demands, Resources, and Stress ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 106, no. 9 (September 2021): 1391-1411; G.M. Alarcon, “ A Meta-Analysis of Burnout With Job Demands, Resources, and Attitudes ,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 79, no. 2 (October 2011): 549-562; and E.R. Crawford, J.A. LePine, and B.L. Rich, “ Linking Job Demands and Resources to Employee Engagement and Burnout: A Theoretical Extension and Meta-Analytic Test ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 95, no. 5 (September 2010): 834-848. We use “employee stress” in this article as it is used colloquially to describe an individual’s level of anxiety related to work. The colloquial use of “stress” corresponds to the psychological construct of “strain,” which is how individuals respond to stressors. Employee stress (or strain) has been operationalized and measured as anxiety, burnout, high blood pressure, insomnia, depression, and physical symptoms that vary in the severity of the response. Work design has been conceptualized in many different ways. In prioritizing which elements of work design had the strongest relationship to stress, we focused on elements of work design that were common enough to be included in meta-analyses.

72. Crawford, LePine, and Rich, “Linking Job Demands and Resources,” 834-848; and Mazzola and Disselhorst, “Should We Be ‘Challenging’ Employees?” 949-961.

73. Crawford, LePine, and Rich, “Linking Job Demands and Resources,” 834-848. Psychologists use the term “hindrance” to describe work that employees view as a nuisance.

74. T.A. Beehr and S. Glazer, “Organizational Role Stress,” in “Handbook of Work Stress,” eds. J. Barling, E.K. Kelloway, and M.R. Frone (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 2005), 7-33. In our review of meta-analyses (summarized in endnote 10), role conflict has an average correlation coefficient of 0.37 with elements of toxic culture, followed by workload (0.26), autonomy (-0.25), and role ambiguity (0.24). Role ambiguity and role conflict are typically classified as hindrances that increase stress and decrease motivation. See Crawford, LePine, and Rich, “Linking Job Demands and Resources,” 834-848.

75. M. Priesemuth, M. Schminke, B. Bigelow, et al., “ A Light at the End of the Tunnel: How the Right Workplace Structure Can Help Disrupt the Negative Impact of Abusive Supervision ,” Human Performance 35, no. 2 (2022): 71-93.

76. K.J. Ritter, R.A. Matthews, M.T. Ford, et al., “ Understanding Role Stressors and Job Satisfaction Over Time Using Adaptation Theory ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 101, no. 12 (December 2016): 1655-1669.

77. Humphrey, Mahrgang, and Morgeson, “Integrating Motivational, Social, and Contextual Work Design Features,” table 2.

78. Humphrey, Mahrgang, and Morgeson, “Integrating Motivational, Social, and Contextual Work Design Features,” table 4. It’s interesting to note in table 4 that empowering employees to make their own decisions and decide how to do their work was much more strongly correlated with job satisfaction (and potentially stress) than giving them control over scheduling their work.

79. Gonzalez-Mulé, Kim, and Ryu, “A Meta-Analytic Test,” 1391-1411.

80. L.K. Lunde, L. Fløvik, J.O. Christensen, et al., “ The Relationship Between Telework From Home and Employee Health: A Systematic Review ,” BMC Public Health 22, no. 1 (January 2022): 1-14. After applying an exhaustive search, the authors could identify only nine articles studying the link between remote work and either stress or burnout/exhaustion; only four of these studies were judged to be of high quality. All of the studies were conducted before the pandemic and the more general shift to working from home. Thus, collectively, the results were inconclusive.

81. Humphrey, Mahrgang, and Morgeson, “Integrating Motivational, Social, and Contextual Work Design Features,” table 5.

82. For evidence on the relationship between workplace social support and job-related stress, see Gonzalez-Mulé, Kim, and Ryu, “A Meta-Analytic Test,” 1391-1411; and Humphrey, Mahrgang, and Morgeson, “Integrating Motivational, Social, and Contextual Work Design Features,” 1332-1356.

83. C.M. Barnes and N.F. Watson, “ Why Healthy Sleep Is Good for Business ,” Sleep Medicine Review 47 (October 2019): 112-118; and B. Litwiller, L.A. Snyder, W.D. Taylor, et al., “ The Relationship Between Sleep and Work: A Meta-Analysis ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 102, no. 4 (April 2017): 682-699.

84. C.M. Barnes, J. Schaubroeck, M. Huth, et al., “ Lack of Sleep and Unethical Conduct ,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 115, no. 2 (July 2011): 169-180; D.T. Welsh, K.M. Mai, A.P.J. Ellis, et al., “ Overcoming the Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Unethical Behavior: An Extension of Integrated Self-Control Theory ,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 76 (May 2018): 142-154; and C.M. Barnes, L. Lucianetti, D.P. Bhave, et al., “ ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Sleepy’: Leaders’ Sleep, Daily Abusive Supervision, and Work Unit Engagement ,” Academy of Management Journal 58, no. 5 (October 2015): 1419-1437.

85. C.M. Barnes, J.A. Miller, S. Bostock, “ Helping Employees Sleep Well: Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia on Work Outcomes ,” Journal of Applied Psychology 102, no. 1 (January 2017): 104-113; and H.G. Bloom, I. Ahmed, C.A. Alessi, et al., “ Evidence-Based Recommendations for the Assessment and Management of Sleep Disorders in Older Persons ,” Journal of the American Geriatric Society 57, no. 5 (May 2009): 761-789.

86. Albert Hirschman focuses on exit and voice as alternatives, but employees can use them concurrently as when employees write negative reviews on Glassdoor or in employee engagement surveys, and also partially exit by disengaging from their job by devoting less time or effort to it. See A.O. Hirschman, “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States” (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970).

87. K.C. Kellogg, “ Hot Lights and Cold Steel: Cultural and Political Toolkits for Practice Change in Surgery ,” Organization Science 22, no. 2 (March-April 2011): 482-502.

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A Toxic Work World

By Anne-Marie Slaughter

• Sept. 18, 2015

FOR many Americans, life has become all competition all the time. Workers across the socioeconomic spectrum, from hotel housekeepers to surgeons, have stories about toiling 12- to 16-hour days (often without overtime pay) and experiencing anxiety attacks and exhaustion. Public health experts have begun talking about stress as an epidemic.

The people who can compete and succeed in this culture are an ever-narrower slice of American society: largely young people who are healthy, and wealthy enough not to have to care for family members. An individual company can of course favor these individuals, as health insurers once did, and then pass them off to other businesses when they become parents or need to tend to their own parents. But this model of winning at all costs reinforces a distinctive American pathology of not making room for caregiving. The result: We hemorrhage talent and hollow out our society.

To begin with, we are losing women. America has unlocked the talent of its women in a way that few nations can match; girls are outpacing boys in high schools, universities and graduate schools and are now entering the work force at higher salaries. But the ranks of those women still thin significantly as they rise toward the top, from more than 50 percent at entry level to 10 to 20 percent in senior management. Far too many discover that what was once a manageable and enjoyable work-family balance can no longer be sustained — regardless of ambition, confidence or even a partner who shares tasks equally.

Every family’s situation is different; some women may be able to handle with ease conditions that don’t work for others. But many women who started out with all the ambition in the world find themselves in a place they never expected to be. They do not choose to leave their jobs; they are shut out by the refusal of their bosses to make it possible for them to fit their family life and their work life together. In her book “Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home,” the sociologist Pamela Stone calls this a “forced choice.” “Denial of requests to work part time, layoffs or relocations,” she writes, will push even the most ambitious woman out of the work force.

A young lawyer I know from Virginia was offered a general counsel position, which she determined she could take but only if she could work from home one day a week to be with her two children. Her employer refused. Still another woman wrote to me about her aspiration to an executive-level position and the predicament of doing so with a 2-year-old at home: “The dilemma is in no way the result of having a toddler: After all, executive men seem to enjoy increased promotions with every additional offspring. It is the way work continues to be circumscribed as something that happens ‘in an office,’ and/or ‘between 8–6’ that causes such conflict. I haven’t yet been presented with a shred of reasonable justification for insisting my job requires me to be sitting in this fixed, 15 sq foot room, 20 miles from my home.”

The problem is even more acute for the 42 million women in America on the brink of poverty. Not showing up for work because a child has an ear infection, schools close for a snow day, or an elderly parent must go to the doctor puts their jobs at risk, and losing their jobs means that they can no longer care properly for their children — some 28 million — and other relatives who depend on them. They are often suffering not only from too little flexibility but also too much, as many low-wage service jobs no longer have a guaranteed number of hours a week.

This looks like a “women’s problem,” but it’s not. It’s a work problem — the problem of an antiquated and broken system. When law firms and corporations lose talented women who reject lock-step career paths and question promotion systems that elevate quantity of hours worked over quality of the work itself, the problem is not with the women . When an abundance of overly rigid workplaces causes 42 million American citizens to live day to day in fear that just one single setback will prevent them from being able to care for their children, it’s not their problem, but ours.

THE problem is with the workplace, or more precisely, with a workplace designed for the “Mad Men” era, for “Leave It to Beaver” families in which one partner does all the work of earning an income and the other partner does all the work of turning that income into care — the care that is indispensable for our children, our sick and disabled, our elderly. Our families and our responsibilities don’t look like that anymore, but our workplaces do not fit the realities of our lives.

Irene Padavic, a Florida State sociologist, Robin J. Ely, a Harvard Business School professor, and Erin Reid from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business were asked to conduct a detailed study of a midsize global consulting firm where top management thought they had a “gender problem.” The firm had a paucity of women at the highest levels — just 10 percent of partners were women, compared with nearly 40 percent of junior associates.

After careful study, Professors Padavic, Ely and Reid found that an equal number of men and women had left the firm in the preceding three years, a simple fact that contradicted management’s women, work and family story. Some of the men also left because of the long hours; others “suffered in silence or otherwise made do.” The firm’s key human resources problem was not gender, as management believed, but rather a culture of overwork.

The firm’s leadership resisted these findings. They didn’t want to be told that they needed to overhaul their entire organizational philosophy or that they were overpromising to clients and overdelivering (for example, making hundred-slide PowerPoint presentations that the client couldn’t even use). They wanted to be told that the firm’s problem was work-family conflict for women, a narrative that would allow them to adopt a set of policies specifically aimed at helping women work part time, or be mentored, or join support networks. As Professors Padavic, Ely and Reid wryly concluded, their attitude “required a rejection of evidence on the part of evidence-driven analysts.”

Bad work culture is everyone’s problem, for men just as much as for women. It’s a problem for working parents, not just working mothers. For working children who need time to take care of their own parents, not just working daughters. For anyone who does not have the luxury of a full-time lead parent or caregiver at home.

But there’s good news. Men are also beginning to ask for and take paternity leave and to take lead parent roles. According to a continuing study by the Families and Work Institute, only a third of employed millennial men think that couples should take on traditional gender roles. Some tech companies warring for talent are also beginning to compete by offering longer paternity leaves, which will hardly affect the average American workplace, but is a sign of changing cultural attitudes.

EVEN if men and women join forces to demand changes in the workplace, though, we cannot do this alone, as individuals trying to make our lives work and as workers and bosses trying to make room for care. Some other company can always keep prices down by demanding more, burning out its employees and casting them aside when they are done. To be fully competitive as a country, we are going to have to emulate other industrialized countries and build an infrastructure of care. We used to have one; it was called women at home. But with 57 percent of those women in the labor force, that infrastructure has crumbled and it’s not coming back.

To support care just as we support competition, we will need some combination of the following: high-quality and affordable child care and elder care; paid family and medical leave for women and men; a right to request part-time or flexible work; investment in early education comparable to our investment in elementary and secondary education; comprehensive job protection for pregnant workers; higher wages and training for paid caregivers; community support structures to allow elders to live at home longer; and reform of elementary and secondary school schedules to meet the needs of a digital rather than an agricultural economy.

These proposals are not so far-fetched as they may seem. President Obama put forward proposals to expand access to affordable, high-quality child care in his 2016 budget. Hillary Rodham Clinton has made providing a foundation for working families, including child care, one of the central aspects of her campaign. One of the few states that offers paid family leave (workers pay the cost out of a small increase in their payroll tax) is New Jersey, under the Republican governor Chris Christie.

Republican senators have sponsored a bill that would allow employers to offer employees paid leave hours instead of overtime pay; some polls show that a majority of women who vote Republican support paid family leave. Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, is co-leader of a bipartisan caucus across both the Senate and the House devoted to assisting family caregivers. She follows in the footsteps of former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, who successfully sponsored legislation to allow homemakers to contribute to retirement accounts the same way that salaried workers can. And as the baby boom becomes an elder boom, we can expect a whole new constituency for care, on both sides of the aisle.

Change in our individual workplaces and in our broader politics also depends on culture change: fundamental shifts in the way we think, talk and confer prestige. If we really valued care, we would not regard time out for caregiving — for your children, parents, spouse, sibling or any other member of your extended or constructed family — as a black hole on a résumé. We would see it as engaging in a socially, personally and professionally valuable activity. We would see men who lean out for care as role models just as much as women who lean in for work. We would think managing kids matters as much as managing money.

Impossible, right? Yet I grew up in a society where my mother set out little vases of cigarettes on the table at dinner parties, where blacks and whites had to use different bathrooms, and in which almost everyone claimed to be heterosexual. That seems a lifetime ago, but I’m not so old. Our world has changed over the past 50 years, vastly for the better from the point of view of African-Americans, the L.G.B.T. community and families who lost loved ones to lung cancer. Given the magnitude of that change, think about how much we can still do.

We can, all of us, stand up for care. Until we do, men and women will never be equal; not while both are responsible for providing cash but only women are responsible for providing care. And though individual Americans might win out in our current system, America as a whole will never be as competitive as it ought to be. If we do not act, over time our families and communities, the foundation of our flourishing, will wither.

The women’s movement has brought many of us the right to compete on equal terms; it’s time for all of us to claim an equal right to care.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the president of New America, a think tank and civic enterprise, and author of the forthcoming “Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family,” from which this essay is adapted.

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An Empirical Study Analyzing Job Productivity in Toxic Workplace Environments

1 Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University Shanghai, Shanghai 200051, China; nc.ude.uhd@meean

Ahmed Faisal Siddiqi

2 Business School, University of Central Punjab, Lahore 54600, Pakistan; moc.oohay@05pcusfa

Samma Faiz Rasool

3 School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China

Purpose: This empirical study aims to determine the effects of a toxic workplace environment, which can negatively impact the job productivity of an employee. Methodology: Three hundred questionnaires were randomly distributed among the staff members of seven private universities in Pakistan with a final response rate of 89%. For analysis purposes, AMOS 22 was used to study the direct and indirect effects of the toxic workplace environment on job productivity. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to ensure the convergent and discriminant validity of the factors, while the Hayes mediation approach was used to verify the mediating role of job burnout between the four dimensions of toxic workplace environment and job productivity. A toxic workplace with multiple dimensions, such as workplace ostracism, workplace incivility, workplace harassment, and workplace bullying, was used in this study. Findings: By using the multiple statistical tools and techniques, it has been proven that ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying have direct negative significant effects on job productivity, while job burnout was shown to be a statistical significant mediator between the dimensions of a toxic workplace environment and job productivity. Finally, we concluded that organizations need to eradicate the factors of toxic workplace environments to ensure their prosperity and success. Practical Implications: This study encourages managers, leaders, and top management to adopt appropriate policies for enhancing employees’ productivity. Limitations: This study was conducted by using a cross-sectional research design. Future research aims to expand the study by using a longitudinal research design.

1. Introduction

In the last few decades, organizations have had a single focus on “profit”, which was based solely on the stock prices. However, the outliers on the other side of the spectrum have been ignored, which are namely the “employees”, despite their established value as the most important assets of an organization [ 1 ]. An extensive review of the literature has determined that employees can be categorized as “stars”, who substantially increase organizational output and “toxic workers”, who simply are unsuitable for the organization [ 2 ]. Studies have shown that 80% of the issues and concerns regarding employees’ productivity are related to the type of work environment in which they operationalize their assigned tasks [ 3 ].

During different time periods, researchers tried to conceptualize the phrase “working environment”. In a simple form, the working environment is the totality of the systems, conditions and situations in which an employee performs his/her tasks [ 4 ]. A working environment can be classified into two major spectrums: collaborative workplace environment and toxic workplace environment [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. On the positive end of the spectrum, collaborative workplace environments refer to the high-spirit workplace with a community-centered approach in which the employee and employer have an empathetic relationship that fosters the physical and psychological well-being of an employee. On the negative end of the spectrum, toxic workplace environments induce repulsive experiences, which lead to the negative, adverse and reduced outcomes of the employees [ 8 ]. A toxic environment is similar to a cancer that damages all the stakeholders of an organization as it creates toxic culture, toxic leaders, and toxic employees, which ultimately create a toxic organization [ 9 ]. Toxic behaviors in the workplace can increase the organizational cost due to the loss of a positive company image, low self-esteem, loss of employee morale, high turnover, work life conflict, high absenteeism, poor employee health, and lowered employee productivity [ 10 ]. Research has shown that a “toxic workplace environment” damages the organizational outcome. There is need for researchers to explore the root causes and potential consequences of the toxic workplace for both the employees and the whole organization [ 11 , 12 ]. Therefore, this study intends to highlight the different forms of toxic workplace environments and its consequences in the form of high job burnout and low productivity level. Job burnout is treated as a mediating variable between a toxic workplace environment and job productivity. The term ‘toxic workplace environment’ has multiple facets that include: workplace ostracism, workplace narcissism, workplace bullying, workplace incivility, aggressiveness, workplace harassment, workplace passivity, and others [ 13 ]. Ferris and Salzburg introduced the four dimensions that defines a toxic workplace, such as ostracism, bullying, incivility, and harassment [ 14 , 15 ]. To eradicate the toxic workplace environment, this study has the following two objectives:

• Determine the direct impact of the dimensions of toxic workplace environment on job productivity.
• Test the mediating role of job burnout between the multifaceted toxic workplace environment and job productivity.

Based on these objectives, the following hypotheses will be tested during this study:

There is a negative impact of workplace ostracism on job productivity .

There is a negative impact of workplace incivility on job productivity .

There is a negative impact of workplace harassment on job productivity .

There is a negative impact of workplace bullying on job productivity .

Job burnout mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and job productivity .

Job burnout mediates the relationship between workplace incivility and job productivity .

Job burnout mediates the relationship between workplace harassment and job productivity .

Job burnout mediates the relationship between workplace bullying and job productivity .

2. Literature Review

2.1. toxic workplace environment.

The workplace environment is the totality of the interrelationships of individuals at the workplace, which can be technical, human, and organizational [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. The workplace environment can be classified into two major categories: collaborative workplace environment and toxic workplace environment. The collaborative workplace environment yields a sense of happiness, joy, harmony, kindness, politeness, cooperation, and facilitation at the workplace [ 19 , 20 ]. The workplace is toxic when individuals in power are greedy and narcissistic and/or use unfair means to bully, harass, threat, and humiliate others. The toxic workplace can cause anxiety, stress, depression, health problems, absenteeism, job burnout, counterproductive work behavior, and ultimately degrade productivity [ 8 , 19 ].

2.2. Workplace Ostracism

Workplace ostracism is the perception of an individual regarding his/her social exclusion by his/her peers and supervisors at the workplace [ 15 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. It creates a work environment with negative consequences for the employee in the form of high job dissatisfaction and high turnover intention [ 9 ]. Workplace ostracism includes the deliberate reduction in social networks that impact the physical and psychological health of an individual [ 14 , 22 , 25 , 26 ]. Ostracism is a painful experience that can result in negative and stressful outcomes [ 27 , 28 ]. Hobfoll recommended psychological capital as a combating agent to reduce the negative impact of workplace ostracism on an employee’s counter-productive work behavior [ 29 ]. In an organizational context, ostracism can create negative work behaviors, such as high anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, and lack of job productivity [ 30 ]. Overall, workplace ostracism is a stressor that stops an individual from performing their routine workplace activities, reduces their work motivation and adversely affects the productivity of both the individual and organization.

2.3. Workplace Incivility

Workplace incivility can be defined as the deliberate intention of one employee to violate the workplace norms by disrupting other employees for his/her personal gain [ 31 , 32 , 33 ]. Workplace incivility can be the verbal abuse or non-verbal actions of an individual that show disrespect towards colleagues or peers [ 34 ]. Due to the infancy of the term ‘incivility’ in the field of management as well as in the education and health sectors, researchers have focused on locating and eradicating its root causes, which negatively impact the employees’ self-esteem, respect, satisfaction, and productivity. Incivility causes physical, psychological and social harm to an individual through isolation, anxiety, depression, mental disability, and the development of low confidence [ 30 ]. It is a type of deviant and discourteous behavior with a low intensity that triggers an individual to undermine the image and performance of peers at the workplace. It includes expressing disgraceful, disrespectful, rude and harsh comments to an individual, who may be a peer, colleague or subordinate [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ].

2.4. Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying negatively impacts employees’ mental health [ 40 ]. Bullying includes criticism, blaming, social isolation, humiliation, joking, and excessive monitoring of an employee [ 36 , 41 , 42 ]. Bullying is a situational and contextual factor that is not only limited to bosses as it can also be exerted by supervisors, managers, peers, subordinates, colleagues and anyone in the workplace [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. It can be entrenched into organizational settings and culture, which creates detrimental physical and mental health problems, emotional exhaustion and job burnout [ 47 ]. The term of ‘bullying’ can refer to individual or organizational bullying. Individual bullying comprises of dispute-related bullying, escalated bullying, complex bullying, delegated bullying, bystander bullying, merry-go-round bullying, gang bullying, good guy/bad guy bullying, subordinate bullying, and personality disorder bullying. Organizational bullying includes external pressure bullying, history and culture bullying, senior team tactic bullying, and process bullying [ 43 , 44 , 48 ]. Initially, this concept was introduced by Leymann Heinz in 1996 [ 49 ] and has been adopted in different organizations, industries, sectors, and countries [ 50 ]. As an indicator of a toxic workplace environment, bullying may result in job stressors, job burnout, buffering resources, negative work environment, work destruction, and low productivity [ 51 , 52 ].

2.5. Workplace Harassment

Harassment is unwanted conduct, which humiliates an individual; violates an individual’s dignity; or intimidates others [ 53 , 54 ]. Harassment may include unsolicited and explicit speech about race, sex, religion, belief, origin, age, genes, color or ethnicity as a part of a toxic workplace environment [ 55 , 56 ]. This concept was introduced by Farley in 1978 [ 57 ] and has gained a considerable amount of attention from researchers since the 1980′s as it is a significant source of stress at the workplace. In some Asian countries, there are limited efforts to investigate any potential harassment as it is considered to be disrespectful, disgraceful, and insulting for the victim [ 53 , 58 ]. Only a few individuals in Pakistan are willing to talk about workplace harassment [ 59 ]. Workplace harassment against women has been a frequent subject of studies, while workplace harassment against men rarely receives attention and is not frequently the subject of studies [ 60 ]. Males and females of all ages experience workplace harassment. Feminist scholars have linked this concept with gender discrimination, job threats, paradoxical power threat, stereotype thoughts, male dominant society, and illiteracy [ 61 ]. Workplace harassment not only negatively impacts the individual but also has the potential to affect the emotional well-being of an entire workplace. This leads to the loss of employee morale, which consequently reduces organizational productivity. Therefore, it is in the company’s best interest to ensure a safe workplace.

2.6. Job Burnout

Job burnout is one outcome of a toxic workplace environment that is defined by various dimensions: ostracism, narcissism, cynicism, aggressiveness, bullying, harassment, abusive supervisor, interpersonal conflict, and mistreatment [ 62 , 63 , 64 ]. This concept was first proposed by Freudenberger in 1975, which was characterized by emotional exhaustion, low motivation, and commitment that ultimately leads towards low productivity [ 41 , 65 ]. Job burnout refers to the emotional detachment of an employee from his/her task, which creates dissatisfaction with personal and professional life, achievements and work-life conflicts [ 66 , 67 ]. A burned-out employee manifests withdrawal behavior through absenteeism, increased leave and constantly being late. This will ultimately affect turnover. Employees who experience job burnout, usually suffer from mental and health problems, including depression, anxiety, tension, stress, work overload, sleeping problems, and muscle pain. This substantially reduces their ability to function in life [ 45 , 68 , 69 , 70 ]. Job burnout is basically a syndrome that can be created due to situational and individual factors. This syndrome causes depersonalization, poor self-assessment, self-underestimation, high stress, and negative job outcomes [ 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 ].

2.7. Job Productivity

The term of ‘productivity’ involves measuring the efforts of an individual to effectively and efficiently convert the input resources into output [ 75 ]. It basically refers to the time spent on the desired activity, which the employee is expected to perform within specific limited resources [ 76 ]. Scholars argued that the term of ‘productivity’ has no single operational definition as it can vary according to the context, culture, and type of the organization [ 41 ]. Job productivity integrates both the concepts of employee productivity and organizational productivity, which can be measured by quality considerations [ 77 ]. Job productivity depends upon multiple factors, including: individual ability, working environment, HR motivational policies, support from supervisors, and organizational standards. It can be measured in monetary terms, which has the attributes of financial, human, organizational, and social capital [ 59 , 78 ]. The level of productivity does not only depend upon the individual’s ability but also on his/her social network and work environment. Employees who enjoy their work environments are more engaged, more productive, happier, and healthier. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to generate a workplace that is conducive to the well-being of the workforce and organizations should make efforts to provide a better environment for employees so that they may feel comfortable and committed to their jobs in order to increase productivity.

3. Data and Methodology

3.1. sample and procedure.

A survey design was used to collect quantitative data, before rigorous data analytical techniques were applied to test the nature of the relationships among the selected variables. This study aimed to determine the impact of different dimensions of a toxic workplace environment, including ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying, on job productivity. Furthermore, we wanted to test the mediation of job burnout between toxic workplace environments and job productivity. A positivism paradigm was favored to test these relationships by using a survey questionnaire design recommended by Robson & McCartan [ 79 ]. A systematic sampling technique was used to select seven private universities in the city of Lahore, Pakistan [ 80 ]. Employees were the unit of analysis for this study. A total of 300 questionnaires were randomly distributed among staff members and 267 responses were received back. Thus, the response rate was 89%. For analysis purposes, AMOS 22 was used to conduct CFA and to verify the direct and indirect effect of variables. SPSS was used for descriptive statistics, while the Hayes mediation [ 81 ] approach was used to verify the mediating role of job burnout between toxic workplace environments and job productivity.

3.2. Measurements

A toxic workplace environment consists of four sub-constructs: ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying. All these constructs were measured on a five-point Likert scale adapted from the ostracism scale [ 82 ], incivility scale [ 83 ], harassment scale [ 84 ], bullying scale [ 85 ], job burnout scale [ 86 ], and job productivity scale [ 87 ].

4. Empirical Findings/Analysis

4.1. confirmatory factor analysis (measurement model).

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to judge the convergent and discriminant validity of each construct and to determine the fitness of the overall measurement model. AMOS 22 was used to conduct CFA. Table 1 revealed the results of convergent validity, which showed that all factor loadings were greater than 0.60 and the composite construct reliability was also greater than the threshold value of 0.70. The average variance extracted (AVE) of all constructs was also greater than the minimum recommended value of 0.50, which indicated that our six-factor CFA, met the standards of convergent validity. Table 2 presented the overall fitness of the six factor CFA which indicated a moderate fit of the indices with the data for direct effects (GFI = 0.937, AGFI = 0.861, NFI = 0.930, TLI = 0.910, CFI = 0.966, & RMSEA = 0.031) and for indirect effects or the mediation model. The discriminate validity was estimated by using the typologies mentioned in literature by Fornell and Hair et al. [ 88 , 89 ]. Table 3 shows the results of the discriminant validity in which the AVE of all conducts were greater than maximum shared square variance (MSV) and average shared square variance (ASV). The square root of AVE of each construct was also greater than its correlation, thus supporting our measurement model of discriminant validity.

Results of confirmatory factor analysis and Convergent validity and construct reliability.

Model Fitness.

Discriminant Reliability.

Note: Diagonal value: Square root of AVE and Non-diagonal value: correlation.

4.2. Descriptive Statistics

From our total sample (267 cases), 211 (79%) were males, and 56 (21%) were females. In terms of age, 158 (59%) were under 30 years, 52 (19.4%) were 30–39 years old, 36 (13.5%) were 40–49 years old, and 21 (8.1%) were 50–59 years old. This showed that most of the respondents were under the age of 30 years. In terms of qualification, 28 (10.8%) respondents had a PhD degree, 102 (38.9%) respondents had a Master of Philosophy degree, 62 (23.5%) had a Master degree, 70 (26.5%) had a Bachelor degree and 5 (1.9%) had intermediate degrees. Among 267 respondents, 243 (89%) were full-time employees and only 24 (11%) were contractual employees. For salary, 61.2% of the respondents had a salary less than 30,000 PKR (Pakistani Rupee), 18% had a salary range of 30,000–50,000 PKR, 11.1% had a salary range of 51,000–80,000 PKR, and only 9.7% had a salary over 80,000 PKR.

Table 4 shows the results of the minimum, maximum, means, and standard deviations of the data. In this research study, a survey of 38 items was used and the response rate of all items vary from 1 to 5. The results showed that the mean values of different items were 3.34–3.64 and the standard deviation was 0.889–1.064.

Results of Descriptive Statistics.

4.3. Regression Analysis

The direct and indirect effects were tested by using the structural equation modeling technique (SEM). Table 5 displayed the results of the direct effects of four constructs of toxic workplace environments (ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying) on job productivity.

Results of Direct Effects.

Note: All values were significant at 0.05 significance level (two-tailed).

The regression coefficient of ostracism was -0.884. Since the regression coefficient was negative with significant at the 0.05 level, this supported our hypothesis H1, which stated that there is a negative significant impact of work-place ostracism on job productivity. Our results showed that greater ostracism resulted in less job productivity.

Similarly, the regression coefficient of incivility was −0.274 and was significant at the 0.05 level. This also supported our hypothesis H2, which stated that there is a negative significant impact of workplace incivility on job productivity.

Furthermore, the regression coefficient of harassment was also negative (−0.783), which was significant at the 0.05 level. Therefore, we can conclude that there is a negative significant impact of workplace harassment on job productivity, which supports our hypothesis H3.

Likewise, the regression coefficient of bullying was −0.696, which was also significant at the 0.05 level. Therefore, it supported our hypothesis H4, which stated that there is a negative significant impact of workplace bullying on job productivity. Thus, job productivity will decrease if workplace bullying exists.

We employed the Bootstrapping technique to test the indirect effects among variables. Table 6 shows the results of the indirect effects.

Results of Indirect Effects.

As the indirect effect of ostracism on job productivity through job burnout was 0.229, which was significant at 0.05 level, this supported our hypothesis H5, which stated that job burnout mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and job productivity.

Similarly, the indirect effect of incivility on job productivity through job burnout was 0.271, which was significant at the 0.05 level. This supported our hypothesis H6, which stated that job burnout mediates the relationship between workplace incivility and job productivity.

In the same way, the indirect effect of harassment on job productivity through job burnout was 0.314, which was significant at the 0.05 level. This supported our hypothesis H7, which stated that job burnout mediates the relationship between workplace harassment and job productivity.

Finally, the indirect effect of bullying on job productivity through job burnout was 0.329, which was significant at the 0.05 level. This supported our hypothesis H8, which stated that burnout mediates the relationship between workplace bullying and job productivity.

Path Analysis-I ( Figure 1 ) was conducted to evaluate the overall goodness of fit. A Chi-square value that is close to zero indicates little difference between the expected and observed covariance matrices with a probability level greater than 0.05, justifying the absence of meaningful unexplained variance. Moreover, to estimate a better goodness of fit, due to the fact that Chi-square is sensitive to sample size, we calculated the ratio of Chi-square to degrees of freedom, which should be less than three in an acceptable data-model fit. In addition, we utilized the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) [ 90 ], the Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI) [ 91 ], the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) [ 92 ], and the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) [ 93 ]. The indicators of a well-fitting model are evidenced by CFI and TLI that are greater than 0.95, RMSEA that is less than 0.06, and SRMR that is less than 0.08 [ 9 ]. The mediated regression in the Path Analysis-II also confirms all the above mentioned calculations, thus providing good evidence about the good fit of the model ( Figure 2 ).

Path Analysis-I.

Path Analysis-II.

4.4. Mediation Analysis

The Hayes mediation [ 81 ] approach was used to check the mediating role of job burnout between the four dimensions of a toxic workplace environment and job productivity. The dimensions of toxic workplace environments were ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying, while job productivity was a dependent variable. For mediation, we had to ensure three conditions: whether mediation existed or not (checked by p -value); the effect of mediation (by value of effect); and whether mediation was statistically significant or not. From the output in Table 7 , it could be observed that job burnout acted as a mediator between ostracism and job productivity (H5: effect = 0.240); incivility and job productivity (H6: effect = 0.601); harassment and job productivity (H7: effect = 0.415); and also served as a mediator between bullying and job productivity (H8: effect = 0.112). As the values of the effects are greater than zero for all four combinations of variables and the p-values were also less than 0.05 (standard sig. value), we concluded that the mediation of job burnout existed between the variables. The values of both BootLLCI and BootULCI had negative signs, which proved that job burnout acted as a statistically significant mediator between all four dimensions of toxic workplace environment and job productivity.

Results of Indirect Effect (Mediation Effect).

5. Discussion

A toxic workplace environment can create difficulty in an employee’s work life and can reduce his/her job performance. This present study aimed to determine the direct influence of ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying (dimensions of toxic workplace environment) on job productivity and also tried to analyze the indirect effects of these variables with job burnout being a mediator. By using the multiple statistical tools and techniques, it has been proven that ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying have direct significant negative effects on job productivity, which was shown by the negative coefficients of −0.884, −0.274, −0.783, −0.696 respectively, ( p < 0.05). For indirect effects, job burnout was shown to be a statistically significant mediator between the four dimensions of toxic workplace environment and job productivity, which was confirmed by the validation of the hypotheses. Our results clearly justify that a toxic workplace has direct significant negative effect on the job productivity of an employee. Consistent with prior research, this study also shows that workplace ostracism [ 94 ], workplace incivility [ 34 ], workplace harassment [ 53 , 58 ], and workplace bullying [ 43 , 44 , 46 ] reduce job productivity. Previous studies also indicated that a toxic workplace increased job burnout [ 24 , 95 ].

Unfortunately, toxic workplaces exist in many organizations and are generally characterized by a culture of dysfunctional interpersonal dynamics despite of the awareness that human capital is the contributing factor for any organization’s sustainable growth and innovation. Mostly, organizational or corporate culture is driven from the top-down approach, and if the leadership is not concerned about the toxic environment, it can be difficult to shift the culture. There are several approaches to address this issue. One of them is for the organization leaders to demonstrate their support to employees by acknowledging their difficulties at work and providing necessary support, especially for the tasks that have more demanding requirements. When the employees have a sense of social support, appreciation, and a positive work environment, they perform better.

We have included a few suggestions for minimizing if not eradicating the toxic culture in a work environment:

• One can do a self-assessment: “Are my actions or performances contributing towards a positive environment?”
• Actively disengage from negative interactions.
• Try to focus on turning a bad situation into a good learning experience. Frequently, the strongest personal growth comes from thriving on the most difficult situations. When an employee is working in a toxic environment, he/she should try to pay close attention to the lessons he/she can take away from the experiences. In every adversary, there is positive insight that one can learn to become a better person.
• Communicate positive messages to others. Employees should share appreciation for peers, team members, subordinates, and also for the work they do. Recognize that people like to feel appreciated in different ways.
• Establish and implement clear policies and communication procedures that address toxic factors, such as harassment and bullying. Most companies have a code of conduct policies, but many of those policies are general or solely address unethical and financial misconduct. Companies rarely maintain policies with specific language that adequately defines a range of prohibited behaviors. A sound policy should be established with clear and multiple reporting mechanisms in place.
• Once the policy has been established, the leaders must ensure all managers and employees receive the training on how to identify, respond, and report these toxic behaviors. Training must also highlight the challenges and fears of employees who struggle to report these types of behaviors.
• Even though one may work in a really toxic environment, an individual should try to not add to the toxicity of the work environment and instead should try to be of benefit in removing the toxic factors from the workplace.

6. Conclusions

Productivity enhancement is a major apprehension of every organization across the globe irrespective of the organization’s nature, operations, functions, area, and sector. However, the meaning and sense of the term ‘productivity’ vary according to the vision and objectives of the organization. Furthermore, there are factors that play an important role in cultivating the productivity in different organizations according to their internal cultures and environments. From an extensive review of the academic literature available on the topic, it has been identified that organizational productivity is conditional on the level of their employee’s productivity. The researchers attempted to explore factors that could affect the intensity of productivity. As evident from the results, a toxic work environment significantly impacts the job productivity and the job burnout. Thus, we concluded that the toxic workplace increases the job burnout level of an employee. When an employee feels negatively about the organization, he/she tends to compromise the productivity level of his/her performance, which could also increase the stress level of an employee. This study recommends that in every organization, HR departments and policy makers should develop and implement strict policies for eradicating a toxic workplace environment to make it collaborative and conducive for the employees.

Acknowledgments

All the authors are grateful to English editing services of MDPI, which helped us to meet the high requirement of the MDPI Journals. We are also thankful to Andrew Alexander for providing help in proof-reading of this article. Andrew is from America who is an English language teacher in Shanghai.

Author Contributions

First author (A.A.) conducted the whole research over all. She collected the data, performed statistical tests, analyzed results, and wrote the discussion part of this study. Second author (X.M.) is the supervisor of the first author. Third author (A.F.S.) guided in statistical analysis of this article and fourth author (S.F.R.) wrote the literature review.

This research received no external funding.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

9 Ways To Fix A Toxic Work Environment

In this article, you’ll uncover the subtle signs of a toxic work environment and learn how it can be detrimental to both employees and the overall business. More importantly, you’ll be equipped with nine actionable strategies to transform a toxic atmosphere into a positive, thriving, and productive place where employees feel valued and safe.

Key takeaways:

• A toxic work environment can lead to increased absenteeism, high turnover, and decreased productivity.
• Effective communication, living by core values, and ensuring a safe space for employees are essential steps to combat toxicity.
• Addressing issues like favoritism, unhealthy competition, and fear-based leadership can significantly improve workplace culture.
• Employee feedback, through tools like anonymous polls or suggestion boxes, is crucial in identifying and rectifying toxic behaviors.
• Valuing and appreciating employees is the cornerstone of a positive workplace culture, leading to increased loyalty and productivity.

You overheard employees talking in the break room, detailing their current job hunt. 

That was a bit upsetting, but admittedly, not surprising.

Employees have been cycling through lately. Perhaps they’re just looking for new surroundings, or are overqualified. They have big dreams and that’s just how it goes; you have to expect people to move on.

Or maybe there’s a toxic work environment to blame. Could you even recognize a toxic work environment if it waved at you? 

Toxicity creeps up gradually, incrementally adding stress, frustration, and other emotional baggage day after day. What was a minor annoyance can become an employee resignation in a few months.

Toxic workplaces were the fifth leading cause of death, according to research from 2018 . That’s a little shocking, and seems overdramatic.

But overwork, stress, and bullying can lead to workplace violence, substance abuse, safety issues, and suicide. Throw in an awful work-life balance (a classic element in a toxic work environment) and the exhaustion that comes from it, and you’ve essentially poisoned the entire well for everyone associated with the employee trapped in the job.

Why should owners or managers care about whether or not their workplace is toxic?

If the harm it’s doing to your employees isn’t enough, consider that a positive workplace is a more productive workplace . Instead of absenteeism where employees do everything they can to avoid being at work, you get physically and mentally healthy employees who are engaged. 

That means less turnover, because they’re loyal. They have a good thing going, and they stick around.

Maybe you’re veering into the toxic realm at work, or are already solidly there. Rest assured that it’s not too late. You can turn that around and fix a toxic work environment.

What makes a work environment toxic?

You can’t fix what you don’t understand. Toxic work environments have:

• Fear-based leadership. This type of leader motivates through fear, not reward. They may have a “do as I say not as I do” approach to heavy-handed rules.
• No recognition of excellence. Because leadership uses fear to motivate employees, they don’t reward or recognize excellent work. After a while, they don’t get excellent work out of their employees.
• Gossip, rumor, and speculation. This is often because information is heavily filtered and there’s a lack of transparency from managers. Employee expectations are never defined.
• Unhealthy competition. Competition is good as a motivator, unless managers use it to pit employees against each other in negative ways. This leads to fighting, drama, and anger.
• Favoritism . A natural outflow of unhealthy competition is favoritism in hours, wages, benefits, and overall discriminatory treatment. 

The result?

Lots of employee absenteeism, high turnover, dissatisfied customers, and a general level of high stress and unhappy people. Study after study has shown that a negative work environment destroys productivity and increases burnout .

Employees in a toxic workplace only have bad things to say about their job and their managers, damaging their employer’s reputation. They’ll do anything to get out of work. They’ll be unhealthy in every sense of the word. And, if the toxic work environment is bad enough, they might even take legal action against their employer.

How leadership can improve a toxic workplace

A toxic workplace can’t be left alone, because it won’t self-improve. It has to be fixed with purpose.

The situation didn’t become toxic overnight, and it’s going to take some time and a bit of real struggle up front to make changes. Here are a few tips on how to fix a toxic workplace:

Start communicating in meaningful ways.

Everyone talks about the importance of communication, but few rarely do it well.

Meaningful communication is about quality, not quantity. It simply means making sure your employees know what they need to know in order to:

• Do their job well and effectively.
• Understand situations that affect their job.
• Know what expectations they need to meet.
• Quell worries and rumors (e.g. layoffs).

You can communicate these things through employee meetings, handbooks, or training. You can have one-on-one sessions to help an employee who’s struggling or excelling. You can also use tools that make communication easier so that it’s timely instead of too late.

Why not communicate about shifts and schedules within your scheduling tool? Why not make it easier for your team to talk and swap shifts directly? The importance of meaningful communication is one of the reasons When I Work put team communication directly into the scheduling app. The team should talk about scheduling in the place where the scheduling is done.

It’s important to note that gossip and rumors are not meaningful communication. If you hear of this, address the issue before the whole team if appropriate, without humiliating anyone. If someone has a habit of stirring the pot, bring them in to talk one-on-one. Do not tolerate this behavior.

Start your free 14-day trial of When I Work to start using WorkChat! You’ll get access to our team messaging tool AND our powerful employee scheduling platform. Click here to start communicating with your employees today.

Know, and live by, your core values.

Do you have core values? That’s the first thing to address. Core values should be positive identifiers that a group attaches themselves to.

• “We are a team who loves to make our customers happy.”
• “We are a team who are the top experts in our field.”
• “We are a team who creates positive experiences for each other.”

Core values should feed into positive outflow, not internal negative competition or eye-rolling. That means they have to be more than lip service, with an actual plan and action to back them up.

For example, you can’t be the experts if your employees aren’t trained or taking part in continuing education. You can’t make customers happy if employees aren’t empowered by management to solve problems on their own instead of being locked into a rigid system of policy do’s and don’ts.

If you don’t have core values, create them. And then, make sure your managers actually manage by them. 

Deal with employee absenteeism.

Toxic workplaces feed absenteeism, which feeds burnout on the employees who have to pick up the slack, which feeds the toxic workplace, which…feeds absenteeism.

Absenteeism is both a problem and a symptom. 

The fix starts with managers being prompt themselves, modeling the behavior. Then, you have to keep an eye out for who, when, and where absenteeism happens.

Scheduling software, like When I Work, makes it easier to spot patterns of absenteeism, tardiness, or juggling shifts for personal advantage. 

If you find a problem, talk to the employee, or use your HR department to help you out. Approach it from a place of goodwill, not in anger or with threats. Show you care about your employees. Find out why they don’t want to show up to work. Come up with a solution or workable plan and end the meeting on a positive note with actionable items for improvement.

Deal with employee turnover.

Like absenteeism, turnover can be both a problem and symptom. The constant churn of employees is hard on those who stick around, though. They’re always dealing with newbies and having to patiently pick up the slack.

Why are employees leaving? Do you have exit interviews? Do you spot a problem before they leave and talk to them? Is it pay? Benefits ? Scheduling issues? A particular manager?

Just about everything in that list could be fixed. Don’t look at employee turnover as simply getting rid of the “bad apples.” It’s a waste of your time and money to hire repeatedly, and it hurts the team. Deal with employee turnover as soon as you see the pattern.

Great employee retention means reducing employee pain, and encouraging every avenue of employee engagement.

Make work a safe place.

58% of people trust strangers more than they trust their own boss .

Why? Because trust is about an underlying sense of safety. And toxic workplaces are anything but safe. You want to create a safe environment for your employees:

Safe from bullying.

Safe from mockery.

Safe from fear-fueled leadership.

Safe to voice ideas.

Safe to voice concerns.

Safe to both excel and fail.

Safe and fully confident.

What’s your system for employees safely expressing concerns without fear of reprisal? What if they’re about you? What’s your system for encouraging (and rewarding) ideas? How do you handle a situation where an employee is bullied or made to feel unsafe by others on the team? Do you even have a system to find out that’s happening? How do you handle someone who is too-easily offended and always feeling unsafe?

HR will be your friend in all of this. But remember, words aren’t enough to combat actual toxic situations. Whether it’s anonymous polls, suggestion boxes, team-building events, or regular one-on-one meetings, a feedback culture is part of a safe culture.

Safety isn’t just hard hats and first aid kits. When people feel emotionally unsafe, that’s a fast road to toxicity.

Find out what others are saying.

Finally, if you’re not sure if you have a toxic culture or not, start reading reviews. Anonymous online reviews of company culture require a thick skin, but if you have them, you should read them.

Sure, some parts of the reviews might be spiteful or unfair, but you can get an unfiltered sense of what employees experienced. And you might spot a pattern of a problem that all of the employees, in some manner, experienced.

How to prevent toxic behaviors in the future

The best way to prevent building toxicity is to plan and be purposeful going forward.

Rethink how you hire.

Hire for more than just the skillset. Make character and attitude just as important. You bring in someone toxic, they make everything around them toxic.

Use hypothetical scenarios during the job interview, and ask them how they’d respond.

Remember, skills can be learned. You can’t train for a great attitude. You might be desperate to fill an opening, but if the new hire poisons your culture, that’s costly.

Walk the talk.

At risk of too much repetition, we can’t say enough that leadership has to follow the same rules and culture.

You want kind employees? Have kind managers.

You want respectful employees? Have respectful managers.

Remember that people follow as they’re led. Leadership needs to be trained and held accountable to what’s expected of employees.

Celebrate diversity.

Diversity can be a bit of a buzzword. Celebrating diversity doesn’t mean forcing it. Instead, it means understanding that every individual person has unique qualities.

Their culture, their ideas, their strengths, their weaknesses, their personalities—do you celebrate and find ways to weave these things in, or do you try to wrangle everyone into a manageable mold? Are you open to moving a person to a new position once you discover qualities that make them a better fit elsewhere? Or do you ignore it and press down to make them fit where you put them?

Value your employees.

Your employees are your most valuable asset. Replacing them costs time and money, but even more than that, when they leave they take something unique with them.

Your team, including yourself, your managers, and your employees, are all human beings. Everyone has off days, hard days, great days, frustrating failure, and incredible success. If your workplace culture allows room for it all while fostering growth, without being punitive or systematizing negativity, that’s a win.

Are you a brand your employees are proud to be a part of, or are you just a paycheck until something better comes along? Create a positive workplace culture and watch what happens when people feel like they matter.

People who know they’re valued work harder. They stick around. They tell their friends. They are productive. They want to contribute and make the team proud.

Understanding how to fix a toxic work environment is not just about enhancing productivity, but also about creating a space where employees feel valued, safe, and motivated. By addressing the root causes of toxicity and implementing positive changes, you can foster a harmonious and efficient workplace.

If you’re looking to streamline communication and scheduling in your organization, consider When I Work —a comprehensive tool designed to simplify employee communication and scheduling , ensuring a cohesive and engaged team at all times. Dive into the world of seamless team management with When I Work today!

How to fix a toxic work environment: FAQs

Q: what are the main indicators of a toxic work environment.

A: A toxic work environment often manifests through signs like fear-based leadership, lack of recognition for excellence, prevalent gossip and rumors, unhealthy competition, and evident favoritism. These factors can lead to high employee absenteeism, increased turnover, and overall dissatisfaction.

Q: How does a toxic work environment impact employees and the business?

A: A toxic work environment can lead to increased stress, burnout, and health issues among employees. This results in decreased productivity, high turnover rates, and potential damage to the company’s reputation. In the long run, it can also affect the bottom line due to costs associated with hiring and training new employees.

Q: What are some effective strategies on how to fix a toxic work environment?

A: To address and rectify a toxic work environment, it’s essential to enhance communication, establish and live by core values, deal with absenteeism and turnover promptly, ensure the workplace is a safe space both emotionally and physically, and actively seek feedback from employees to make necessary improvements.

Q: How can leadership play a role in improving a toxic workplace?

A: Leadership plays a pivotal role in setting the tone for the workplace environment. Leaders should model positive behaviors, communicate effectively, uphold the company’s core values, and be proactive in addressing issues. They should also be open to feedback and be willing to make necessary changes to foster a positive work culture.

Q: How can tools like When I Work help in addressing a toxic work environment?

A: When I Work is an employee communication and scheduling app that can streamline communication and ensure transparency in scheduling. By promoting clear communication and allowing employees to have control over their schedules, tools like When I Work can reduce misunderstandings, foster trust, and contribute to a more positive and cohesive work environment.

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Toxins at a Workplace Essay

Targeted scenario, connection between the two cases, testing for the connection, a case in court, reference list.

Every employee is entitled to a safe working environment. The law requires employers to ensure their employees work in safe environments. The presence of toxins in a given workplace can result in many health issues. Some occupations “expose many individuals to different toxic compounds” (Lin, 2012, p. 1465).

Individuals who handle chemicals, plastics, beauty products, nail polishes, solvents, and paints are exposed to different toxicants. This discussion examines how the presence of toxins in a given workplace can affect the health conditions of many individuals.

A woman had delivered a healthy baby before starting her new job. She later joined a small manufacturing plant as an employee. Her child became sick after several months. The child was later hospitalized in order to get the required medical support. She later discussed the conditions of the child with one of her coworkers.

She observed that another female coworker had encountered a similar problem. The female coworker’s child had been hospitalized after portraying similar symptoms. These two cases show clearly that the employees in the firm were exposed to different toxic compounds (Lin, 2012).

It is agreeable that these two cases are closely connected. These employees encountered similar health challenges. Their newborn babies portrayed similar symptoms. According to Kacew and Lee (2013), children are affected the most by different toxic compounds. Children tend to have weak bodies.

Their body organs are also under development thus making them prone to different toxicants (Kacew & Lee, 2013). The mother can therefore use several methods to determine if there is a connection between these two cases.

To begin with, she should analyze the symptoms experienced by the two newborns. The mother should ensure the child is tested in order to determine the kind of toxicant affecting him or her (Lin, 2012).

Several factors should be addressed in this scenario. The first approach is examining the nature of the working conditions in the manufacturing plant. This analysis will identify some of the potential toxins in the working environment. The next approach is comparing the medical reports of the two babies.

This analysis will identify the unique similarities between the two newborn babies. The health statuses of the two women should also be examined carefully (Lucille, 2015). The milk produced by the mothers should also be examined in order to understand the pathway of the potential toxic compound.

The other practice is collecting more information from every worker in the manufacturing plant. The approach will highlight the major issues affecting many individuals in the firm.

The provided scenario shows clearly that the working environment has been unsafe. That being the case, the mother of the child has a case in a court of law. Chances are very high that the company has not been supporting the health needs of its employees. Two women have faced similar health challenges.

Their newborn babies have also portrayed similar signs and symptoms. Chances are very high that the woman is also affected by different toxic compounds (Kacew & Lee, 2013). The company has failed to provide the required safety precautions to its workers. This fact explains why the female employee should consult an attorney.

The “child’s medical report should be used as evidence in court” (Lin, 2012, p. 1483).

Kacew, S., & Lee, B. (2013). Lu’s Basic Toxicology: Fundamentals, Target Organs, and Risk Assessment . New York, NY: Information Healthcare.

Lin, A. (2012). Beyond Tort: Compensating Victims of Environmental Toxic Injury. Southern California Law Review, 78 (1), 1439-1529.

Lucille, H. (2015). Do You Have a Toxic Workplace? Web.

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IvyPanda. (2019, June 24). Toxins at a Workplace. https://ivypanda.com/essays/toxins-at-a-workplace/

"Toxins at a Workplace." IvyPanda , 24 June 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/toxins-at-a-workplace/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Toxins at a Workplace'. 24 June.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Toxins at a Workplace." June 24, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/toxins-at-a-workplace/.

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IvyPanda . "Toxins at a Workplace." June 24, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/toxins-at-a-workplace/.

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I Once Worked At A Toxic Workplace. It Was So Suffocating That It Made Me Hate My Dream Job: Here Are 5 Warning Signs To Watch Out For So You Don't End Up Repeating The Mistakes I Made

E ver felt your dream job and the skills you nurtured with so much passion have made living every day a nightmare? Fret not, you are not alone. Many of us navigating the treacherous waters of today's fast-paced and (often) toxic work environment can relate to this. 

Here are five red flags I wish I had recognized sooner and subsequently taken action to reclaim my sanity at work: 

Lack Of Transparency: The Beginning Of Mistrust 

“Communication is key” — this phrase isn't repeated in almost every lecture on team building just because it sounds good, but because unclear communication can lead to chaos. If your bosses or colleagues are being secretive, withholding information, and you feel like you're stumbling in the dark, that's a warning sign.

Micromanagement Madness: The Seed That Gives Birth To Insecurity 

We all want to learn, and we all want to grow. Most of us also know our limitations and where we need help from our seniors. But, if your boss is breathing down your neck, questioning everything you do, and stifling every ounce of creativity or autonomy left in your body, that's a warning sign.

Persistent Negativity: The Cultivator Of Toxic Atmosphere

An office environment where every update, feedback, and word of communication is filled with negativity, is a place where even the most enthusiastic employees cannot shine. If your bosses or colleagues focus more on problems instead of finding solutions, that's a warning sign.

High Turnover Rates: The Result Of Poor Leadership

Frequent changes in the workforce mean poor leadership, a toxic work environment, and a lack of growth opportunities at the company. If your organization cannot retain talented employees, it is a warning sign.

Blurred Work-Life Boundaries: The End Where You Sacrifice Almost Everything

Unlike how TV shows and movies romanticize round-the-clock availability in a workplace, sacrificing personal time for work can quickly lead to burnout. If your bosses have unhealthy expectations or your Slack notifications follow you at the dinner table, that's a warning sign.

Feature Image Via Shutterstock

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This article I Once Worked At A Toxic Workplace. It Was So Suffocating That It Made Me Hate My Dream Job: Here Are 5 Warning Signs To Watch Out For So You Don't End Up Repeating The Mistakes I Made originally appeared on Benzinga.com .

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