Toxic Work Environments
Toxic Work Environments
Toxic Work Environments
High turnover, lack of clarity, low morale, and coworkers constantly calling out sick or and not coming into work. You’re feeling tired, overworked, and are constantly filled with dread.
If you’re feeling all of these things then you may be working in a toxic environment. You may have already heard this term from others working in a variety of fields, industries, and organization. But what exactly is a toxic work environment?
This article will review and define toxic work environments. Signs of toxic workplaces will be discussed as well as determining if your supervisor and coworkers are toxic individuals.
Comparisons between health and toxic workplaces will be covered in addition to specific effects of toxic workplaces. Those signs include high turnover, lack of clarity, low morale, and absent co-workers.
Toxicity in student affairs work is especially prevalent in its impact on both students and professionals. Both will be reviewed in depth. Finally, action steps for those working in toxic work environments will be shared and discussed in order to mitigate the negativity. Active steps for improving your situation will be shared.
What is a toxic work environment?
Most people believe that a toxic work environment involves a job that you might “hate” doing. Hate is a pretty strong work; but just because you hate a job doesn’t make it a toxic work environment. Yet, toxic workplaces make it difficult, challenging, and sometimes just unbearable to be there. Toxic work environments make it so that you’re constantly bombarded with these feelings without a break.
So what exactly is a toxic work environment? A toxic work environment is workplace that is defined by significant drama, insecurity, and contention that routinely harms productivity. Toxic workplaces are also places where these disruptions impact your professional contributions as well as your personal life away from it.
However, the physical environment alone doesn’t create a toxic workplace. Instead, toxic workplaces are created my toxic coworkers and employees who are often motivated my internal drives such as power, fame, or a special status. In order to attain these gains these individuals use unethical (or sometimes illegal) means to manipulate those around them. Often actions made to achieve these gains are done in an effort to draw attention away from their own performance failures or misdeeds.
This means that toxic workplaces are jobs where individuals contribute to a climate, culture, and atmosphere that ends up causing negative disruptions at work and in your personal life. Toxic workplaces are different from “hostile work environments” which includes more characteristics such as severe harassment, unfair treatment, and other more pervasive forms of disrespect.
Signs of a toxic workplace
There are several issues that go into determining if a work environment is toxic. Of course, there are difference between aggravating instances that happen at work or just one-off events that may upset you. However, a true toxic work environment is one where dysfunction and drama pervade the workplace.
These signs can be identified via gossipy co-workers; tyrannical upper management; or the lack of consistency in rules, regulations, functions, and expectations. The results of which impact your emotional health. That’s because in these toxic workplace there are an abundance of issues that involve tearing down others; passive aggressive leadership and conniving politics at play.
Have you experienced some, any, or all of these effects in your workplace? If so, then you may be working in a toxic work environment.
Is my supervisor toxic?
One of the most common signs that you’re in a toxic work environment is that you supervisor is a toxic individual. A toxic supervisor is someone who constantly hurts your self-esteem and routinely undermines your ability to do good work.
This is a hallmark of toxic leadership as they communicate and relate to others in a condescending manner. Some even go so far as to take credit for other peoples’ successes as they manipulate public image to make themselves look good. Often this comes at the price of lack of acknowledge, feedback, or recognition. You may even work incredibly hard for the organization, office, or institution just to be told that you should be thankful to have a job at all.
Of course at the end of the day one of the biggest signs of having a toxic supervisor is narcissism. Your supervisor’s focus and gratification on vanity and admiration of themselves and their perceived work is one of the hallmarks of a toxic supervisor.
Are my coworkers toxic?
Supervisors aren’t the only ones who can be toxic. Coworkers often fill and complete the toxic work environment through their actions (or in some cases inaction). Toxic coworkers often do not recognize a duty to the organization to provide ethical or professional conduct towards others.
Because of that, toxic coworkers can often bring down the work of the organization, office, or institution through their lack of motivation and focus on collective goals. As such, forming relationship with other coworkers in a toxic work environment is incredibly challenging. That’s because toxic co-workers define their relationships with others in the organization not by structure but by those they like/do not like and as a consequence those that they trust / do not trust.
This makes operating in a toxic work environment especially tiring. That’s because you always need to be on the lookout for backstabbing; underhanded activities; or other behavior that could cost you your perceptions and image with other people at the office and at the institution.
Comparisons of a healthy vs. a toxic work environment
So what exactly are the differences between a healthy and a toxic work environment? Some of the most salient ones are the goals of the environment. Healthy workplaces will have clearly communicated goals from leadership and your supervisors. That doesn’t mean that ALL of your questions will be answered all of the time. But, for the most part you know what your role is and where your office is headed. Conversely, toxic work environments often have obscure or unclear goals that are not resolved or clearly articulated by management.
Likewise healthy work environment have clear and agreed upon roles where individuals know generally what their responsibilities are and how they will be evaluated based on those responsibilities. Conversely, toxic work environments have unclear, ambiguous, or even conflicting responsibilities. As such, the way that your professional work is evaluated could change on a regular basis.
Healthy work environments provide clear, supporting, and empathetic communication between management and coworkers. The way that individuals speak and act to one another reflects mutual respect, understanding, and support. Conversely, toxic work environments often include defensive, passive-aggressive, or hidden communication networks where true meaning is not always understood.
Healthy work environments create mutual decisions based on a wide variety of input and consensus building. This is especially true in higher education and student affairs work where shared governance is a widely held principle. Conversely, toxic work environments often involve a top-down view of decision making and communication that seeds power in the hands of just a few individuals.
Healthy work environments support and nurture individuals’ feelings and emotions through dialogue. Conversely, toxic work environments do not acknowledge the feelings and emotions of coworkers and as a result they often feel neglected and unengaged.
Healthy work environment rely on active listening, processing, and sharing. This is often done through community dialogues and through regular events such as coffee hours or social gatherings. Conversely, toxic work environments operate on a process of alternating monologues where individuals share their individual viewpoints and interests without taking into account others.
Healthy work environments prioritize acknowledging and resolving conflicts as they are identified and arise in the workplace. Doing so ensures that these conflicts don’t have a negative impact on the community as a whole. Whereas in a toxic work environment acknowledgement (let alone resolution) of these conflicts are avoided.
Lastly, healthy work environments honor employee’s autonomy where individuals are given their own agency to accomplish the tasks, assignments, and projects given to them. Conversely, toxic work environments require that individuals follow a specific (and inflexible) path towards completing goals and assignments.
Specific effects of a toxic environment
There are other and more in-depth effects of working in a toxic work environment. Those include high-turnover; lack of clarity; lack of feedback; low-morale; and regular sick calls. The following sections will address those characteristics in greater depth.
High Turnover
High turnover involves the cycling or the rotation of new staff members into the organization, office, or institution, as current employees depart. A high turnover rate is a sign that individuals are fleeing the organization quickly. That could be due to a toxic work environment that instills unhappiness and poor morale.
Employee departure leaves a lasting impact on the office as dysfunction can occur without proper transition activities. That means that poor morale could take over as the current employees must now take over the tasks from their former colleague.
This means that you can take the sign of a quick departure from a current employee as an indicator of a toxic work environment and how it may be affecting staff as a whole. High turnover is specifically significant in student affairs work due to the amount and variety of entry level positions in the field. This is combined with an often surplus of student affairs talent which makes filling those empty positions easier due to market demand. As a result, sometimes supervisors have no incentive to improve a toxic work environment because new entry level student affairs professionals can easily be found.
Lack of clarity
One of the most prominent aspects that plague toxic workplaces is the lack of clarity. Sometimes that lack of clarity revolves around mission or day to day responsibilities. If you’ve begun to notice some changes in the office and they aren’t exactly clear to you WHY they’re being implemented hen you could be working in a toxic workplace.
Additionally, when you are given assignments, tasks, or projects to work on they often appear to be vague and unfocused. Worse still is when you know that you’ll be professionally judged based on the outcomes of those assignments – but haven’t been told any metric of success.
In addition you may also hear the phrase “that’s the way that it’s done around here” or “this is how we’ve always done it” used to explain some inconsistencies or vagaries of your office. Such lack of clarity also serves as an indicator that you’re working in a toxic workplace.
New student affairs professionals can often find themselves in these toxic workplaces because they often have not yet experienced these effects in other work environments before. It’s often common to work with projects that may have obscure outcomes or in roles where the responsibilities are still being shaped and formed. However, these don’t serve as effective reasons for student affairs professionals to shoulder more of the weight of student support. Doing so means that professionals must take on the role of 2, 3, or 4 other staff members in their pursuit to serve students.
Not only does this make the work unsustainable in the long run; but also encourages an unhealthy work / life balance as well as an expectation to always be available and working. Such work hours often lead to low staff morale.
Low morale
Toxic work environments lack innate enthusiasm for employees or the organization as a whole. As a result, no one really exclaims that they “love working there.” Because of this, individuals often show up miserable and unmotivated. As a result even less work gets done due to low morale and the workplace sinks even deeper into toxicity.
This directly affects employees’ abilities to progress and advance in their careers due to the negative atmosphere of the toxic workplace; their coworkers; supervisor; and the culture as a whole. As a result, many professionals’ careers could be sidetracked.
Low morale also permeates the culture of the organization through toxic communication. This is the kind of talk between and amongst coworkers that exudes negativity. This negativity often becomes a defining facet of the organization.
Sick call
This effects eventually influence employees’ physical health as individuals call out stick from a toxic environment. This is a result of the additional stress, anguish, and turmoil that accompanies student affairs professionals from these workplaces. Getting an adequate amount of time off to address these issues can likewise be difficult to attain in these challenging work environments.
Toxic work environments often results in this his snowball effect that culminates in negativity that permeates the office, organization, and institution at large. While tolerable for short period of time; the long term effects of working in a toxic environment is the decline of physical health of employees resulting in more sick calls.
Toxicity in student affairs
Toxicity is perhaps one of the largest causes for expatriates of student affairs to leave the field. The combination of the negative aspects of the toxic workplace combined with the demanding roles of student affairs work can be a lot for young professionals to handle. Student affairs work has become particularly demanding because of decreased enrollment at institutions; increased responsibilities for teaching and administrative staff; and more support services moved to student affairs professionals.
These are challenging circumstances for any individual – even more so for entry level student affairs professionals who are caught attempting to uphold the values of holistic education while simultaneously balancing the practical demands of higher education administration and the necessities of a personal life.
Of course this is all done by higher education administrators who are balancing these workloads while sometimes managing part or full time course loads. Courses that accompany a higher education administration and/or student affairs degree are often earned at significant debt to the learner.
As such, the culture of student affairs work tends to place very high expectations on its staff. Those include the need to support students; to serve as an administrator; to advance in their career; and to prioritize personal and family life while repaying students loans after earning flat or stagnant wages. The result of these demands increases tensions; creates environments for toxicity; as well as exacerbates stress and anxiety. Unfortunately the results for many are burn out and their eventual departure from the field.
However, this is not even a cause for alarm for those employing entry level student affairs professionals. Graduate programs have proliferated and as a result so to have the influx of new administrators. This results in too many individuals for too few positions. This means that professionals who have jobs are more determined to keep them despite toxicity and regressive social values espoused by them.
Effects of a toxic work environment
A toxic work environment is marked by many different effects. Most of which are represented in much of student affairs work. This can even occur if employees now work from home as toxicity can transcend physical work places.
A record one in five American consider their work environments to be toxic. However, like a lot of student affairs professionals, they consider them necessary in order to maintain their income and pay down debt. Because of this, burnout often occurs when professionals reach a breaking point when work activities negatively affect their personal lives.
These toxic and abusive work environments also result in the compromise and destruction of important bonds formed between student affairs professionals and colleagues. The result of which makes it harder to work with and support one another.
Action steps
Knowing that you’re in a toxic work environment is really only the first step. If you’re in this situation then the best course of action is to address it and then take the next steps towards a resolution.
Management should provide employees with financial, moral, and cultural support to prevent the emergence of a toxic work environment from the very beginning. This can be done via multiple ways. One of the easiest ways to implement this is to strengthen avenues for providing anonymous feedback where employees can voice their concerns about abusive experiences without fear for retribution.
These are great steps to take from an organizational standpoint. The best thing to do from a personal standpoint is to focus and concentrate on your own work and continue to be respectful and polite to others in your workplace. By doing this you can also practice psychological detachment from the situation by focusing on the areas that you can control and letting go of the areas where you have no agency. This ensures that you don’t waste energy worrying about things that are not in your control. Likewise, this behavior ensures that you’re less likely to take some of the negative ramifications from a toxic work environment home with you.
Additionally, consider taking time out each work day to walk, mediate, or reflect on your own experiences. This practice provides you with personal space in order to reconcile (and acknowledge) your feelings about the situation while not lashing out at coworkers. This has the added benefit of centering improvement on what you can do as a professional and individual.
Of course, there is only so far that you can go as an individual. If you feel comfortable and open to the prospect, then consider connecting and confiding with others about the challenges of your work environment. Ideally these first individuals should be outside of your professional work circles. However, if you feel comfortable consider reaching out to others coworkers who may share the same feelings as you.
Talking about these feelings and reflections that you have had can be a cathartic way to discuss and take action on the situation. Of course preventing a toxic workplace is a preferred step. However, if that is not an option, always consider networking to find other opportunities in other work environments.
Looking for a new job while you’re currently working can be a challenge. But there are limits to the emotional, psychological, and physical toll that you can endure from working in a toxic work environment. That means that one of the best ways to beat a toxic work environment is to leave it.
Takeaways
This article reviewed and defined toxic work environments. Signs of toxic workplaces were discussed in addition to toxic supervisors and coworkers. Comparisons between healthy and toxic workplaces were covered n addition to specific signs of toxic workplaces. Those signs included high turnover, lack of clarity, low morale, and absent co-workers. Toxicity in student affairs work is especially prevalent in its impact on both students and professionals. Finally, action steps for those working in toxic work environments were shared. Active steps towards acknowledging and improving your situation were also discussed.
I hope that you found this article useful! If you need some additional help on your student affairs job search, then check out the eBook The Student Affairs Job Search: A Comprehensive Guide available here.
Happy searching,
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2020, December 8). Toxic Work Environments. Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2020/12/8/toxic-work-environments
Internal Reference: JHKRE1370QXH