HR Management & Compliance

Toxic Workplace Communication Largely Directed at People of Color

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much for an otherwise decent workplace to turn toxic. Employees who toxify a workplace often do so through workplace communications. A recent survey examined trends among such communication and found something disturbing: People of color bear the brunt of toxic workplace communications.

Source: fizkes / shutterstock

The study was done by Writer, an artificial intelligence (AI) writing assistant, and is based on how more than 1,000 employees interact with coworkers over media such as chat and videoconference. It sought to better understand workplace toxicity and examined how changes in communications formats have affected the quality and formality of those communications.

What Makes a Communication Toxic?

Briefly put, toxic communications like those this study uncovered include those that are racist, discriminatory, bullying, or sexually inappropriate. While anyone can receive such communications, the findings showed that people of color received them disproportionately in greater quantities and frequency.

For example, an average of 38% of respondents reported experiencing toxic communications, which is quite high. When that is broken down between white people and people of color, only 32% of those who have received toxic communications were white. Fifty-two percent of those who received toxic communications were of color. Some of the other findings include:

  • People of color report receiving racist messages, posts, comments, or images at more than twice the rate than white people, especially over e-mail and chat.
  • People of color also report being bullied at higher rates than white people, especially over chat and videoconference.
  • Nearly one in five respondents report experiencing toxic communication related to balancing work and home responsibilities. That number jumps nearly 10 percentage points, to 29%, for people of color.

Unsavory behavior toward people of color in the workplace has been a problem for a very long time. Analysts and experts warned that the pandemic would negatively affect people of color in particular in a variety of ways, but this is the first evidence that shows how increased toxicity toward these individuals has increased since the pandemic began.

A Reduction in In-Person Communications Plays a Role

The question remains: Why have toxic communications toward people of color increased in the wake of the pandemic? Perhaps it has something to do with the reduction of in-person communications. Internet trolls have proven that sitting behind a computer or phone emboldens people to say things they would not say in person. Meanwhile, far more workers are at home, and this study showed that there has been a 62% decline in in-person work communications.

Additionally, the study found that:

  • 70% of workers report using videoconferencing more often since the pandemic began.
  • Respondents report an improvement in the quality of their videoconference communication (52%) but a decline in the quality of their in-person communication (36%).
  • More than 1 out of 4 (26%) workers report that their own written communication has gotten worse. 

Those who have remained civil in person now have to do their communicating over video chat or other electronic methods. It is likely that has emboldened some employees to be more toxic in how they communicate.

In addition to ordinary workplace communications, more charged and challenging communications are also happening over videoconference and e-mail. This study found the following in that regard:

  • 21% report interviewing for a job over videoconference.
  • 8% report being promoted over e-mail.
  • 5% report quitting over chat.
  • 6% report being fired over videoconference.

With such high-tension situations happening outside of an in-person communication, tempers can flare, and the potential calm of a professional environment is absent.

Final Thoughts

As an HR professional, it’s up to you to enforce company guidelines and policies surrounding professional communications. Remember that every time an organization stands by and does nothing while its employees hurl racist, sexist, or harassing communications at their coworkers, two very destructive things happen. First, a toxic workplace is created or extended, which has been proven to reduce engagement, increase turnover, and generally cost your organization a lot of money. Second, discrimination-based lawsuits will increase.

May Habib, CEO of Writer, says there are a few things you can do to help, including “[b]eing explicit about civility: It’s a value, and don’t tolerate asshole language in the workplace. And teach what passive-aggressive communication looks like: examples of what you could say, replaced by what could deliver the same message but in a more neutral way.”

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