A healthy and meaningful work culture is powerful and can really help your business succeed. Its absence, however, can lead to a dysfunctional environment that drains employees.
If you want your organization to succeed, it’s essential that you shape a positive workplace culture that boosts teamwork and morale; improves retention levels; enhances productivity; and, most importantly, helps ease stress among employees.
The recent TalentLMS and CultureAmp research report shows that leadership in toxic tech companies is frequently unaware of underlying toxicity by 45%, so companies that want to succeed should address such behaviors quickly.
Leadership’s Role in Eliminating Toxic Work Cultures
Investing in leadership is crucial for a healthy work environment. Great leaders should be more active in shaping the culture of their organizations. Let’s explore some of TalentLMS’s and CultureAmp’s research findings to understand why:
- Leadership and senior managers are the ones mostly responsible for a toxic work culture in tech companies, according to respondents.
- A lack of transparency and communication from managers and leaders is among the top three contributing factors to a toxic work culture.
- 43% of employees believe management and leadership training would be helpful for eliminating a toxic work environment.
Key Components of a Healthy Work Culture
The following are five key components that will help organizations get rid of toxic behaviors at work to maintain a healthy workplace.
1. Recognition and Rewards Programs
Employees placed recognition and rewards programs at the top of their list of what makes a balanced work culture.
These types of programs show people you value their hard work and dedication. As such, employees will be more motivated, productive, and willing to work in teams.
Recognizing your people for their accomplishments also helps create a supportive work environment and a positive work culture. At the same time, employees who feel valued are more likely to stay at the company for longer, resulting in high top-talent retention and low staff turnover.
2. Employee Training
Employees ranked soft skills training for leadership as the second most important ingredient of healthy workplaces, right after recognition and rewards programs.
In fact, 48% of employees agree workplace training can help foster a more positive and healthy work environment, and 43% believe managerial and leadership training for executives would be helpful in addressing toxicity.
To tackle a toxic work environment, it’s essential to focus on employee training programs because they play a major role in building healthy relationships and a more positive work culture.
Employee training should include:
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
- Sexual harassment
- Soft skills (communication, emotional intelligence (EQ), collaboration, etc.)
- Leadership
- Well-being
When you invest in employee training, not only do you assist in eliminating a toxic work culture, but you also contribute to attracting and retaining top talent. An ongoing learning culture is essential for keeping employees motivated, satisfied, healthy, and loyal.
3. A 360 Feedback Policy
Forty-six percent of survey respondents found applying a 360 feedback policy helpful in eliminating a toxic work culture.
One of the most powerful ways to keep an eye on what’s going on in the workplace is to ask your people. By gathering regular feedback through surveys or 360 reviews, you give your people the opportunity to share what they’re experiencing and concerns they may have.
Creating a safe place for your employees to report toxic behaviors at work also shows you care. With a 360 feedback policy, you’ll have better insight into issues and be able to address and correct them before they become systemic problems.
4. Absence of Favoritism
Almost half of the employees surveyed (44%) believe applying rules fairly and equally for all employees and managers can play an important part in dealing with toxic work environments.
Favoritism in the workplace is dangerous, toxic, and sometimes illegal. Leaders must make sure they reject any behaviors or actions that can be seen as favoritism by following the rules and policies established by the organization.
The best way to eliminate favoritism in the workplace is by focusing on leadership training, minimizing unconscious bias, and establishing and applying fair rules for all.
5. Transparency
Transparency is key to eliminating a toxic work culture, and 43% of employees agree.
Fostering a culture of transparency can bring long-term success to your organization when done properly. It creates trust between employees and leadership, boosts morale, and decreases stress while skyrocketing employee satisfaction and performance.
Make sure you share information with your teams and share feedback with each other, encourage meaningful communication, and value your people’s experience in the workplace.
Following the Right Steps to Foster a Healthy Work Culture
A positive workplace culture can increase employee satisfaction, motivation, productivity, and retention, which, in turn, will positively influence your end business goals.
Creating new, positive norms, along with the right tools and structures for spotting and stopping toxic behaviors, is your weapon for constructing a healthy work culture.
Toxic behaviors don’t happen all at once, so it’s essential to have the right mechanisms in place to recognize them early on before they spread throughout the company.
Christina Gialleli, Director of People Ops at Epignosis, the parent company behind TalentLMS.