Signs of a toxic work culture - you want to know these!

Do people hate going into your workplace? Like do they literally feel sick? This could be because you have a toxic work culture and that's what we're going to talk about. Thank you for checking out the channel Leadership with Mike. On this channel I help managers become leaders and I do that with no nonsense sense, if that makes any sense. What is a toxic work culture? Let's start with that. Like what defines it? There's a crap ton of drama, crap ton of gossip, employees and management are constantly fighting and bickering between departments, between co-workers. It's just a battle and overall people are unhappy and that's a sad place to be because that is messing up your productivity without a doubt. It's messing up the well-being of everybody in the place and going unchecked, it's a recipe for disaster. Now you as a manager, as a new manager, as a seasoned manager, as much as you can't control individuals and how they act and interact, a toxic culture, it falls directly on your shoulders. I'm not saying it's your fault but I'm not saying it's not. Let's talk about the signs of a toxic culture. The first sign is low morale. You'll notice this when people, they're just not cheery, they're not happy to be there. This isn't a case of the Mondays or somebody in a slump. Like when you go in day after day and people in general are just miserable, that is a bad sign because you may have the you know Eeyore of the group but it can't be everybody. Statistically it's not possible for everybody to be miserable unless you have a toxic work culture. That's the thing, that's the thorn that's making all the problems. Is there a lack of communication? Do you find colleagues not sharing documents or processes, processes, ways to do things? What about bringing in a new staff member? How are they received? Are senior staff communicating with this person or are they just waiting to see if they make it through the week? This is all signs of a toxic culture and I know this firsthand because at the airport when I was managing there, it was something that needed to be changed because as senior staff they didn't care about new people. You wanted to bring in a new way to do things, they didn't care, they would fight you on it. It was because for many years management had created a toxic culture so the employees they didn't communicate at all except for to give you a piece of their mind which is not the best idea but this is what it came to. Do people fear the boss? Like if it's not you, like you could be a manager but your boss, your boss's boss, the leader of a company should not be the only one speaking at a meeting. The leader of a department, the leader of a team should not be the only one speaking at a meeting. Are people afraid to speak up? Are they afraid that there will be a target on their back? Are they afraid that they're going to, if they suggest something that all of a sudden their desk is going to fill up with work? This is a sign of a toxic culture. There has to be a healthy respect for leadership, there has to be a healthy respect for whoever is the boss but there shouldn't be fear. Fear and respect are completely different and I know you know the difference. So are people not speaking up at a meeting out of respect or out of fear? Policies over people. Policies are made to help an organization get from point A to point B. It's a rule book but when the management team solely leans on policy and then uses that to discipline, you've got a toxic work culture because here's the thing, there is no company on this earth that runs without people at some level. You can argue that automation is this, automation is that. Who's doing the automating? People. We need to make sure we're putting people first. So let's just have a quick example. Somebody, Paul's coming in late. Why am I picking on Paul? If you don't know Paul Productivity Ace, he's a great channel. He's part of our leadership Facebook group, an active member. Link in the description, make sure you join that. Anyway, we're going to pick on Paul today. So Paul has been late seven times and the workplace policy says that if you've been late four times in a row, you get discipline. So as a manager that does not watch this channel, you may say, well you've got seven lates. We need to escalate this. You're getting a suspension. Absolutely. We can't have that. You're right. Paul needs to take responsibility for this but as his direct manager, as his manager's manager, have you looked at it and thought, this is seven days. Let's talk to Paul. Let's see if there's something going on because you need to understand what your people are going through. You need to have open lines of communication. Not that people get to just come in whenever they want but when you have a better understanding and you make efforts to accommodate people, the morale goes up. The culture becomes a great place to work. When you just beat because the policy says, oh four lates, Paul gets a beating. That, come on, you can't tell me that feels right. You can't tell me that seems normal. The policy there is your baseline. You need to treat everybody fair and equally but not identical. The policy helps you treat people identical but that's your crutch to lean on when you as a manager can't seem to work with Paul as an individual, if that makes sense. Would you say you come into work and, I don't know, once a month, once a week, there's a new face and then they last a couple months and they're out the door? What I'm talking about specifically is high turnover. Places that have high turnover typically have a toxic work culture because here's the thing, you have a group of people that will feel that this is my job and I'm stuck here for the rest of my life and they're going to stay. They're going to put up with the BS and the horrible culture and it's going to take a toll on them but then you're going to bring in new people and they're going to come in and they're going to get settled. They're going to say, what the, I'm not dealing with this. You're not paying me enough to deal with this and they'll just move on because they know their worth. They know what's out there and they'll just say I'm done. If you notice as a manager, if you notice that there's a high turnover and I mean we're talking restaurants and you know retail, they tend to have higher turnovers but if you're in an office setting, if you're in a workplace where people say this is my career and you have high turnover, you definitely need to look at the work culture because it's toxic. I don't even have to know what it is that you're doing. I'm telling you, high turnover means there's something toxic happening. Here's another thing that will contribute to a toxic work culture. When you're mid-level management, entry-level management, when they're just bobbleheads, they're just there to take up space on a desk. If your management team cannot make decisions on their own, you're starting a toxic work environment because everything has to come top down. Again, let me reference the airport because when we started there, the middle-level managers had no say. They had to lean on the policy and if you wanted to dispute the issue, you couldn't even talk to them. You had to talk to the station manager which is ridiculous because the station manager clearly has more important things or should have more important things to do than dealing with the daily employee mismanagement. That is why you have entry-level managers. That's why you have mid-level managers. There's a system in place but you need to make sure that each level of manager, you trust them enough to make decisions. If they make the wrong decisions, you start to correct them. But look around. Are your entry-level, mid-level managers allowed to make any decisions, any changes, have any leniency towards the employees? If not, toxic! As a manager, make sure you're paying attention to any one of these and if you have more than one, you really need to look at what your company is doing and then you need to make a plan to change it. It can be changed. I've worked at the airport like I've mentioned a few times and we had this one gentleman come in and he changed everything. Within a matter of six months, you could feel the attitude becoming more positive. You could feel a burden being lifted off of employees. So this is one of your responsibilities as a manager. Create a positive work environment. It doesn't have to be sunshine and rainbows but people spend a lot of time at work. At least it can be somewhat enjoyable. Now how are you going to do that? Let me get my coffee and we'll start talking in the next video.