By skyforbes 
Photo collage by Aliya Kamalova
We all have bad Mondays, challenging weeks, and even disappointing months. That’s the cyclical nature of a career.
However, you’re typically able to make it through a bad Monday, survive a challenging week, and learn valuable lessons from a disappointing quarter. A toxic work environment is a workplace that disappoints much more than it enriches.
Table of Contents
What is a Toxic Work Environment?
A toxic workplace does not provide psychological safety or any feeling of security. Toxic workplaces often leave employees feeling scared to speak up or to share input. This can lead to stunted professional growth and burnout.
The Signs of a Toxic Work Environment
Toxic work environments breed unrest, competition, low morale, constant stressors, negativity, sickness, high turnover, and even bullying. Even worse? Toxic workplaces rarely stay at work.
1. A Toxic Workplace May Have Poor Communication
Insufficient, confusing, or scattered communication is the culprit of so many problems in the workplace.
So, how do you tell if bad communication is leading to workplace toxicity? Here are a few examples of bad communication.
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
If your company has bad communication methods, hold on tight. You’re likely in a toxic environment that’s only going to get worse with time.
2. A Toxic Work Environment May Have Cliques, Exclusion + Gossipy Behavior
“I want the workplace to feel like eighth grade all over again,” said nobody, ever. So when it does feel like you’re back in a middle school cafeteria, it can be pretty deflating.
We all know what a clique looks like. It’s the group of people—whether at work or at school—that sticks together, grabs each other coffee, laughs at inside jokes (of which they somehow have roughly one million), and generally excludes anyone outside of their tight-knit ring.
≠And, while we are all adults here, it can feel extremely alienating to exist on the outside of an active clique.
Here are a few warning signs you’ve got some Heathers (or Harveys?) in your office:
- Constant feeling of exclusion from a group of people
- A particular group of toxic employees that lunches, grabs coffee, and organizes happy hours together
- Projects often are offered to a particular group, regardless of talent or experience
- Large parts of the workday are spent whispering or chatting on messaging platforms
- General outward disinterest from the group in anyone else—unless it involves gossip or “drama”
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
If you recognize that clique-ish behavior includes management and executive-level employees, then you may very well have an organizational mean problem—and that’s about as toxic as it gets.
3. A Toxic Workplace May Have Bad Leadership
Here’s a big one.
Sometimes a bad boss is the product of their bad boss—and so on. It’s this generational hierarchy of poor leadership that make the overall workplace—you guessed it—downright toxic.
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
Bad leadership is a sign of a toxic workplace if you have no recourse.
4. A Toxic Work Environment Likely Has Unmotivated Coworkers
We’re not saying that you should judge your work on the quality (or lack of quality) of those around you.
- You’re going to shoulder a ton of work that they aren’t handling—and find yourself burnt out
- Their lack of motivation is going to bum you out—and burn you out with a type of underchallenged burnout
Perhaps it’s bad communication from the top. It might be disorganization, disenfranchisement with leadership, or general distrust. Whatever it is, if everyone around you is unmotivated, you’re in a toxic work environment.
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
Unfortunately, unless you’re in a leadership position, this problem is indicative of much larger problems—and it’s unlikely that you are going to learn or grow in this environment.
5. A Toxic Workplace May Have Stifled Growth
Speaking of growth, if you’re not experiencing it, your workplace might be toxic—even if it’s just personally toxic for you.
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
6. A Toxic Work Environment Likely Has Rapid Employee Turnover
A high turnover rate usually means there’s disorganization, lack of direction, bad leadership, or little opportunity. Pay attention to the turnover rate in your company.
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
Rapid turnover is a big sign that things are bad—or about to get worse. If you can, try speaking with some of the employees who either left, were fired, or were laid off.
7. A Toxic Workplace Often Has No Work-Life Balance
You deserve to have a full life outside of work.
You should be able to toggle your Slack notifications to OFF. You should be able to leave an email unread after dinner on a Tuesday. You should be able to make your dentist appointment without feeling guilty.
YOU SHOULD TAKE THE VACATION DAYS THAT YOU EARNED.
Work-life balance is essential to survival. No human should be expected to be on the clock at all times. If your job requires that you be on-call at all times, it’s toxic. If your boss requires you to answer emails mid-Saturday—every Saturday—your job is toxic.
Yes, at times, things come up at inopportune hours. However, if you are working under the expectation that you are always to be available for work, your job (in our humble opinion) is toxic garbage.
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
Real-Life Example of Building Boundaries at a Toxic Workplace
What: I proactively communicate expectations on response times with co-workers.
How: I use pre-existing functions in Slack to let my team and boss know when they can expect to hear from me. I make sure my “work hours” in Slack are up-to-date, including my timezone, and I set my status anytime I’m away with a detailed message. Instead of an “OOO” status, I’ll simply list out “OOO, Back Monday (10/16)”.
Outcome: These small shifts help to clarify when my co-workers can expect to hear from me, which leaves no room for guessing. I feel empowered knowing I can over-communicate in my daily routine, regardless of what is happening at a company-level.
8. A Toxic Workplace Leaves You Battling Burnout
Burnout can be a surefire sign of toxic work environments—or at least a work environment that doesn’t “work” for you. Here are three types of burnout. Do any of these sound familiar to you?
- Frenetic Burnout: Frenetic burnout is experienced by employees who put a ton of energy into their work in the hopes that the output will be rewarding. After a sustained period of dedicated work, the frenetic worker does not find positive outcomes.
- Underchallenged Burnout: This type of burnout occurs when an employee feels underchallenged and bored at work. Being unable to find any satisfaction in a job, the underchallenged employees find themselves in a lowered mood.
- Worn-out Burnout: The worn-out employee is someone who is resigned about their work after experiencing consistent work stress over a long period of time. Having experienced negligible rewards, the worn-out employee feels disillusioned and uninspired by the job at hand.
What to Do in This Toxic Workplace:
If you’re suffering from any of these types of workplace burnout, seriously consider fleeing your toxic workplace.
9. A Toxic Workplace Has Little or No Forward Movement
Sometimes, toxic work cultures grow from some sort of seedling.
Whether the seed is a bad manager, a damaging fiscal year, or an organization-wide failure to uphold the company’s mission, this is where things start to go south.
If you find that you once described your job as “so great!” and that now you can’t muster a good word, you’re probably experiencing a brand new toxicity—one where you will no longer move forward.
If your movement stalls or halts to a complete stop, it’s usually the symptom of a larger problem.
10. A Toxic Workplace Triggers a Gut Feeling
Just like when you eat spoiled food or too much candy, your gut is your best warning sign.
Listen to it.
Look for some of these characteristics of an absolutely hostile work environment:
- Sexual harassment
- Lack of inclusion
- Comments about sexual orientation, race, creed, or disability
- No human resources (in a company larger than 15 or 20 people this is a problem)
- Bullying
- Groups of people at odds with others
Signs of a Toxic Environment—When Working From Home
Think toxicity “doesn’t happen” when you’re working from home? Think again!
If your brick-and-mortar office was toxic, then it’s likely that the same toxic behaviors will find a way to root their way into your work-from-home situation. It’s best to be as aware as possible.
Here are a few signs that your office toxicity has snuck right into your home office.
Office Gossip Moves Online
The good news?
Office gossip that happens online—whether through messaging apps, side emails, or post-meeting summaries, is pretty trackable. The bad news? It’s still as damaging, wasteful, and toxic as gossip IRL.
First of all, don’t engage in anything that might even resemble gossip. Sure, you’re working at home, you’re bored, and office gossip can be entertaining, but it’s a useless waste of time.
If you can’t decipher what a message means, ask questions. If what you’re seeing is, indeed, just gossip, don’t engage. If it’s particularly damaging or targeted toward a certain person (even yourself!) collect evidence.
One advantage of working online is that it can, in instances, be easier to shut down toxic conversations without having a difficult conversation face-to-face.
Digital Meetings Overlook Employees
Beyond that, you have your run-of-the-mill technical difficulties like lag time, interruption, the “can anyone actually hear me?” conundrum, and the overall lack of eye-to-eye contact that you might take for granted in an in-person meeting.
Your Burnout (+ Everyone’s Burnout) Is Even Worse
You’re finally rid of that commute that sucks up 45 minutes of your day, in each direction. So, why is your burnout feeling worse than ever before?
