Toxic Work Culture Is Driving The Great Resignation

The Great Resignation is still going strong, with millions of people across the US leaving their jobs - about four million more every month. On January 11th, MIT Sloan released a revealing study identifying the leading causes of this massive quitting event. Unsurprisingly, the study found that toxic work culture is the primary culprit behind this trend. In fact, it’s 10.4 times more likely to motivate a resignation than compensation, regardless of industry. According to the study, the three factors that contribute to a toxic work culture are failure to promote DE&I, workers feeling disrespected, and unethical behavior. If your company is experiencing these issues, addressing them will help you build a better workplace culture and retain employees.

Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

If your company hasn’t done so already, the first step to promoting DE&I is to take an honest look at your employee demographics. Is there an opportunity for you to make new hires that would help your team become more diverse? If so, are your current hiring practices conducive to that outcome? Next, you’ll want to evaluate compensation gaps, rates of promotion and access to opportunities in relation to your demographics. Are your company’s policies and behaviors contributing to a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace? Is there anyone on your staff who is getting the short end of the stick? One way to collect candid feedback is by asking all your employees to complete an anonymous survey about their experiences at your company. This can help you identify areas for improvement without making anyone feel at risk.

How you go about promoting DE&I matters. Bring together a diverse group of employees from various levels of your company to help you tackle these efforts. Check out our blog on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Work for more in-depth guidance.

Respecting Employees

“It’s not personal, it’s business” is a poor excuse for decisions and actions that cause people harm in the pursuit of profit. A company is its employees, and their humanity doesn’t disappear when they clock in for work. They deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, just like everyone else, and the old days of conditional ethics in the name of business are on their way out by popular demand. It’s time to rehumanize the workplace.

A great way to start is by elevating your communications. Help your people feel safe to express their authentic selves at work. Encourage active listening, honest feedback, and the sharing of ideas. Let your people know their work is valued. Don’t wait for annual reviews — if someone has achieved something that deserves recognition, tell them in the moment. Good communication, when modeled by leadership, is more readily adopted by the rest of the team, so be sure to walk the talk.

Another way to show respect is by providing compensation, benefits, and flexible work schedules that support the well-being of your employees and their families. Everyone has a life outside of work, so helping them meet their needs and maintain work-life balance is the best way to earn their loyalty.

Here’s a list of some disrespectful behaviors to avoid:

Micromanagement - Not allowing your employees to exercise autonomy shows a lack of trust.

Insulting language - Direct feedback and insults are not the same. Make sure people don’t confuse the two; no one should be insulted at work.

Being critical of others when they are not present - Doing this erodes trust. If you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t say it to others.

Favoritism & exclusion - This is counterproductive to Inclusion. For example, if you plan a dinner with your work buddies that excludes key members of your team, it’s not the time to be making any work-related decisions.

Setting a Standard for Ethical Behavior

There are two methods you can use to set standards for ethical behavior. The first is to make sure your team understands which behaviors are unacceptable, and the second is to model ethical behavior and encourage your employees to follow suit. These approaches are two sides of the same coin, and they are most effective when used in tandem.

There are many obvious unethical behaviors such as lying, stealing, cheating, discrimination, and harassment of any kind. There should be no tolerance for these at any level of the organization. It’s demoralizing to see coworkers getting away with these major infractions, and even worse, it creates an unsafe environment. Safety on the job is very important, and any employee that risks the physical or emotional well-being of another should be met with consequences sufficient to prevent the infraction from being repeated.

Modeling and encouraging ethical behavior is incumbent on creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment. Any standards of conduct must be collectively agreed upon to be successfully adopted, so make sure all employees, especially those of diverse backgrounds, feel included in that conversation. These standards, or team agreements, can cover areas such as communication, accountability, conflict resolution, decision-making, and accommodations of individual needs. Remember that team agreements are not set in stone, so if a situation arises that calls for a new standard to be made or an existing one to be adjusted, don’t be afraid to make changes. Remember that each industry has its own specific rules, regulations, and codes, so be sure that everyone is aware of these. And finally, have leadership take an active role in modeling standards for ethical behavior. Doing so will help other employees feel safe and encouraged to put them into practice.

Building an Intentional Workplace Community

People are tired of toxic work environments. They’ve lost patience for the old paradigm that perpetuates bad behavior and enables businesses to forgo human decency to maximize profits. If you want to be a part of the solution and avoid the main pitfall causing companies to lose employees to the Great Resignation, you can take steps to build an intentional workplace community with a healthy company culture. Supporting the well-being of your employees increases engagement and drives innovation. And while making the change might not be easy, both your people and your bottom line will thank you!