Embrace Growth and Success by Dealing with Toxic Remote Work Habits

People are likely to stay longer at a workplace where the environment is positive and embracing. Work toxicity is a relatively new terminology but has been here for ages. No matter how much one tries to differentiate between professional and personal life somewhere, sometimes they cross paths. Ideally, people should be emotionally detached from their work and take it as just a medium of earning a livelihood. However, emotions, expectations and reactions are intrinsic parts of human nature, and it is tough to separate them during an encounter with a toxic situation.

Let us see, How can you avoid the toxic workplace environment and be happy at work?

What is a toxic work environment

What is a Toxic Work Environment?

Toxicity at the workplace is measurable by the difficulties experienced by the employees towards working with their full potential. The toxic work environment can be a product of the negative culture built by their peers, supervisors or the company management. Various factors come together, and a workplace ends up being toxic. Especially the remote work environment is more susceptible to turning toxic as physical interaction is absent regularly. Things can go out of hand quickly if employers ignore the early indicators.

Factors Causing Toxic Office Environment

• Ambiguity in Organizational Goals

At times the management needs to define and communicate exact goals. Especially remote workforce keeps on working in imperfect synchronization with the clear expectation of the firm. The result of this is as evident as it could be. The employees feel no connection with the organization and ultimately fail to deliver as per the firm’s expectations.

• Incompetent Leadership

When the leader of an organization shows a lack of competency in their roles and responsibilities, the workforce tends to lose focus and motivation. Leadership is not just about authority but also about delivering accountability and bringing people together. When any management is dealing with a remote workforce, incompetence in their leadership style can be an essential factor in causing a bad workplace environment.

• Poorly Defined Roles and Responsibilities

One prominent toxic remote workplace habit is passing on the work to someone else. This scenario occurs in the event of poorly defined work roles. When the management fails to communicate who will do exactly what, people get an opportunity to escape from their responsibility. Especially workers with weak work ethics will target the weak ones and get things done.

• Lack of Transparency in Productivity Evaluation

Remote, hybrid work or traditional work patterns inconsistent and inaccurate productivity evaluation has been a major driving factor in creating a toxic workplace. People feel demotivated and cheated if their productivity evaluation is unfair and not transparent. Managers sometimes refuse to justify poor performance scores, and the employees feel they have wasted their time working for the [particular organization. Such dissatisfaction leads to employees lashing out at their peers and subordinates, causing work toxicity.

• Weak Communication

Organizations where communication and feedback are discouraged to have a higher probability of developing toxic workplace culture. People feel suffocated when their opinions do not matter, and lack of adequate freedom of expression cultivates frustration in employees’ behavior, creating toxicity around them.

• Absence of Employee Care in Work Culture

A work culture which only focuses on outcome and productivity and often targets lose focus on the people who make it possible. Organizations do not empathize with their employees to enforce discipline and end up with demotivated employees. Specifically, in the case of remote employees, such neglect is inevitable if conscious efforts are absent.

• Absence of a Robust Code of Conduct

Every organization must define and enforce a reasonable code of conduct for its employees. When employees and managers need a clear directive of how to behave and conduct themselves in the work environment, mishaps may happen.

Effects of Toxic Work Environment

• Compromised Employee Productivity

Unhappy, dissatisfied and suppressed people often fail to deliver their optimum potential. Time tracking software such as RemoteDesk help determines the hybrid remote workforce’s exact productivity, which is challenging.

• High Employee Turnover

Likely, a workplace where employees need help to connect themselves positively doesn’t attract them to build a long career. People will leave faster than usual if the place’s culture has toxic traits.

• Negative Publicity in the Job Market

For any entity, it takes ages to build a good reputation in the market, but it can take only one weak incident to tarnish the same. Employees leaving the company owing to work toxicity are likely to spread the word about it in their professional surroundings. It is just a matter of time before such news reaches a larger audience and creates a negative image of the company.

Role of Remote Employee Monitoring Software RemoteDesk to Manage Workplace Toxicity

How can you avoid the toxic workplace environment and be happy at work?

The balance in a workplace is compromised when there are unclear things. Employees must be clear about how their productivity evaluation will happen. Management needs to have clarity on why productivity is declining. People are oblivious to any specific code of conduct they must follow while dealing with their colleagues. Well, there may be numerous reasons, but there is one solution that many people have found effective. The solution is implementing intelligent and technologically advanced remote employee monitoring software like RemoteDesk.

Having Employee Monitoring Software Can help in

  • Bringing clarity and compliance in different work roles
  • Enhance communication across the organization
  • A fair evaluation of productivity
  • Enforce data and cyber security compliance
  • Prevent cyber threats

Loose Toxicity to Choose Growth: Conclusion

Remote work or a hybrid work-from-home environment benefits employees and employers. But at the same time, it is imperative to identify and address the issues. Toxic work habits or environment is one of the critical issues on hand for employers. As employees are already away from the workplace, motivating them, including and appreciating their efforts, is essential. While working in remote environments, employers should remember that emotional and professional well-being critical factors. The remote employee monitoring solution is not just a tool to ensure compliance but also can come in handy to bring transparency and communication in the toxic remote workplace.

RemoteDesk delivers employee productivity, compliance enforcement, while providing clear transparency, accountability & risk management.