Six Not-So-Subtle Signs of a Toxic Workplace
Recognising the red flags hidden in plain sight
Imagine this! You are one of the senior-most resources of the team. You are well-liked by the team. Your junior team members look up to you. Your boss (however he is) appreciates the work that you do for the team and is pushing you for the promotion.
How can this be a toxic workplace, you ask? Let me tell you. If any of the following sounds like something that happened to you, then that, my friend, is a sign that your workplace is toxic.
1. Overwhelming workload masked as an opportunity for growth
A cartload of work gets added to you only, while your manager says you are the only one who can help.
You are brilliant, bright and capable, which makes all the work in your niche get added to you. Your manager makes you feel special as you carry the extra load. You are requested to ask for help if needed, but that help never comes even though you ask for it, because your manager is too busy or limited in his skills to help with the task adequately.
So you toil and burn the weekend lamp to get it done. No wonder it impacts the quality of the task and your well-being.
2. Unrecognised team efforts by higher management
The work done by the team is highly unstructured and not recognised by higher management.
Your team appreciates the work you do. However, the senior management is unaware of your responsibilities within the organisation. Possibly, one or two people are aware, with whom you have directly interacted, but there is some amount of black-holeness with respect to who is doing what and achieving what of the organisational goals.
While in some cases it is not intentional (possibly your department head does not get enough airtime with upper management), in other cases it may be intentional to keep individual power and team member authority in check.
Also, many times, you internally question the work that you are doing. Does it align with the organisation’s goals and is it required?
3. Invasion of personal time
You are requested to be available on calls/emails during your time off.
You want to work from home today?
Okay!
You are unwell and want to take leave?
Okay, Instead of taking leave, can you work from home?
You want to take personal time off?
Sure! But please be available on calls and emails should we need your help.
Time off is time off for a reason, and if a workplace doesn’t let you be off from work even on your paid leave, it’s toxic.
4. Responsibility without authority
You are responsible for getting work done by your junior colleagues without having any line of reporting.
Your team is supportive with all members working collaboratively. However, your manager wants you to get the work done from some of your junior colleagues without a formal organisational structure. Moreover, it can be masked under you seeking help from your colleagues to manage your extra workload. The real reason can be that your manager doesn’t want to deal with so many direct reports.
The result is that you cannot exert authority even while responsible for project delivery. Your colleagues listen to you and work but do not take you seriously regarding deadlines or quality of work as you are not their boss.
5. Blurred lines of responsibility
The team is understaffed and overworked without clear lines of responsibilities.
Unclear and convoluted team structures, with multiple people responsible for the same project delivery and outcome while working on multitude other deadlines. Nobody is clear on their responsibilities or dedicates adequate bandwidth to a single task. Anyone, anywhere, is questioned on any project, leading to blurred responsibility instead of shared responsibility and exhaustion due to the amount of multitasking required.
6. You are good, but not good enough
Your manager appreciates you enough but lets you know, in as many words, that you need to amp up.
You are doing a fantastic job, but you need to do this, this, this, this, and that too! You also need to groom people in your team, network and build relationships with other key stakeholders, and take up new initiatives apart from the ever-growing day-to-day work that you are doing.
So in short, whatever you are doing is never enough!
I hope to write a follow-up article on how to cope with such a workplace, especially if you can’t quit your job.
Check out my other stories here.
