Ways to Detoxify the Culture in the Workplace
The workplace is where employees stay for up to 8 hours a day. It is considered their second home. Therefore, it needs to be a place conducive for work, or for living in general. Unfortunately, not all workplaces are good enough. Some places are too toxic for several reasons.
If you are a business owner or manager, you can set the tone in the workplace. It is your responsibility to make sure that the place is detoxified so that employees can work well again, and go back to regular conduct of business. Here are some tips to detoxify the place, and allow everyone to feel comfortable with their working environment.
Define the vision, and let everyone know it
Everyone in the team must have a shared vision. You need to know where the business stands, and where it is heading. They can easily understand what is going on, and how their individual responsibilities can help grow the business. If you are visionless as a leader, you can’t expect everyone to be inspired to help out. They won’t even care about the business, and this is where a toxic work environment begins.
Talk directly to the employees
Another reason why the workplace becomes toxic for many is because they don’t know what to do to change it. They feel so little to do something about the situation. They understand that they are powerless to effect change. Therefore, engaging with them directly allows them to speak with you about how they feel, and what they want to happen to change the working environment. Open your doors to them so you will immediately know what needs to change.
Set clear rules
The grey areas in a workplace environment are really dangerous. When it is unclear to employees what they can and can’t do, it is easy to go to the negative side. Therefore, you need to have clear sets of rules on what they are allowed, and not allowed to do. Clarify the rules of workplace harassment. Let them know how they can raise complaints. If everyone understands the rules, they will also understand the consequences of breaking them.
Call for an emergency meeting
If the situation is really bad, you need to step up and change everything. Call for a meeting involving employees concerned, or everyone in the team if necessary. The problem needs to be addressed as soon as possible. You can’t let it go on since the aggrieved party might feel bad, and even decide to leave the company. Of course, you don’t want to reach this point, but if there is really no other choice left, you have to take an immediate action.
If your employees are asked about how they describe your business, toxic should not be on that list. There are things you can do to prevent a toxic workplace from flourishing. After all, you are a part of that workplace, so you don’t want it to be negative for you, and for everyone else.
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2nd image from https://www.track5media.com/tag/digital-detox/
