Staff Culture: What Is A Toxic Work Environment?
On average, people spend 30% of their entire life at work, and some may consider the office their second home. This personal relationship between employees and the office means that they probably have opinions about their current and future workspace.
Assessing Your Staff Culture
One of the best ways to show your employees that you value their opinions is to ask for feedback through a survey. Conduct a staff survey to understand employee views of current and future workspace. Compile the results and see how you can incorporate employee suggestions into your game plan.
You may learn that your employees want more space to collaborate or more privacy for meetings. When you ask for feedback, you create a sense of community that nurtures employees and encourages them to produce their best work.
What If Your Survey Results Are Negative?
There’s not a single business leader out there who wants to hear negative feedback about their organization. Especially when it comes to negative staff culture. Toxic work environments do not encourage employees to stay at jobs long. In fact, 42% of US workers have left a job due to an overly stressful environment.
10 Signs of a Toxic Work Environment by Forbes
- Lack of communication, smiling, joking, and reinforcement in the office.
- Levels in the hierarchy are more important than the mission.
- Rules and policies intimidate employees so that they are afraid of making mistakes.
- One-way communication between managers and employees without give-and-take.
- HR knows employees are unhappy but does not take action to resolve the issues.
- More focus on infractions and demerits than on extraordinary effort or triumphs.
- Employees who are unable to speak up when presented with impossible goals.
- An informal grapevine of information, aka gossiping, instead of official company communication.
- Employees have little to no latitude in performing their jobs.
- Fear is palpable. Doors slam, whispered conversations in stairwells, and lots of turnovers.
As a business leader, it is possible to resolve negative staff culture. Especially if you survey your employees and ask for honest feedback, when leaders take ownership of internal conflicts, they can rebuild company culture and retain talent.
Determining When to Ask for Feedback
You should assess staff culture about two years or 25 months before your lease expires. By gathering staff feedback, you can address concerns or desires before you build a new space. Enjoy a fresh start in your new workspace and leave any toxic behaviors in the past.
If you need any help setting up a staff survey, speak with one of our workplace strategists. Our experts can provide examples of projects that have united teams. We can provide guidance so that the surveys provide actionable insights.
Asking for staff and company feedback is an important part of the Formcraft Process. By incorporating staff feedback into the office design and layout, employees will feel like they contributed to the workspace. They will feel more connected and at home in the office.
At Formcraft, our design projects begin with you and your people. Every company culture is unique, and our designers take time to get to know it. By understanding how your employees work and assessing staff culture, our designers can include design elements that will satisfy the whole team.
