A toxic work culture is the number one reason people quit, and it’s 10 times more important than pay, according to a study published in the MIT Sloan Management Review. But what exactly does a toxic workplace look like?
Researchers analyzed 1.4 million Glassdoor reviews from nearly 600 major US companies and found employees describing toxic workplaces in five main ways: non-inclusive, disrespectful, unethical, callous and abusive.
“Employees can have hundreds of different reviews of their organization that they discuss on Glassdoor,” from IT issues to distraught management, says analytics researcher Charlie Sull. “Most won’t have a strong emotional effect on their rating of the organization, but we look at a small sample of topics that have a big effect on a company’s Glassdoor rating.” These same factors can cost companies billions of dollars in employee layoffs.
For their analysis, the researchers focused on repeated topics in employee reviews that were correlated with both a negative score on the company culture score and high attrition rates from April to September. 2021.
“It’s not just an inconvenience,” Sull says. “These are the things that will cause an emotional reaction that will make you dread going to work.”
What a toxic work culture looks like
Based on anonymous reviews, employees say the following five descriptions are classic elements of a toxic work culture:
- Not included, where members of all genders, races, sexual identities and orientations, disabilities, and ages do not feel treated fairly, welcomed, or included in key decisions. The researchers warn that while these identity-related topics may not apply to all employees, they have a significant impact. For example, “respect” is mentioned 30 times more frequently in employee reviews than LGBTQ equity, but both topics have the same impact on an employee’s view of culture when addressed negatively in an evaluation.
- Disrespectful, or lacking in consideration, courtesy and dignity for others. The researchers’ previous work found that respect, or lack thereof, was the strongest predictor of how employees as a whole rated corporate culture.
- Unethical behaviorincluding descriptions of the organization being dishonest or not complying with regulations, including Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, which protect worker safety, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects information sensitive patients.
- Back-stabbing or cutting-throat behavior and ruthless competition. Nearly 10% of employee reviews noted poor collaboration at their company, which didn’t have a huge impact on revenue. But what correlated with low culture scores and higher turnover was employees saying their office was “Darwinian” or that co-workers “often stabbed each other in the back.”
- Mismanagement, including bullying, harassment and hostility. Nearly a third of Glassdoor reviews are about management in general, but 0.8% described their manager as abusive.
Toxic workplaces are a billion dollar problem
When people quit because of a toxic work culture, it’s as much a human cost as it is a business one.
Employees who work in toxic environments have higher levels of stress, burnout, mental health issues, and other stressors that can lead to poor physical health.
the Human Resource Management Company estimates that one in five employees quit their job at some point in their career due to a toxic culture, which was costing companies more than $44 billion a year before the big quit.
Disengaged, job-seeking employees mean decreased productivity, and replacing an employee can cost up to twice the employee’s annual salary. according to Gallup.
As the business world focuses on retention and hiring these days, MIT analysis researchers say organizations need to build and model a supportive and inclusive culture as the pandemic reshapes our way of working.
They also recommend that leaders break down how people rate company culture, such as by geographic region, department, job title, or seniority level, to find “microcultures” where employees feel psychologically insecure. and supported. “Even in relatively healthy organizational cultures, even a small proportion of people who describe the culture as toxic can lead to attrition,” Sull says.
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