If you’ve noticed negativity into your workplace, you’re likely feeling stressed about how to address it as quickly as possible.
Don’t be fooled – building and maintaining a healthy company culture takes time.
But if toxic behaviours are materialising within your teams, there are proven methods and actions you can take, to resolve issues as quickly as possible.
Employees quitting their jobs because of poor company culture costs the UK economy £23.6 billion per year. 
Yep – you probably guessed it. Culture starts with your leaders.
Their behaviour has an enormous impact on shaping culture – and sets the tone for the entire organisation.
A report by MIT Sloan Management Review found that to address a toxic workplace, organisations need to focus on three critical drivers – the number one thing being leadership.
The report establishes that “Leaders cannot improve corporate culture unless they are willing to hold themselves and their colleagues accountable for toxic behaviour.” (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2022).
Your leaders must demonstrate values like respect, transparency, and accountability in their daily actions. Including:
If toxicity is an issue in your workplace, one of the best things you can do is give people a safe space to speak-up.
The causes of a toxic environment are often difficult to talk about – and people may struggle to come forward and discuss their challenges or experiences.
By removing this pressure with an anonymised channel for communication, you will give your employees a way to come forward more comfortably, and be able to assist with their concerns quickly, and before they escalate.
Click below to read more about how Stribe’s anonymous messenger tool has helped workplaces.
The anonymous messenger feature gets used the most here. It’s so great because someone can message in when they want to speak up, without needing to wait for a survey. It’s really captured all those smaller pieces of feedback that can be forgotten about between surveys.
When it comes to improving the experiences of your team and helping with their challenges, it’s quite straightforward – you can assume what they need, or you can ask.
Sometimes we simply forget the easiest thing we can do is ask. It’s the more human approach, after all.
That’s why employee surveys are so important. Especially if your organisation is experiencing a period of bad culture.
Take a look at your options (there’s plenty of survey platform options out there) and find a best fit for your company.
Mind UK reports that 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England.
It’s high time that organisations start taking mental health and wellbeing more seriously. Without happy and healthy employees, everything else suffers.
Putting your people first starts with policy. Start from the top with meaningful policies that cover stress and mental health.
At a minimum your wellbeing policies should include:
After sharing your commitment with employees, you can move onto tangible action by conducting wellbeing surveys, establishing referral pathways and holding wellbeing training for leaders and teams at work.
Unfortunately sometimes it’s too little too late – and you’ll lose good employees because of bad culture.
But exit surveys are a golden opportunity to ask exiting employees for frank conversations about where the organisation went wrong and understand where you can improve.
What’s great about exit surveys is they can also provide your team members with much-needed closure, and help both parties move on amicably.
Really good exit interview questions don’t beat around the bush – they encourage open and honest conversations, even when the answers are confronting or hard to hear, so you can address the toxicity head-on and prevent more employees leaving.
People are at the heart of everything, no matter what business you’re in. Improving culture starts with listening – listening starts with surveys.
Learn how you can start truly investing in your people, press play on our interactive demo to see Stribe for yourself.
