What is a toxic workplace?

By now, almost everybody should be back in the office. Not a few have to bid farewell to sweet, sweet days of working from home after countries all over returned to "business as usual".

Many bosses, however, would probably be puzzled about their employees' reluctance to come back to the office. Well, apart from the growing realisation about the importance of work-life balance, some employees might be dreading the return to a toxic workplace. And we're not talking about hazardous chemicals or venomous creatures.

A toxic work environment is basically Game of Thrones at the office. Toxic people tend to use unethical means to manipulate and annoy others for the sake of gaining (more) money, power or status while obfuscating their shortcomings and dodgy power-plays. Often, such people put themselves first rather than their company, pursuing their own personal agendas.

Some aspects of a toxic workplace include:

• Micromanaging superiors who breathe down their subordinates' necks, unable to trust them to do their jobs properly, and constantly nitpick and harp on their mistakes. This instils a climate of fear among employees and doubts over their capabilities.
• Malicious office gossip tends to be the norm in toxic workplaces, fuelling backstabbing, rumour-mongering and bullying among employees. In such a climate, there is no trust, camaraderie and healthy relationships among employees.
• Roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined. Forcing employees to do tasks out of their job scopes can lead to conflict over responsibilities and accusations of "not staying in your lane", not to mention taking employees' away from their actual duties.
• Expected to work late, respond to emails and office-related chat group messages after hours, and work weekends? Once in a while is fine, but if this goes on in long stretches, one ends up being unable to "switch off" after work.

When people constantly have their guard up, are embroiled in office politics and intrigue, and have to deal with things like bullying, harassment and even sabotage, they have little energy and focus left for their actual duties.

Little gets done in a toxic workplace, and affected employees will feel demoralised, undervalued, and unappreciated, leading to burnout and high staff turnover. You don't need mountains of studies to tell you this is bad for business, not to mention your well-being.

If your superiors don't nip all these problems in the bud, you'll have to find ways to leave or, if you're unable to, learn how to minimise the damage from workplace toxicity. The contagion spreads; you are more likely to become a toxic employee the longer you remain in a toxic workplace.

So how to avoid that fate? How does one navigate a toxic workplace? And if you've managed to jump ship, how to tell whether your next workplace is toxic?

Over the next several posts, we will be sharing some pointers gleaned from The Asshole Survival Guide by Robert I. Sutton, an organisational psychologist and Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University who studies leadership, innovation, organisational change, and workplace dynamics.

Sutton had written two other books. The No Asshole Rule is touted as a guide for working with and surviving all manner of assholes at work, while the follow-up, Good Boss, Bad Boss, highlights actions by the best bosses and the mistakes of the worst to guide readers to become "the great boss most people dream of having."

Nobody deserves to earn a living in toxic work environments, but changing a workplace's culture can be difficult, if downright impossible. So we have to take control and do what we can. If yours is such a workplace, start now.