5 Major Red Flags that Indicate a Toxic Work Environment
By: Thom Gallet
Tags: Anxiety, Work, Life Lessons, Professional Development, Mental Health

1. Meetings Take Up 70% of Everyone’s Day

When people are uncertain about timelines or tasks, they usually will want to get it all figured out, face-to-face. This is fine, as some meetings throughout the week can be a healthy way to socialize and stay inspired by your coworkers.

It’s when these meetings relentlessly occupy your calendar that they now become an issue.

If meetings dominate your day, it’s because your workplace isn’t building effective accountability measures and timelines to get tasks done. This can lead to everyone feeling overwhelmed; thus, ongoing meetings and check-ins become the go-to solution.

However, meetings are not a permanent solution to this problem, and in the long-run, they can cause major time management issues.

Be wary if coworkers consistently feel the need to be talking about tasks instead of actually doing them. It usually means project management in your workplace is non-existent.

2. Trivial Workplace Assets are Dedicated to Human Resources

When I was going through college, I always thought human resources was an overrated and unnecessary part of an organization. I reasoned that since the workplace consisted of mature adults, they shouldn’t need people dedicated to solving workplace problems.

I was completely and utterly wrong.

It turns out adults deal with drama about as well as college students do. Without the proper resources dedicated to solving these issues, this drama can fester.

Toxic workplaces will neglect internal workplace drama. Therefore, human resources will often be an afterthought in their company structure.

If your work does not have a department dedicated to resolving workplace conflicts, there are probably some major issues that need attention. It’s only a matter of time until you become part of these issues.

3. Upper Management Calls the Workplace One Big Family

My first professional experience taught me a lot about the toxicity of workplace family culture.

For one, it’s manipulative.

If you believe you’re part of a family, you will make significant sacrifices for your work, like working overtime or never taking a vacation. These sacrifices will not be reciprocated, and if push comes to shove, understand that your work will favor the bottom line over your career security.

Two, it can impact your mental health.

I can’t emphasize enough how much you should avoid having your life depend on your career. If you treat your job as your family, it means your relationships, your happiness, and your stability will all rely on you maintaining your 9–5.

This reliance means that if you’re laid off or fired, it could potentially ruin all parts of your life. So avoid family culture workplaces at all costs, and make sure you’re building an independent life outside of your professional one.

4. You are Told You Have to Wear Many Different Responsibility Hats

When someone says you have to wear many different hats in an organization, it’s code for: no one knows their true responsibilities because we just do tasks as they arise.

An organization that lacks structure will randomly assign tasks to people who have the capacity to take them on instead of leaving departments accountable for their own deliverables.

This method of task delegation leaves people working on tasks without proper expertise to do an efficient job, causing a lot of unnecessary stress. It also means that efficiency is just going to be rewarded with more work.

When you always feel like there is work to be done, you will always feel stressed and overwhelmed, paralyzing your work ethic and causing major strain on your wellbeing.

5. You’re Job is Leaving You Unfulfilled

I work in the non-profit sector, so I understand there is more to work than just a paycheck. It’s okay to have different incentives for your 9–5, but it’s always important that these incentives feel as though they are being fulfilled.

I’m strongly motivated by the feeling of making a difference. As long as I’m making someone’s life better, I’m happy.

In many non-profits, this feeling gets lost through bureaucracy, mad scrambles for funding, and the attention economy’s competitive nature. This leaves people unfulfilled, wondering why they took this career path in the first place.

If coworkers tell you the work isn’t about the money, that’s not an initial red flag, as long as they can confidently tell you the job is fulfilling in other aspects.

Be it monetary or something else, make sure you find fulfillment in what you do because the second you lose that motivation, your incentive evaporates. This can lead to your work being the root of existential anxiety, which is not something a workplace should foster.