Toxic Negativity and Deadly Gossip

 

We all know that negative work culture is detrimental to performance and morale. That’s just the beginning.  
 
Productivity, customer relations, and team spirit all suffer when employees lose their enthusiasm to perform. And here’s where it shows up in your business— lower bottom line profitability and higher employee turnover. So, what circumstances caused team members to leave a job? Here are the numbers and they’re quite sobering… 
 
48% of your employees, or roughly half of respondents, want to leave if they must work closely with someone who is negative and negatively impacts the energy of the group. The same 48% are ready to go if they must work closely with someone who frequently blames other people for their underperformance, and that same 48% will gladly leave if forced to work closely with someone with a bad attitude. Most will also be upset if they have to deal with someone who does not take responsibility for their actions or is difficult to get along with.  

What does this tell you? Unhealthy work cultures are discouraging at best and harmful or toxic at worst. And there’s one element that will make an unhealthy work culture even worse — that terrible insidious gossip. It is perhaps the most dangerous behavior that contributes to an unsafe and interesting culture. So, what would happen if we could eradicate it?  

Here are the top five answers for performance from our research: 

First, less employee stress and anxiety. 
Second, higher coworker trust, connection and inclusion. 
Third, higher morale and more expressed joy.  
Fourth, higher employee competence.  
Fifth, improved business performance.  
 
These all sound pretty good to me. Employees are more likely than managers and executives to say that the biggest outcome of eradicating gossip would be less employee stress anxiety. Executives are more inclined to consider business performance saying that performance would improve. Guess what? These are the two sides of the same coin.  
 
Gen X believes that an absence of gossip will result in higher morale and more expressed joy. Gen Z believes that people who influence is tied to gossip would lose that influence and less disciplinary action would be needed. When gossip is gone, everyone wins. Up shot, work on eradicating negativity and can gossip.  
 
Catch the next video where you learn about what your executives demand to stay with you and contrast that with the unique paradoxical needs of Gen Zer’s that may save you a ton of aggravation. Stay tuned. 


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