Think of a beautiful lake…. Clear & pristine.

Water so clear you can see the bottom of the lake floor and all the fish swimming around… You can see the rocks below….

Before you start to fish for tonight’s dinner you reach down, cup your hands and drink in the beautiful mountain spring water…

But then you look up and across the lake someone is dumping gallons of raw sewage into it – and now, it’s polluted, fouled.

Sure, maybe you’d still go boating on it (after all, it’s not 3 Mile Island).

But it would still bother you knowing all that toxic waste is in the water and you’d be nervous about being in it.

Now imagine if you had to rely on the fish from that lake for your food, or the water to drink. You might not die, but you’d probably get pretty sick.   And suddenly that lake isn’t such a great place anymore.

Like pollution, inappropriate and disrespectful workplace conduct fouls a work environment.  This unhealthy work environment leads to physical and mental illnesses like high blood pressure, headaches, depression, heart disease, cancer and the list goes on.

Literally, an abusive and disrespectful workplace can make you SICK!

All this thwarts the possibility of a productive – and prosperous – workplace.

Are any of your employees engaging in these types of behavior?

  • Having a condescending attitude toward others;
  • Gossiping
  • Shaming others for asking to have their boundaries respected;
  • Showing up late to meetings;
  • Looking at your cell phones during meetings or conversations
  • Breaking the confidentiality of private information
  • Demeaning or yelling at a subordinate in front of others
  • Not giving clear directions to employees
  • Not giving credit to employees for work well done
  • Not accepting responsibility for your errors/mistakes.
  • Using profanity;
  • Discussing private body parts (yours or someone else’s);
  • Discussing private sex or dating life, or that of someone else;
  • Violating someone’s physical space boundary Asking probing, personal, questions about a co-worker’s private life;
  • Undermining or blaming staff or a colleague;
  • Taking credit for someone else’s work
  • Trying to convert others to your political or religious beliefs
  • Opening someone else’s mail
  • Telling offensive jokes
  • Not pulling your own weight

Believe it or not the above examples may be rude, insensitive or grossly inappropriate but most of the time it’s not ILLEGAL because it isn’t happening because of someone’s race, or age or gender or any of the other protected classes.

The boss yells at everyone, men and women alike. The coworker gossips about everyone – black and white. In other words they work for, or with, Equal Opportunity JERKS.

But just because it’s not illegal it doesn’t mean it should go on. Because toxic work environments are NOT productive and prosperous ones.  And they lead to less commitment by employees, high turnover, and possibly expensive lawsuits.

The Respectful Workplace has programs to help companies increase employee awareness of their behaviors and the impact upon their co-workers and in so doing hopefully elevate everyone’s emotional intelligence and by doing so eliminate these, and other, toxic behaviors and elevate the culture of the workplace.  And hopefully minimize the risk of future lawsuits by employees.

Discover the right workplace training for you and your business today, with a FREE workplace consultation when you CLICK HERE to contact me.

#ToxicBehavior #HRTraining #RespectfulWorkplace #EmploymentLaw