Companies are forced to contend with a wide array of internal challenges on a day-to-day basis. One common challenge facing businesses is the risk of a negative workplace mood – the overall attitude, enthusiasm, and mindset of a company’s staff, both collectively and as individual employees.
A pessimistic outlook from any number of your team members can contribute to a few obvious downfalls, such as low office morale or a dip in productivity. But statistics on workplace negativity suggest that there are also some very real costs associated with this type of office environment.
The scope and severity of workplace negativity shouldn’t be understated. Statistics show it has been proven to hinder creativity, communication, teamwork, motivation, and innovation. That’s because negativity is an internal issue that also creates external implications. It can have a ripple effect outward, in turn impacting the profitability of your company.
Here are three hard facts on the cost of negativity in the workplace and the toll it can take on your business:
When it comes to workplace negativity, the data is clear: failing to foster a positive work environment will ultimately result in an unwelcome hit to your bottom line – but reducing negativity in the workplace can bring massive business benefits.
It’s of paramount importance that companies get ahead of negativity and nip it in the bud. But there’s a silver lining: there are some effective ways that your company can work to curb negativity. Read on to learn more about how you can:
Building a positive work culture can seem like a daunting task, especially for companies already facing issues with negativity and toxicity. And the reality is that creating a culture of positivity won’t necessarily come easy - although, as they say, nothing good does. But reducing negativity in the workplace isn’t just beneficial to organizations tha thave struggles with workplace mood. Creating an even more positive work environment can benefit every business – whether you’re taking it from bad to good, or from good to great.
Creating a true and effective culture of positivity requires more than a policy of dishing out generic compliments or telling people they do great work at their annual reviews. For a culture of positivity to truly take root, it has to be ingrained in your company and live at the core of everything you do. Here are a few great ways to implement it into your business.
Start from the Top Down - Positivity should start at the top and trickle down. It’s important for your company’s leadership team to lead by example. These are three things leaders can do to reduce negativity in the workplace:
1. Avoid Isolationism - Being isolated from your team causes toxicity and negativity in a number of ways. The first is that, if you aren’t truly in touch with your employees, it’s impossible for you to have a clear gauge of the workplace mood in your company, in turn making it harder to improve. The second is that, by being inaccessible to your team, you may actually be causing inefficiency and frustration. Set aside designated meeting times and check-ins with your team and make sure you respond to their emails and phone calls. It’s OK to limit your availability – you have a job to do as well! – but ensure they have enough access to you that they are equipped for success and they don’t have to spend time waiting on you.
2. Understand You’re Not Infallible – Toxic managers believe they are never wrong and take the mindset that whatever they say goes. To create a positive workplace mood, it’s important for leaders to implement two-way communication and participate in open dialogue with employees. Rather than just saying “no,” take the time to explain your rationale and why you’re giving your response. On the other hand, keep an open mind to new ideas, embrace them when they work, and let your employee know when they’ve offered valuable insight.
If you’d like to learn more about how to hone your communication skills, check out our Clear Communication training and development program which can help you and your team develop better verbal communication, learn non-verbal communication signals, and communicate more effectively during conflicts and decisions.
3. Don’t Play Favorites - There are few things more frustrating to employees than a boss who plays favorites. While everyone has people they mesh with better, it’s important to ensure you’re remaining unbiased and objective rather than offering undue attention, assigning the most interesting projects, or giving promotions based on who you get along with better. Look at your team objectively, understand their strengths, and work with them accordingly (more to come on this!).
Outback Team Building and Training offers a wide array of leadership training and development and coaching and consulting programs that help leaders sharpen their skills and become even more effective and impactful.
Activate a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy - A recent study by Cone Communications found that a staggering 88% of millennials say their job is more fulfilling when they are provided opportunities to make a positive impact on social and environmental issues and 83% would be more loyal to a company that supported them in doing so. This makes CSR especially important when you consider that millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce. Luckily, there are some cheap, easy, and effective ways you can implement CSR at your office:For more corporate CSR ideas, check out our blog post: 15 Creative Volunteer Ideas to Help Your Team Make a Difference. At Outback Team Building and Training, we also offer six philanthropic team building activities designed to reduce workplace negativity and create a positive workplace mood by bringing teams together to collaborate, have fun, and do some good in their community.
Share Positivity – Creating a positive working environment requires you to secure your team’s buy-in. At the end of the day, they will ultimately benefit from your business working to reduce workplace negativity, but they also need to be a main driving factor in making it happen. Here are a few ways to encourage your team to share positivity:
Generally, companies are comprised of a diverse array of team members – people with unique backgrounds, personalities, perspectives, experience, and expertise. This diversity is often among a company’s greatest strengths. It’s what allows them to remain innovative, creative, and on a forward trajectory. But with diverse personalities also comes the inevitable reality that not all team members will see eye to eye at all times. This can result in conflicts which can ultimately be detrimental to a company’s success.
But by understanding the individuals within a company – their similarities, differences, motivators, irritants – you can predict how people will interact with one another and strategically build the most successful and thriving teams possible. And in doing so, you’ll be able to reduce workplace negativity by producing happier, more positive employees and a more positive workplace mood. Here are three tips to help you do understand your team and play to their strengths.
1. Get to Know Your Team on a Deeper Level – It goes without saying that you know the members of your team. But the real question is: do you really know the members of your team? There’s a difference. It’s one thing to know their name, their work experience, and a few of their hobbies. But in order to build a team that’s going to be successful and create a positive workplace mood, you need to get a deeper psychological and emotional understanding of the individual members of your team.
There are a number of tools available to help you do this, including D.I.S.C assessments, StrengthsFinder, Insights Discovery, and Myers-Briggs tests. Each of these assessments will provide insights into peoples’ strengths, weaknesses, personalities, ways of thinking, and communications styles, as well as context as to how they relate and interact with others.
At Outback Team Building and Training, we utilize D.I.S.C. assessments in two ways. The first is in our interview process. We use assessments in order to get to know potential employees and the potential role is going to be a great fit for them and vice versa. By putting people into roles that play to their strengths, we know they’ll be successful and, in turn, happier at work. The second way we use D.I.S.C. assessments is with our current employees. It gives us great insight into how to adapt to varying styles within our team, in consideration of interpersonal communication, as well as in approaching the orientation and training of new employees. We also use D.I.S.C. as a way of understanding which profile traits may translate to success in certain aspects of our roles so that we can better leverage strength areas and focus attention in certain areas that might not be a natural strength. This allows us to assist with coaching, training, and skill development. D.I.S.C. has proven to be a very helpful source of information in assisting with our hiring and managing of one of our most valued assets: our people!
To learn more about the D.I.S.C. assessment and its applications, check out our blog post: A Practical Guide to Using D.I.S.C. in the Workplace.
2. Celebrate and Leverage Team Member Strengths – Once you’ve gotten to know your employees on a deeper level, you’ll be better equipped to leverage their strengths. And this is key because, according to research by Gallup, employees who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged and happier in their jobs.
Facebook, one of North America’s most sought-after employers, is a big believer in being a strength-based organization. It consistently seeks to identify what employees are truly passionate about and to put them into roles that align with those passions. And while Facebook is a multi-billion-dollar organization, the idea of building strength-based teams is not a multi-billion-dollar initiative. A great way to do this is to put employees with differing strengths on the same team – for example, mixing up creative people with those who are more analytical; action-oriented and fast-paced people with those who are more meticulous and detail-oriented; calm and steady people with those who are more decisive and intense. In this way, diversity breeds dividends.
3. Bring Colleagues Together Outside the Context of Work – From Monday to Friday, the majority of the conversation between the members of your team is work-related. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. On a fundamental level, every employee at a company is there to work.
But it’s also crucial to consider the value of knowing each other on a more personal level – and the importance of facilitating time where colleagues can get to know each other outside of the context of work. Doing so helps inspire collaboration, encourages openness and communication, and grows empathy between teammates. Personal relationships remind employees that their colleagues are people with passions, skills, and a life outside of work.
Whether it’s monthly potlucks, creating a book club that meets biweekly, or holding weekly Friday get-togethers with snacks and cocktails, the key is finding engaging activities where colleagues can put their work away, get together, and get to know each other on a new level. Quarterly team building activities and annual or bi-annual company retreats are also a great way to get people together outside of the office in order to socialize as well as to learn new skills. At Outback Team Building and Training, we host annual company retreats with our entire team. And to keep things fresh and exciting, we choose a new destination and a new set of activities every year.
To learn more about how to throw amazing team building events and company retreats, check out our downloadable white paper, The Ultimate Guide to Team Building, and our free online guide, Everything You Need to Know About Planning the Ultimate Company Retreat.
This might seem counter-intuitive, but a little bit of negativity can go a long way towards reducing workplace negativity, building a more positive workplace mood, and, ultimately, a more successful business. It can actually be a catalyst for positive change. But there’s a caveat. This can only happen if the negativity is channeled correctly and then actioned effectively. It’s a delicate balance, but there are a few ways you can encourage healthy negativity in the workplace as opposed to unhealthy negativity.
Master Conflict Resolution – In any workplace, conflict is simply inevitable. There will always be disagreements and differences of opinion. And as much as might try, you can’t avoid it – and you shouldn’t. When it comes to conflict resolution, there are a few basic tactics you can implement:
To become a master of conflict resolution, check out our Conflict Resolution training and development program which will help you manage and resolve conflicts with colleagues in a more productive and positive way. Our program focuses on changing the way you treat workplace conflicts, learning the value of taking accountability, recognizing common conflict behaviors, using the conflict initiation model, and finding new ways to manage conflicts.
Offer Productive Feedback – According to a study by PwC, most employees want feedback, but many feel they don’t get it. In fact, 60% of people surveyed say they would like feedback on a daily or weekly basis – a number which increases to 72% for employees under age 30. More than 75% of people believe feedback is valuable, and a staggering 92% agree that negative feedback is effective at improving performance – when delivered appropriately. Yet less than 30% of people say they receive adequate feedback. The numbers don’t lie – providing productive feedback is integral to a happier, more positive, and more productive team. And luckily, giving feedback doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few tips to help you do it.
To learn more about how to give productive and actionable feedback, check out our Performance Management Fundamentals program which will teach you the performance management cycle, how to build performance-driven relationships, how to coach colleagues more effectively, and how to measure performance more accurately.
Encourage Open Communication – We know that negativity can be productive when channeled correctly, so it’s important to foster and encourage open communication in the workplace. This way, team members will feel empowered to bring forward challenges, issues, and opportunities for improvement – without feeling like they’re risking getting in trouble. Here’s how you can do it:
For more information about how Outback Team Building and Training’s team building, training and development, and coaching and consulting programs can help create a more positive workplace environment at your company, just reach out to our Employee Engagement Consultants.