Organizational Wellness

12 Signs of a Toxic Work Environment — And What To Do About It

Last Updated Jan 14, 2025

Time to read: 14 minutes

It’s Friday night, and instead of relaxing with friends, your finance team is stuck in the office finishing up a last-minute project. Again.

While the occasional late night is normal, constant pressure, stress, and dissatisfaction might signal a deeper issue—your workplace could be toxic. A toxic work environment drains employee wellbeing, slashes productivity, and leads to higher turnover.

But as an HR leader, you can help transform this environment and create a thriving, positive culture! Discover the 11 signs of a toxic work environment and actionable strategies to turn things around.

[FREE DOWNLOAD] Wellhub's Return on Wellbeing 2024: How much will wellbeing save your company?

What Is a Toxic Work Environment?

A toxic work environment is one where negative behaviors and attitudes are so ingrained in the company culture that employees feel stuck and want to leave. In these kinds of workplaces, bad behaviors are often rewarded, and those who are uncomfortable can find it difficult to speak up without consequences. In addition, these kinds of workplaces usually have a lack of psychological safety, and many people feel unable to show up as themselves — which lowers morale.

These are four attributes that are common in a harmful culture:

Negativity. Whether it’s constant complaining or nonstop criticism, a culture that makes employees feel bad about themselves can be toxic.
Poor communication. When communication is inconsistent or unclear, employees tend to feel disconnected and unsupported. Morale suffers without regular, transparent updates and open channels for constructive feedback.
Lack of support. If your people are regularly given projects they don’t have the resources to complete, that’s a problem. Sometimes a lack of support also manifests as a poor benefits package and a lack of wellness resources, something HR can help mitigate.
Distrust. When management doesn’t trust people to do the work right, your employees could feel slighted. And when the workers also don’t just their leaders, you could have an environment that breeds turnover.

Impact of a Toxic Work Environment

Unfortunately, 19% of U.S. workers report having a toxic culture. Having that type of culture can have a myriad of negative consequences for workers and employees like.

On Employees:

Increased stress and anxiety. Employees who have a bad workplace environment are three times more likely to experience harm to their mental health, like chronic stress and anxiety.
Decreased job satisfaction and engagement. When someone doesn’t have any good days at work, they’re going to grow to dislike their job. On top of that, the negative feelings about work can spread and lower engagement throughout the entire organization.
Physical health problems. A negative culture can lead to chronic stress and ultimately physical health issues, like high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Burnout and turnover. Trying to produce high-quality work in a draining environment can lead to burnout. On top of that, a toxic culture is greater than 10 times more powerful than compensation in predicting levels of turnover because when your workers are feeling worn out, they’re likely to leave.

On the Organization:

Decreased productivity and profitability. Ninety percent of people say their workplace environmental wellbeing impacts their productivity, so a toxic environment can decrease their output. Ultimately, that could affect your profits, especially if it’s a widespread organizational problem.
Damage to reputation and brand. If a company isn’t a good place to work, word will likely spread. Potential applicants may be wary of applying, and customers could choose to do business elsewhere — at a company that treats its workers well.
Legal and financial risks. If a toxic culture includes harassment or discrimination, an organization could find itself in legal trouble, with lawsuits or potential regulation penalties.

These are serious implications, so it’s important to know if this is a problem plaguing your company.

12 Signs of a Toxic Work Environment [QUIZ]

To find out if your organization has a problem with this, take this quick self-assessment to see how many signs of a toxic work environment apply to your organization: A high score would indicate a need to take steps to mitigate the issues that could exist in your workplace.

Unhealthy Boundaries Around Work

A toxic culture blurs the line between the workplace and your employees’ lives, often rewarding team members who put work above all else. This might look like:

Praising employees for never taking a day off
Giving tasks out on Friday and expecting them done by MondayEncouraging team members to “push through” illnesses and exhaustion to finish projects
Rewarding remote employees who respond to emails late at night

Over time, this can take a toll on employees' physical and mental wellbeing. A culture that prioritizes constant availability over sustainable work habits can ultimately harm both individual employees and the organization as a whole.

High Turnover Rate

If your turnover rate is high (15% or more), it’s time to evaluate your workplace culture. While a high turnover rate alone doesn’t necessarily mean your culture is toxic—there are many factors that can contribute to turnover—it can be a warning sign if paired with other issues. For example, frequent exits combined with low morale, poor communication, or a lack of career development opportunities often point to a deeper cultural problem. If employees are leaving because they feel unsupported, disengaged, or burnt out, it’s time to investigate whether a toxic work environment is driving them away.

No Support for Career Growth

A lack of development opportunities is a red flag for toxicity. Employees want to grow, and when they don’t see a clear path forward, their engagement and satisfaction drop. Providing development opportunities benefits your culture and boosts engagement, with89% of employees saying that learning and development help them stay focused at work. Without training, mentorship, or upskilling programs, employees may feel stagnant, contributing to disengagement and higher turnover.

Low Morale and Motivation

Frequent absenteeism, apathy, negativity, and frequent HR complaints are signs of low morale. A toxic work environment wears down employees, which ultimately affects creativity and productivity.

Lack of Trust

Trust is the foundation of a healthy workplace. When it’s absent, morale, teamwork, and loyalty suffer, creating a breeding ground for toxicity. One clear sign of distrust is micromanagement—when leaders constantly monitor every task, it sends the message that they don’t believe employees can do their jobs effectively. This not only disrupts productivity but also erodes confidence and autonomy.

Another indicator of low trust is a lack of transparency from leadership. During times of change, such as company restructures or major decisions, employees want to be informed. When leaders withhold information, it breeds uncertainty and frustration, which can quickly spiral into resentment. If you’re seeing frequent feedback or complaints about unclear communication or inconsistent leadership, it’s a strong sign that distrust may be damaging your culture.

No Room for Mistakes

Mistakes are part of growth, often leading to creative solutions. But in a toxic culture, failure isn’t tolerated—leading to perfectionism, stifled creativity, and unnecessary pressure to perform. This can manifest through:

Excessive blame for small mistakes
Punitive measures when something goes wrong or someone is untrained
A lack of constructive feedback and only criticism

Blame culture can be particularly damaging for marginalized groups who may already feel as though they face some levels of bias or discrimination. This can lead to amplified feelings of isolation, discouraging some of your most valuable employees from sharing ideas or asking questions.

Frequent Gaslighting

Gaslighting is when someone deliberately changes the narrative around an event to make others question their experiences and feelings. It might include denying facts or twisting the truth. This can happen in the workplace when an employer changes the expectations for a project or report, leaving the individual confused. Or leadership may offer contradictory feedback, and then blame employees for following through.

If this is happening repeatedly, it can erode your workers’ confidence and create a culture of self-doubt. Worse, it can damage your diversity efforts if microaggressions and racist remarks are left unchecked. For example, if someone makes a disparaging comment and then claims the victim misheard, they may question their reality, and the issue is never resolved. That could create a negative environment for your diverse workers.

Excessive Stress and Burnout

High levels of stress, leading to burnout, can be a surefire signal that your culture is suffering. A toxic work environment normalizes chronic and detrimental levels of stress, to the point workers can experience physical symptoms like:

Digestive issues
Sleep problems
Fatigue
Aches
Panic attacks

Unchecked stress can increase burnout at your company in three different ways:

Frenetic burnout. Employees push themselves too hard in hopes of a reward and in an unsustainable way.
Underchallenged burnout. Being bored at work can also hurt your workers because a lack of stimulation lowers the mood.
Worn-out burnout. Consistent stress can wear people out and make daily tasks a struggle to complete.

Poor Communication

Poor communication is a hallmark of a toxic environment. While occasional miscommunication is normal, if it’s frequent, it signals deeper issues. Signs include:

Lack of clarity around responsibilities
conflicting messages to different employees
Passive-aggressive communication
Poor listening skills
Regular after-hours communication, which blurs work-life boundaries.

When communication fails, it often leads to confusion, disengagement, and a loss of purpose among employees.

Exclusion and Gossiping

If your workplace feels more like a high school than a professional environment, it’s a sign of toxicity. Exclusion and gossip break down trust and harm teamwork. Signs of a gossip problem include:

Hushed tones or mean-spirited jokes, especially in remote settings.
Baseless rumors about personal lives.
Exclusionary behavior, where employees being talked about are deliberately left out of conversations.

These behaviors lead to division and distrust, making it difficult for teams to collaborate effectively.

Favoritism

Favoritism undermines fairness and team cohesion. It can appear as:

Managers giving the best tasks to their favorite employees.
Promotions based on personal preferences rather than competence.
Certain individuals are allowed to break the rules without consequence.

Excluded employees often suffer from poorer relationships with coworkers, less recognition, and lower loyalty. When favoritism is prevalent, it can even lead to legal risks, as it might foster a discriminatory environment.

Bullying and Harassment

Harassment includes any unwanted attention based on race, gender, religion, sex, and other characteristics while bullying is an act of aggression and intimidation. These are some warning signs in your workplace:

Physical threats
Sabotaging work
Withholding information or resources
Cyberbullying
Making unwanted sexual advances or comments
Sending offensive emails
Using slurs

Employees subjected to bullying and harassment may develop anxiety, depression, and a deep dissatisfaction with their jobs, leading to higher turnover and potential legal action.

Toxic Work Environment Quiz Results

Count up how many of those 11 red flags apply to your workplace to see what kind of toxicity you might be dealing with:

10–12: It’s time for a major culture overhaul. You can consider hiring external consultants for a cultural audit, especially if the poor work environment stems from toxic leadership.
7–9: There are some serious underlying issues to look at, and you’ll want to consider taking active steps to mitigate the current situation.
4–6: Your company might need a few adjustments to avoid long-term problems.
1–3: You don’t have a toxic workplace, but you could be at risk of developing one if you aren’t working toward a welcoming environment.
0: Great job! Now you’ll want to think about how to prevent these issues from arising.

Remediating a Toxic Work Environment

If any of these 11 signs resonate with you, these are three suggestions to help you turn your culture around and create a place where all your employees want to work:

Investigating Complaints and Concerns

As soon as you receive a complaint about something with your work environment, consider taking immediate action. One way to do so is to hold thorough and impartial investigations. Consider inviting a third party to review the situation, so none of your employees feel unfairly attacked. Once you have the results of the investigator, you may want to take appropriate disciplinary action.

For example, if you get reports about favoritism among a certain group of managers, you could look into all of the employee complaints and observe how these leaders work. Afterward, you could have a conversation with the managers who are part of the problem and provide them with mandatory training on fair leadership. In serious cases, you may consider demoting someone.

Reacting quickly to concerns and following through on them shows your employees that you care about them and that their work environment is a top priority for you.

Implementing Corrective Measures

Even if you are dealing with an already toxic work environment, there are some steps you can take to help change the course of your organization:

Providing conflict resolution and mediation: When arguments or favoritism arise, consider sitting down with the involved team members and acting as a mediator. Try to let everyone share their thoughts and then provide your own solution to the conflict.
Offering employee assistance programs (EAPs): An EAP offers confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services for any worker who is struggling. You could use a program like this to support employees struggling in your current company culture.
Implementing team building activities: Sometimes the root of the problem is a lack of connection among your employees. Consider having them build real relationships via good team-building events, like virtual scavenger hunts or a group wellness class.
Restructuring teams or departments: When necessary, you may need to separate some people. If possible, try not to always move the victims of bullying or harassment because those employees could view the restructuring as punishment. Instead, consider how you could train and move a perpetrator instead.

Monitoring and Evaluation

After making changes or implementing a new program, consider watching how it works and making changes if needed. You might also have your employees give you feedback on the new changes to see if they’re working. For example, you could give out end-of-year surveys on how the team-building programs you implemented have helped people build relationships.

Preventing a Toxic Work Environment

For any organization or individual interested in putting an end to workplace toxicity, there are steps you can take to repair damage and prevent further issues from taking root:

Establishing clear policies and procedures: Setting up official guidelines can help you outline what’s acceptable and give you procedures to follow when there’s a problem. For example, you could create a company policy on gossip with clear definitions and suggestions for action if someone notices it.
Promoting a culture of respect and inclusion: Consider taking steps to create an atmosphere where everyone belongs. You could focus on promoting more women to leadership or offer flexible holidays to support all different religious observances.
Providing training on workplace conduct and communication: You might find it helpful to educate your team members on how to behave and respond to problems before something escalates. For example, you could expand your sexual harassment training and talk about all forms of harassment and what to do.
Encouraging open communication and feedback: Sometimes the only way you’ll know about a problem is by listening to your people. Consider having an open-door policy and a few communication channels where people can reach you to discuss company culture.
Conducting regular employee surveys and assessments: Routine check-ins can help you determine if there’s an underlying issue. Consider having annual reviews or monthly anonymous surveys to check the pulse on your company culture.

Build a Positive Work Environment

A toxic work environment could be hurting your workers and harming your company’s productivity. Whether it’s gaslighting or low morale, these kinds of issues can wear your workers down until they leave, leading to a large turnover problem. Boosting your retention and mitigating a negative company culture is a multifaceted goal, but one important way to get started is by creating wellness programs.

Your employees prioritize their holistic wellbeing and will sometimes leave an organization that doesn’t. In fact, 83% of employees would consider leaving a company that does not focus on employee wellbeing, according to the State of Work-Life Wellness 2025. Implementing these programs can help you support your team members in all aspects of their life and create a work environment that encourages people to stay.

Talk to a Wellhub Wellbeing Specialist to launch a wellness program that promotes a healthy workplace!

Company healthcare costs drop by up to 35% with Wellhub*

See how we can help you reduce your healthcare spending.

Talk to a Wellbeing Specialist

[*] Based on proprietary research comparing healthcare costs of active Wellhub users to non-users.