Navigating Toxic Work Environments
The stats is clear, at least 1 in 4 people have experienced it in their career (if not more) in Malaysia.
To define what is a toxic workplace is tricky though as it is very broad.
Last Friday afternoon, I attended an insightful panel discussion organised by Clever Desk Group on this very topic. It was well worth the effort as someone who has unfortunately worked in many toxic work environments during my time in Australia.
The panel included a diverse group of people from different professions from a Clinical - Org Psychologist - Dr Valerie Jaques , an Employment | Industrial Relations Lawyer - Dato Thavalingam, an Assoc Professor and Researcher on Millennials at Work - Siti Khadijah Zainal Badri ,Country Manager of a large recruitment co -
Fahad Naeem a Mental Health Consultant & Trainer - Amalina Davis and an entertaining moderator Zaim Mohzani — Career Transformation Speaker.
These are the 8 key insights I obtained :
1. Importance of creating safe listening spaces for employees so they can share their experience without judgement.
2. Mental health awareness has gone up tremendously since Covid especially if management or a close family was impacted by it previously.
3. Important in an interview context : - to find out the attrition rate of the company with the context. - values of the company and how it is followed through (verify with recent glassdoor or prior | current employees views).
4. Rights for the employee are quite strong in Malaysia however there is a lack of awareness of those rights. (OHSA, Industrial Act 81 etc).
5. What different people can withstand in a toxic environment is different as they have a different threshold due to past trauma, responsibilities etc.
6. A shame based culture is common in the Malaysian workplace due to strong shame based traits within our communities.
7. Younger generations (Millennials and below) prefer Transformational and Empathetic leaders who are inspiring, care about their well-being, growth and need for a meaningful work environment.
8. People want to work in positive- engaging environments that create meaning, they have freedom to grow in their role and company - become accomplished with healthy relationships.
Have you experienced a Toxic Work Environment ? What did you do or what did you wish you or your leaders | HR do at that time ?
