How Can We Make The Work Environment More Engaging?

No one person can change an entire workplace culture of incompetent bosses, jealousy, gossip, laziness, mental issues, phoniness and two-faced people at work. No job is going to be 100% perfect but I suggest align yourself with a company that share most of your core values. Thank goodness I don’t get close with people at work and I have my own personal relationships outside of work that I focus my energy. Good topic

I think backbiting comes also from frustration of leaders not leading, dealing with horrible personalties. When you bring it to management, they don’t want to deal with it and the turn it back on you. Its just a terrible situation. There really needs to be some sort of mental health and emotional health test before any kind of employment. Some people just need to be out of the workforce, and on disability. Its unbelievable what you have to go through just to make an honest living.

I am witnessing this at the moment where I work and due to absorbing the overwhelming negative behaviour at work I have found myself lowering myself into this negativity and toxicity. I realised after snipping at a colleague I have to rise myself above this and be more mindful. So have decided my colleagues are not my friends, from here on out I will keep it pleasant, not say anything negative and the only person who suffers is me. Just because they want to be negative doesn’t mean I do. I have to stay true to me and remain focused on my future goals and visualise a swan, calm, poised and graceful which is what I will be.

at my work place I experienced toxic environment, and it effects my daily day. I was friendly and communicative person.. once I worked with these toxic people.. it hits me so badly.. I lost my self esteem, I couldn’t say the whole sentence every time I tried to explain my self. I hate conflicts..work is work for me. I love my work..but people around me..ruining my happiness. I tried to learn their language and culture but I feel like I’m invisible to them, they dont even include me in the group. They just talk and talk…so the whole shift I just quiet. I dont know what to do…

I just did this yesterday! I am trying to change it now that I am aware of it. I realized that one woman has latched onto me & all she does is complain about others and it has rubbed off. Nothing out of her mouth is good. Also, Brene Brown said it best, when you judge others and gossip with someone you think you are forming a connection with that person, a common ground, but it does the opposite. The toxic work environment needs to change.

We are having a problem at work with this very situation. Thankfully my manager knows of the problem and wants to make our enviroment better. I mean come on! We spend almost everyday at work 9 to 5, sometimes seeing our coworkers more than our own families. There is no place for such toxicity…no negative talk is allowed at home, so why would I tolerate it at work? Great talk, I’m sending this to my bosses! 🙏

I think the main issue is people get comfortable and then don’t care about new people coming in. They just have to find their way and really it’s sad. They need to really stop and yes I’m guilty of back biting but i will tell you why I do it. Because I do not like or appreciate negative people trying to befriend me.

Awesome speech. I love the triple filter test. Gossiping is too common and is a form of social terrorism. The only time negative information is beneficial is if it’s regarding something truly horrible and can be useful in knowing about it to gain awareness. Other then that, most gossiping is nitpicking and trying to spread negative opinion about someone else.

For 18 years I worked in an office where the culture was almost perfect. I say almost because we had one creature who backstabbed and stamped her way up the ladder, but fortunately for the most part we could ignore her (she wasn’t my manager so I had quite some fun annoying her). The manager who hired most of us was a lovely man, and I think his choice of staff was largely responsible for the happy family we all became, with many of us ‘growing up’ together, and still friends years later.

This is the first time I’ve seen this article. But a few years ago at work I gathered a few friends and said let’s make a pact where for 30 days we don’t talk about anything negative about other people. Everyone agreed but before the first week was out people were saying they didn’t want to abide by this agreement because not having the Ability to vent about things going on in the workplace was making them feel worse and they felt the camaraderie of coworkers being able to share negative experiences was what help them get through the day. Anyways I thought it was an interesting perspective and wonder if anyone else can relate?

Is it possible that one is NOT bullying but rather addressing an area of concern for growth? We are overly sensitive to/when areas of deficiency is addressed. Some people leave a conversation with one interpretation that differs from the other person’s experience. That “reality” is shared with any and everyone willing to listen. Looking for validation and comfort.

I think it might be important to distinguish gossip from talking things over with a supportive friend – I feel like it’s not gossip if the person you’re talking to doesn’t know the person you’re talking about…because it’s healthy to talk about the issue especially if you are also working out solutions, and no one’s feelings get hurt because they don’t know each other

Third-person-gossiping about me behind my back? How blessed I must be! (“Blessed” originally meant “envied,” or so I am told.) Thank The Lord, for these people are in my business, and I’m not even present to defend myself. In other words, I have business, and am so important in it that these people envy me to the degree that they slander me, even at the expense of their own reputations. (“Satan” means, “The slanderer.”) Hence, judge not, lest ye be judged. I have learned that great people implement ideas, big people talk about ideas, and little people talk about other people. Even successful politicians seem to have learned long ago–no such thing as bad publicity. So, go ahead and slander me as much as you want. It only hurts you.

I am a headmaster of an NGO school. As I was a teacher before. As their needs were not met I went about trying to improve their situation and became very understanding. But they started becoming very casual and even talk back to me and I still don’t answer back as I have a flaring temper. I don’t know how to gain their respect anymore. I am going nuts and I don’t know how to handle them.

I just watched this as a recommendation for a U of A management class, Myself as a manager find it classic that staff members as seen in the comments below can immediately accuse their manager of committing atrocities in the workplace when it doesn’t work out for them. I work in local government and witness backbiting in all areas from staff about staff, manager about manager and taxpayer against staff and managers. Humans when allowed too, can become toxic to each other. The article was informative, but in practice? not practical.

Yes, there is thi “standard” “coventional” type of gossip…people gosip for no reason…However, there is one other phenomenon among humans that may be percieved as gossiping or rumoring (talking about an absent person) but it has entirely different motive than just finding some satisfaction in talking badly about somebody who is not there, and this other motive is confessing to someone about the absent person doing something bad to you ( e.g. degrading/belitteling you or your work verbally or psychologically, directly or indirectly, putting you down, mocking you, undermining younornyour work in front of others, putting a pressure on you, ignoring your requests or questions, being bossy to you, and demotivating you in any other way). Now, this too is talking about the person while that person is not present, but the motive here is entirely different. In this second case we are talking about a person who feels disatsified/demotivated with the way the absent person is treating her/him, but decided to confess to someone else instead of discussing the issue with the absent person because she feels that the absent person is not unapproachable or reasonable. So, the solution for this second type of ‘talkin about the absent person’ cannot be solved by this non-gossip policy suggested above but by making the leader approachable and open to help solve the problem and stop the baddoer….

Listening to back biting can destroy your relationship with the person constantly mentioned in negative light. Even if they mean no harm, even if they are good. My in-laws and their daughter did it with me. I have a crippled social life. Also, I was okay with them doing it as I did not understand the consequences of listening to back biting. Gain your own experience with each person don’t let your sub conscious mind elude with back biting.

In healthcare, during school we are taught to be overachiever and amongst peers who compete.. now at work, subordinates and coworker’s mentality is just I’m not going to do x and let others do it or it’s not on my job description. It’s not worth change work culture than spans more than 40 years😅. Yep we have backfighters. I guess it’s the same at any job. Can’t fix people since I’m not their therapist. I’m just their coworker. Plus they don’t see anything wrong with gossiping 😅. I’m staying away during break. And not be like them and move on.

How to Start Channing Unhealthy Work Environment\r – Rumors / gossip create a toxic and unhealthy work environment\r – It is hard to change a toxic environment, why? Taking behind each other’s back.\r – Triple Filter Test – used to test if you are backbiting \r o Is what you are saying TRUE? \r o Is it anything Good?\r o Is what you are telling me useful?\r – Why do we backbite?\r o Provides an elevation as we lift our selves up compared to others\r o Makes us sound interesting, in turn boosting our confidence \r – How to get a permanent end to backbiting\r o Gather in a group and ask:\r  Do we backbite?\r  What is Backbiting?\r  Do we want to work in a place with no backbiting?\r  Start a 6-month trial for no backbiting (Make them sign it) and frame the contract as motivation\r  Every week ask the group how they are doing with the backbiting goal\r o It works, benefits are more productivity and less incidents

translate that to the labour trades please. If we stop treating people like slaves nothing is going to get done productively. Maybe I am naiive to the new way of doing things but that has been my experience. As a slave in a socially charged labour company. And in Canada we call it “Backstabbing”. ….. Again I might be speaking out of ignorance, but at any job if you whine like a baby you’re gonna get canned…. On the flipside… I worked at a company for 2 and 1/2 years before taking the stress leave that I’m on…. And I turned a blind eye to the bullying that was going on (because it wasn’t part of my job description) and I also had to wrestle with corporate demands…. nm I’m off topic. I can fight my bully off at this job but I wasn’t able to at my last job. The biggest bully the way I understand things is the corporation which has legal status the same as a human being. That’s kind of fucked up…. The solution is for all good people to commit suicide. That would leave asshole rich people alone to wipe their own asses. Never going to happen, but it’s a fun scenario to contemplate 🙂

Listen folks. Backbiting is a human affliction. It can be manged but that’s as good as its going to get. We are human and this is what we do. Its tribal. Seeking out like minded people by identifying (backbiting) those that differ from us. Expect that it is going to happen and let it roll off you. I’m confident that since this article was originally posted, not much has changed in your workplaces.

I actually thoguht that having a social co wokers style would be helpful, but im in a situation where i give too much trust to a co worker and it use me to scale to top. He did, he arrive to the company with no personality at all, then started behaving like, doing what i did, asking me things of how i would improve so he can take the acomplish. Then, onces he got where he wanted to be, started the “pressure” judging, having a air of ” im in control now ” and also confusing his toughts like a trap. Also backbite behind me in a sutil way, in conclusion… a toxic person who disguise himself as joker but is bad wolf .

One problem is our desks are full, so we don’t have time for things like traditional training for new people and specific time isn’t made for it. We keep getting more work due to top management not understanding the time needed for our tasks and doesn’t believe the input on that so wants to time each task like we’re McDonalds. Then the new people can be too pushy about it and won’t wait till the time is right. Then they put off their seasoned co- workers and complain about it. As a new employee I accepted the environment the way it was and lasted a long time. Training is worth a lot because it pays bills so you have to be considerate about the trainers time. There’s only so much time…time towards training is time away from expectations on you. Until proper time is allotted you have to be savvy enough to survive. Backstabbing, tattling, troublemaking is all deflection from inability to do job. I surprisingly found women were much more trustworthy, and that the men were tattlers, liars, troublemakers, and petty…but our org may not be attracting good people. They don’t last.

There was a girl at my work who just had a massive ego. She always had to be in charge, centre of attention, ring leader of a work place click. Everyone just wanted to be in the click. Made it really awkward and horrible atmosphere to work in. Literally didn’t ever acknowledge me or listen to anything I had to say. This happened over I’d say a 6 month period since she got promotion. She never shut her mouth to let anyone speak, I could always feel the awkward atmosphere. So in the end I pulled her aside and confronted her told her how it is and told her to stop I ain’t having it anymore. She apologised and stopped. Ever since then she has been a completely different person in every way. No more ego or so it seems. In a sense I fixed her and fixed the workplace environment for every one. I’ve never told anyone in work that this conversation happened. Although this person would speak to the click and tell them everything or we’ll I guess she may have. If anyone got this far and has a similar issue I’d say confront the person on a 1-1 without anyone else around, tell them how it is. I’m sure it will resolve. If not I’m not sure maybe it’s time to leave. If it didn’t work for me I’d have gone senior management but if that didn’t work I guess I would have left.

Mmmm wait a minute sir, what if you have blatant bullying,favouritism and corruption how do you deal with a total lack of tranparency. Are you suggesting that people in such environments bury their heads in the sand and play nice? I am sure you are referring to ideal situations not the other extreme.

So long story short is for every working environment to grow and flourish. You need a constant open reflection of each other with a positive and negative feedback loop, the person reporting or complaining should have no fear of being attacked by the pack, a report should be risen and investigated by a fair group of employees to review if and why someones report is accepted as good or bad for the moral of the team & company growth or whether the reporter is being unfair. I think the main reason this goes u noticed is when management either are over worked and drained or h&r fear fighting for the employees or management disregarding vital information for the growth and expansion of a ever growing consciousness in business, social and economic development, along side improved health and happiness

Sometimes it is useful though. As much as i didnt want to hear everyone talk badly about one employee, My coworkers warned me about our bosses alzheimers and that helped me stay compassionate when he kept asking me to repeatedly covers shifts I was saying no to. Instead of getting all amped thinking this guy keeps trying to push me into working a shift I keep saying no to I can depersonalize it instead

Take control of your life by not getting bullied without a fight. Back biting is how my company functions – its a nursing home. When your dealing with fellow employees or patients back biting is the normal way that human beings function. Thats why I prefer little kids and animals to back biting adults.

I back bite a lot. It’s the way to let my frustration out. But that’s because I get frustrated with the person who is suppose to do their job responsibly and don’t. I don’t backbite just for the sake of it only when that affect my work and I am not happy about it. Although I do respond immediately on the spot with yes ok or no I cannot with a good reason. We get along well. But I get frustrated when she, my manager doesn’t support my work when I really needed. In general I back bite of my family, friends and relative when they don’t behave the way I deem to be proper. Although I do tell them upfront too. And I know for sure the way I am people talk behind my back too. I take it as a human behaviour only few can manage not to divulge themselves in.

Rank the following actions according to how much it contributes to a toxic or unhealthy work/school environment. The highest would be on the top, and the lowest would be on the bottom. Gossiping or Backbiting Annoying habits of a coworker/classmate Bullying Workload Poor facilities Why do people backbite? Is backbiting justifiable? What could be the effects of a toxic work environment to an employee and to a company as a whole? Do you agree to the solution offered by the speaker? Do you have an alternative solution? Please answer this 😊😊

“O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion, in deeds some suspicions are sins. And spy not neither backbite one another. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would hate it (so hate backbiting). And fear Allah, verily, Allah is the One who accepts repentance, Most Merciful” (Quran 49: 12)

Gossip thribes in secresy. Is a “secret” information. Pass around and ones is pass over enough is anonimous. So bring it out make people accountable for it ambarras them. The best gossiper in church almast gets a heart attack when she is comfronted about the info onfront of the victim. Bring truth to light.

قال الله تعالى (يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اجْتَنِبُوا كَثِيرًا مِّنَ الظَّنِّ إِنَّ بَعْضَ الظَّنِّ إِثْمٌ ۖ وَلَا تَجَسَّسُوا وَلَا يَغْتَب بَّعْضُكُم بَعْضًا ۚ أَيُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَن يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ تَوَّابٌ رَّحِيمٌ) O you who have believed, avoid much (negative) assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is Accepting of repentance and Merciful.

Wheeeew, Lord! I work with a lot of men and it’s cool because they are pretty chill for the most part! But then you have those mad at life women! Ugggghhh! Don’t let somebody buy you lunch and they find out! Just being nice, not flirting or anything. Just kind! Those women act as the end of the world is occurring!

I agree with the therapist saying. As a muslim, backbiting is FORBIDDEN and one of the bad sins. In the Quran, Surat Alhujurat, verse 11 & 12, Allah (God) says: 11. O you who believe! Let not a group scoff at another group, it may be that the latter are better than the former. Nor let (some) women scoff at other women, it may be that the latter are better than the former. Nor defame one another, nor insult one another by nicknames. How bad is it to insult one’s brother after having Faith (i.e. to call your Muslim brother (a faithful believer) as: “O sinner”, or “O wicked”). And whosoever does not repent, then such are indeed Zâlimûn (wrong-doers, etc.) 12. O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion; indeed some suspicions are sins. And spy not, neither backbite one another. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would hate it (so hate backbiting). And fear Allâh. Verily, Allâh is the One Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful. Then Abu Huraira (One of the prophet Mohamed companions), reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Do you know what is backbiting? They (the Companions) said: Allah and His Messenger know best. Thereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: Backbiting implies your talking about your brother in a manner which he does not like. It was said to him: What is your opinion about this that if I actually find (that failing) in my brother which I made a mention of? He said: If (that failing) is actually found (in him) what you assert, you in fact backbited him, and if that is not in him it is a slander.

Hmm, this feels like a very shallow talk. I think it uses the buzz-phrase “toxic work environment” but then doesn’t offer any real meat on that issue – no stats, no evidence, no studies. And he conflates distinct ideas, and to me, seems to lack valuable, high perspective wisdom on this. For example: he’s entirely missing the power dynamic context, which drastically changes the meaning of ‘gossip’ or ‘backbiting.’ If employees are being cheated by bosses, then those workers complaining to each other is not gossip or backbiting, and shuttign them down isn’t actually morally okay. He even uses the word “bullying” and yet doesn’t bring in the importance of this element of power differential to this subject. Bullying is downward punching. Backbiting is a bit more lateral. Gossip is a separate thing entirely. He doesn’t seem to understand that at all, sowhy is he give a TED talk about it? He also makes no distinctions for different business contexts, which have differing levels of dependency on accurate critical assessment. Some biz contexts need back-n-forth engagement, honesty, and regular input/feedback review more than others. Hospital teams work differently than warehouse or software sales or insurance or non-profits. Culture matters. This guy doesn’t get that at all. But in most contexts: without a well supported system for assessment and honest feedback in DIRECT routes, this kind of barricading of the INDIRECT feedback routes is simply a gag order, decreed from on high, to protect the reputation of dear leader.