Toxic Cultures Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation 

Top Predictors of Employee Turnover During the Great Resignation • Toxic corporate culture • Job insecurity and reorganization • High levels of innovation • Failure to recognize performance • Poor response to COVID-19 Sull, D., Sull, C., & Zweig, B. (2022). Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation.MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(2), 1-9. 

Corporate Culture is 10 times more important than compensation in predicting turnover Sull, D., Sull, C., Cipolli, W., & Brighenti, C. (2022). Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture. MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(2), 1-9. 

• Employee attrition is higher • A poor employer brand makes it harder to attract talent • Employees are disengaged and less productive • Higher health care costs hurt the employer’s bottom line • Risk of reputational damage and legal liability is higher • Employee turnover triggered by a toxic culture cost U.S. employers nearly $50 billion per year before the Great Resignation began The Organizational Costs of Toxic Culture Sull, D., Sull, C., & Zweig, B. (2022). Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(2), 1-9. 

• Disrespectful • Non-Inclusive • Unethical • Cutthroat • Abusive The Toxic Five Sull, D., Sull, C., Cipolli, W., & Brighenti, C. (2022). Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture. MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(2), 1-9. 

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Providing a fair and inclusive environment for specific demographic groups includes five topics*: Gender, race sexual identity and orientation, disability, and Age *Note: Collectively, this cluster of topics is the most powerful predictor of whether employees view their organization’s culture as toxic. Cronyism includes comments about nepotism and managers playing favorites Using terms like “cliques,” “clubby,” or “in crowd” that indicate that some employees are being excluded without specifying why. 

Unethical Unethical behavior: “ethics,” “integrity,” “unethical,” “shady,” and “cheat” Dishonesty: “lie,” “mislead,” “deceive,” and “make false promises” 

Cutthroat 

• Uncooperative teammates or the lack of coordination across organizational silos • Comments characterized around friction in coordination • Employees who cite a cutthroat culture employed a vivid lexicon to describe their workplace, including: Characteristics of a “Cutthroat” Organization 

Abuse • Abusive management is sustained hostile behavior toward employees • The most frequently mentioned hostile behaviors are: • bullying • yelling or shouting at employees, • belittling or demeaning subordinates • verbally abusing people, sometimes described as, “he/she is just overly passionate” • condescending or talking down to employees 

• Toxicity category I is Highly toxic and Severely irritating* • Toxicity category II is Moderately toxic and Moderately irritating** • Toxicity category III is Slightly toxic and Slightly irritating*** • Toxicity category IV is Practically non- toxic and not an irritant**** What is Your Level of Toxicity? Identify the Irritants Toxicity Levels Toxic Elements Examples of Toxic Irritants Toxicity category I* Toxicity category II** Toxicity category III*** Toxicity category IV**** Disrespectful Lack of consideration, courtesy, dignity for others; rudeness, discourtesy, impertinence, disesteem, impudence Noninclusive Fair and inclusive environment for specific demographic groups includes five topics: Gender, race sexual identity and orientation, disability, and Age; Cronyism Unethical Unethical behavior: “ethics,” “integrity,” “unethical,” “shady,” and “cheat”; Dishonesty: “lie,” “mislead,” “deceive,” and “make false promises” Cutthroat Uncooperative teammate; lack of coordination across organizational silos; comments characterized around friction in coordination; workplace described as: “dog-eat-dog”, “Darwinian”, talked about coworkers who “throw one another under the bus,” “stab each other in the back,” or “sabotage one another.” Abusive Bullying, yelling or shouting at employees, belittling or demeaning subordinates, verbally abusing people, sometimes described as, “he/she is just overly passionate”, condescending or talking down to employees 

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“When employees join a company, they expect to find a culture that is inclusive, respectful, ethical, collaborative, and free from abuse by those in positions of power.” 

“When corporate culture fails to deliver on these fundamental commitments, employees understandably react with something stronger than annoyance or disappointment.” 

References Sull, D., Sull, C., Cipolli, W., & Brighenti, C. (2022). Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture. MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(2), 1-9. Sull, D., Sull, C., & Zweig, B. (2022). Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(2), 1-9.