Work isn’t working
74% of employees who say they have a toxic boss report feeling anxiety over the weekend when thinking about returning to work on Monday (the "Sunday scaries")
53% report having nightmares about their bosses
34% say they engage in coping mechanisms like drinking and overeating.
82% of employees say their managers are uninspiring.
Shall I go on?
I think what is most frustrating, tragic, and mind-boggling is the gaslighting and denial that employees are subjected to about our experience in these situations. These numbers above are of course, not the only stats on the subject of the growing toxicity of Corporate America. A couple of quick searches on Google yields study upon study of just how unhappy, burnt out, and stressed out American employees have become.
And yet, when was the last time employees were validated by their employers? Have you heard widespread calls to action from the C-Suite to treat employees better, overhaul policies, and retrain managers? No?
Exactly. Instead of validation, employees have been subjected to denial and further punishment from employers. Tone-deaf Return to Office policies deny everything employees have been trying to tell their employers about why they have been more productive or had more peace of mind working from home. Employee surveys have gotten the bad rap they deserve after the hand-slapping and calling on the carpet that employees have suffered from highly paid execs being unable to take constructive and apparently not-anonymous criticism from the people they are supposed to be leading and whose commentary they requested in the survey!
You can tell from the proliferation of humorous social posts from the growing number of accounts dedicated to skewering these kinds of toxic managers that employees are absolutely reeling from the mind-fuckery happening in Corporate America right now. There are also a number of people like myself calling attention to these issues in non-humorous ways. I’m heartened for both kinds of exposure for this issue.
What I don’t see, however, is a reckoning from the corner offices of Corporate America that things need to change. But they do need to change. And I actually believe that they will. RTO mandates are already backfiring. Top performers are leaving to work where they’re appreciated for their results, not card swipes for days in an office where no one on their team works anyways because everyone else was offshored.
Exhausted, unappreciated, fearful talent doesn’t deliver innovative results. They can’t. They’re too busy dealing with senseless policies and unproductive meetings. And companies that don’t innovate lose to their competitors.
As soon as the money starts talking enough, the whole toxic management house of cards will fall. Fortunately, there are a bunch of us in the wings ready to do a better job and create the work experience our employees deserve.
To paraphrase Daenerys in Game of Thrones: "The world we need won't be built by men loyal to the world we have."
