How a Negative Work Culture Can Impact Employee Health
Each workplace has a work culture embedded in its constructs. While it’s something that grows over time and can look wildly different from one workplace to another, it can make a huge impact on your employees’ health.
A competitive workspace
Competition can be a healthy feeling in small doses.
However, when it is encouraged in each of your employees, then it can birth anxiety and hyper-fixation on one goal.
Health competition is setting individual goals for each employee. Your employees shouldn’t feel like they’re in a competition, but rather that they’re only in competition with themselves.
If you set each employee an achievable goal, when they reach it they’re going to feel inspired and hit the next goal. This will elicit a positive feeling and will allow them to feel rewarded within themselves.
However, if your employees are in competition with each other, then they may feel less appreciated, more stressed, and compare themselves to their colleagues.
A micromanaged workspace
Managers are meant to guide their employees towards the right outcome, but in some cases, this translates to managers looking over every minute detail and action.
This lack of freedom for your employees can give them a feeling that they aren’t trusted or are inadequate at their job role.
In many cases, these feelings turn into feelings of depression, anxiety, or stress which actually causes more mistakes in an employees’ work, and a fear to put themselves forward for events or opportunities.
A volatile workspace
If your workspace is volatile or there is shouting and raised voices, then this can bring a shared feeling of fear and tension over the workspace.
This will stifle work output, and many employees will be afraid to express themselves for fear of a negative outcome.
Long hours
If your workspace is somewhere that encourages long working hours and overtime, this can damage your employees' wellbeing.
Not only will they struggle without the time to relax, but they will also be fixated on work and struggle to cope with anything else going on in their lives.
A healthy and balanced life is only achievable when people enjoy their jobs, can enjoy their past-times, socialise with their friends and family, and keep up with their wellness. If the entirety of their focus is on work, then it’s likely they’ll struggle to keep up with the rest of the important features in their life.
Employee health
We’ve highlighted the most common work cultures that can negatively impact your employees and a few of the ailments that can come alongside them.
A toxic work environment can also cause:
Depression
Insomnia
High blood pressure
Paranoia
If your staff come to you with a physical or mental health issue, it may be worth looking at how your work environment impacts your employees. If you struggle to find that perspective, then OH One offers a business health check; alternatively, you can contact us at 0333 772 1697 and info@OH-One.co.uk.
