In your office environment, what are the attitudes and behaviours of the people you manage? Does employee morale seem to be high or low? Do your employees seem happy, connected and passionate when they show up to work? These are questions to ask yourself, as an employer, when conducting health checks on your workplaces culture.

How to Spot Workplace Negativity

Take a moment to do a quick assessment of your business. Do you find that you are often:

• Handling employee complaints and spending time resolving conflicts;
• Overhearing disrespect between employees or towards customers;
• Noticing less-than-professional behaviours from your employees; or
• Sensing that employee interest is declining?

These discoveries could mean that you need to deal with a workplace that is negative, and negativity is one of the hardest problems to manage. Unfortunately, it can be contagious, and spreads faster than you think.

6 Tips to Minimize Workplace Negativity

As the employer, you need to stop workplace negativity from happening. Knowing what your employees are negative about is the first step to solving the problem. Here are six tips on how you can try and beat the issue.

1. Ask For Employee Feedback

Give your employees the chance to express their opinions about the workplace either through performance reviews, anonymous complaint forms, or surveys. Your employee will likely turn to one-another about their grievances versus communicating with upper-management. This is how workplace negativity starts to grow.

2. Communicate Openly

Provide your staff with an employee handbook that clearly defines workplace policies and procedures. If you plan to implement a new policy or practice, ask for feedback from your employees so they feel involved in the decision-making process. When these plans are put in place, apply them reliably.

3. Recognize Good Behaviour

It’s important to reward or incentivize your employees so that they see their contribution is valued and feel respected. By doing so, you are also fostering positive thoughts and attitudes towards your organization.

4. Provide Training and Development

You can show promise to your employees by offering opportunities for them to grow and progress. It’s important that your employees feel your business contributes to their career in such a way that they are tasked to always be learning.

5. Build Positivity Into Your Workplace Culture

There are many ways to encourage a positive work environment. Find out what makes your employees motivated to come to work every day, and reinforce that. Having a strong company culture is a major driver of growth, performance and valuation; it inspires people, promotes a collaborative mindset, encourages efficiency, and in turn, maintains high morale.

6. Make Sure Your Providing a Positive Example

Everyone has bad days but you need to treat every day as a new day. Make sure you’re drawing the positivity into the workplace. It’s easy to be negative but you don’t want someone else feeling upset because you’re rubbing off on them. Challenge yourself to be positive and optimistic when in the presence of your staff.