If your accountancy workplace culture is one filled with conflict and angst and it’s part of your job to turn it around; you’ll be interested today to read our ideas for rescuing it.
Here’s a couple of facts to start off with:
1: Toxic workplaces exist, public practice is no exception.
2: Workplace cultures can be turned on their heads and reputations rescued.
In order to help understand what can be done to turn a toxic workplace culture into a healthy, happy and productive one, let’s first consider how you will know if your workplace is toxic.
Here’s a few common symptoms of a toxic workforce culture:
1. High levels of staff turnover.
2. Loss of trust; staff are micro managed and not allowed to work with any autonomy, deserved or not.
3. Errors occur frequently and when they are made, they are met with blame and shame.
4. Conflict between employees and leaders is rife.
5. Staff can’t see a future for themselves to progress in the organisation.
6. High levels of stress and sickness absence.
7. Accusations and investigations into poor behaviour, harassment or abuse are commonplace (or even worse attempts to accuse are ignored and staff are gaslighted.)
What causes toxicity in a workplace culture?
It can be difficult to pinpoint the moment where a positive workplace starts to turn sour. Often it’s a slow burn and a sequence of events occur that shift the way that staff feel about their roles.
A few common catalysts for a change in the way that employees feel at work can be as follows:
1. Conflict in the leadership team and a consequent lack of direction.
2. A culture of blame – people make mistakes and instead of the organisation investing in equipping them with better tools, knowledge and skill, they are blamed and shamed amongst the workforce.
3. A bad apple is allowed to rot the rest of the team. Perhaps you employ a lazy accountant and don’t manage their performance, or perhaps a claim of bullying or harassment from an employee goes unheard or uninvestigated; a culture of resentment or fear can set in very quickly.
4. You’re not investing in your workforce. Staff may feel that they don’t have the tools, skills, knowledge, resources and indeed rewards that they need to do their jobs properly and are blamed for the repercussions this has, despite having made the problems they faced clear.
5. There are no boundaries in place for how you expect your staff to work and behave. This might take the shape of a culture of presenteeism and rewarding quantity of work over quality. Or perhaps you’re not plugging gaps in the workforce and your existing staff are bearing workloads that are impossibly large.
6. Your workplace doesn’t offer diverse and inclusive opportunities.
But how do you overturn a toxic workplace culture?
Whether it’s crept up on you by surprise or you’ve inherited someone else’s mess; there’s plenty that you can do to start to turn the tide of toxicity in your workforce. Here’s our top tips on practical action that will make a difference.
1. Read the room and take the temperature of your workforce by being open and honest. Let them know that you’re not happy with the way things are and make clear your intentions to improve things for everyone. Ask your staff how they are feeling in their roles and allow them to be honest about the problems they are experiencing; free from blame or reproach!
2. Form a taskforce! Ask for volunteers from each department (staff at every level of the hierarchy) and create a project to address the issues your staff have told you about. Give it a cool name – why not? ‘Project let’s get happy’ will show you mean business!
3. Invest in the soft skills of your workforce; particularly your leaders. Ensure they know that they are no better than anyone else and equip them to be approachable, resolve conflict, actively listen, lead compassionately and talk to people like they would expect to be spoken to!
4. Revise your firm’s approach to errors and blame. Encourage a culture of honesty and openness where staff feel able to ask for help or talk about an issue they are concerned might be heading towards a problem. Make sure that your performance management policy is fair and robust so that those who make recurrent errors are all managed fairly and in line with it.
5. Get your head around the fact that you need to invest in your organisation if you expect it to grow and thrive. If you don’t currently have the means required to invest, be open and honest about that with staff and together prioritise what matters most and whether there are savings to be had in other areas of the business that might alleviate the pressures that are hardest felt. A problem shared really is a problem halved!
6. Start to see your staff as your biggest asset. Because in a service based business like public practice, they really are! Overhaul your learning and development programme so that you can nurture and support potential and don’t shy away from the risk that you associate comes with new hires. If your people are miserable because their workload is too great; reframe that – how lucky are you to have greater demand than capacity, take on a talented new member of the team or two and the growth is likely to continue! Ignore the issue and your services level will deteriorate as will your workplace culture and before you know it, your problems will spiral.
7. Partner up with other organisations that can help you. If you need to employ some specialist consultants to help you identify what’s going wrong- do it! Need to invest in some teambuilding – great idea! Need to start employing people who can make your workforce better, not worse, well we’re here to help with that one!
‘At Public Practice Recruitment Ltd, we’re privileged to work with thousands of hiring managers up and down the country. So our viewpoint is clear and we know what makes a workforce thrive and what can cause it to dive. Our aim is to build trusted relationships with our clients so that we can help them see the wood for the trees when times are tough. So, if you’re experiencing the impact of a toxic workplace culture, reach out to us today for a no obligation call with one of our experienced team. See us as your recruitment therapists! There’s no problem we’ve not seen before and we’re always here to help you find your solution, confidentially of course.’
Garry Howling, MD
If we can help you create a recruitment action plan as part of your battle to create a happier workplace, reach out to us today to find out more.
And remember…. the only way is UP!
