Stop toxicity in its tracks

A toxic or disgruntled employee often seeks to harm the organization or their coworkers. They may engage in sabotage, theft, or vandalism, which can result in financial losses or damage to property. They may also spread negative rumors or engage in public criticism of the company, which can harm the organization's reputation and reduce customer trust. In addition, a disgruntled employee can create a toxic work environment that can lower morale, decrease productivity, and even drive away other employees. Finally, they may file frivolous lawsuits or make baseless complaints against the organization, which can result in legal fees, damage to the company's reputation, and other negative consequences.

Yes, toxic employees can be considered a type of insider threat to an organization. Insider threats refer to any individual with authorized access to an organization's systems, facilities, or data who uses that access to intentionally or unintentionally cause harm to the organization. As such, it is important for organizations to identify and address toxic behavior among employees, just as they would other types of insider threats.

Aware uses industry-leading, proprietary natural language processing (NLP) and AI-infused sentiment scoring to evaluate messages from collaboration tools in real time for negative, offensive, and toxic speech. Aware’s artificial intelligence and machine learning models are trained on each specific organization, meaning they learn and understand what “normal” looks like for that environment. This gives leaders more accurate oversight and better understanding of how and when the mood shifts within their organization.

By regularly listening to employees and encouraging open communication, employers can identify potential issues or conflicts early on and take steps to address them before they escalate. This can help prevent toxic behavior from spreading or becoming entrenched in the workplace. Actively listening to concerns and taking steps to address them helps foster a more positive and supportive work environment, which can reduce the likelihood of toxic behavior. Aware enables advanced employee listening by surfacing the topics of greatest concern without employers needing to ask.

Unmanaged, toxic employees can have a negative impact on the workplace environment and culture, harming productivity, retention, and even the organization’s reputation. Aware research shows that toxicity is contagious, and just one toxic employee can have a detrimental effect on company culture, creating a toxic environment that can be difficult to change. Toxic behavior can also lead to legal and compliance issues, including harassment and discrimination claims. Failing to address this behavior at source can create liability risks for the organization, including reputational damage, loss of customers, and legal fees. That’s why it is essential for businesses to proactively defend their company culture and create a positive workplace for all employees.

Employee experience has a significant impact on employee satisfaction, engagement, and productivity, as well as the overall success of the organization. When employees have a positive experience at work, they are more likely to be motivated, committed, and invested in the success of the organization. This can lead to higher levels of engagement and productivity, as well as lower rates of absenteeism and turnover. Additionally, a positive employee experience can help attract and retain top talent and enhance the organization's reputation as an employer.

Aware gives innovative leaders a direct line from their front line, visualizing shifts in sentiment and surfacing the topics that matter most to employees. Using these insights, businesses can make faster decisions with greater certainty, based on a real-time understanding of what is happening at every level of the organization. Without Aware, it can take months before the impact of a toxic employee is felt by management, and by that point the damage to company culture may be difficult to reverse. Aware turns a spotlight onto toxic behavior, enabling proactive resolution before it becomes a widespread problem.

Positive employee experiences increase job satisfaction and create a sense of loyalty, engagement, and commitment to the organization that increases employee retention. Toxic working environments contribute to negative employee experiences, which increase the likelihood of demotivation and disengagement, leading to high turnover and low employee retention. Because it can take six months or more and cost a third of an employee’s annual salary to replace them, high employee retention rates are an important goal of human resource managers. Investing in a positive employee experience by proactively tackling toxicity at source is an essential part of any employee retention strategy.

Aware collaboration intelligence platform solves for a wide range of security, governance, compliance, and people management use cases across leading collaboration tools like Slack, Teams, and Zoom. Some of the primary use cases Aware supports include: data loss prevention (DLP), insider risk detection, forensics and investigations, compliance adherence, eDiscovery, employee experience, information governance, business feedback loops and key initiative tracking.