How to improve a toxic working culture

Zurich and Geneva, May 2023.

Two-thirds of white-collar professionals (63 %) have admitted to ‘rage applying’ to a new job since the beginning of the year – with a toxic workplace culture (56%) being the primary motivating factor.

The trend – which saw a spike after the New Year appraisals – occurs when professionals retaliate to a bad day at work by firing out multiple applications to new job roles.

Of those who admitted to rage applying in the past six months, almost half (48 %) stated that they had applied to multiple new roles within a short space of time. The findings come from a recent poll by staffing firm Robert Walters, of nearly one thousand Swiss professionals.

Toxic workplaces to blame

The leading issue provoking rage-appliers is a toxic workplace culture – with over half (56%) of professionals stating this was the primary reason they took to the keyboard to apply for new jobs.  

Forty percent of workers blamed an omitted promotion or pay rise.

Christian Atkinson – Director of Robert Walters - comments:

"Switzerland continues to be a candidate-driven market – with more jobs than people available – so ‘rage applying’ is really something that most employers cannot afford to happen.

Toxic workplace cultures can very much be invisible but the effect on employee happiness is significant. It can impact staff members’ mental and  physical safety in the workplace, productivity levels, ideas generation and innovation.

As a result, we are increasingly seeing more ‘culture matches’ in the hiring process – where both the company and prospective employee are vocal about what kind of worker or workplace they are looking for.”

It is no surprise to see that issues relating to pay or progression are a driving factor of rage applications. The good news is that this is something that is much easier to control by the employer. This is why we recommend organisations to keep themselves informed regarding salaries and benefits in the actual market, and to have ongoing conversations with their staff about their ambitions and expectations The best way to prevent rage applying is to communicate enough with your teams.“

How to improve a toxic working culture

According to Robert Walters, working for an inspiring company, with like-minded colleagues, is essential to attract professionals to a job advert – ahead of flexible work and enhanced benefits packages.

Christian Atkinson shares three tips on how to improve a toxic work-environment:

1.     Put it high on your management’s agenda – ensure that managers are well aware that team morale and a positive work environment is a core responsibility of theirs. Business leaders should raise this in management meetings often, and ask managers what type of initiatives they have in place to encourage inclusivity. 

2.     Launch anonymous feedback surveys – a fairly basic initiative that simply not enough employers do! Find out how your employees actually feel, and ask open-ended questions on culture. Take time to read all of these comments to get a steer on what is actually going wrong.

3.     Invest time and money – culture does not come for free. Fact is, the workplace is made up of a set of people brought together because of their varying skillsets – not because they would necessarily make good friends. As such, companies need to put more effort into helping to create a friendly, social and inclusive environment – these things often don’t happen by chance.