How to Prevent Workplace Toxicity?
Sangeeta Rao (Sangeeta), an experienced sales professional from the cosmetics industry, had recently joined Herbal Cosmetics Pvt. Ltd. (Herbal Cosmetics), a herbal cosmetics manufacturing company, as Corporate Sales Manager at its Mumbai office. A native of Bengaluru, Sangeeta had relocated to Mumbai about 3 months back
following her marriage. This was her first job in Mumbai. She had 7 years of experience in corporate sales (B2B) with two different cosmetic companies in Bengaluru. These 7 years had been extremely fulfilling as she had been the sales superstar in both the companies.
Herbal Cosmetics was a 4 year old startup which had spawned from Saffron Oils & Co. (Saffron), an established business house in the edible cooking oil industry. Yogesh Rawal (Yogesh), a longstanding employee from Saffron was the CEO of Herbal Cosmetics and Ranjini Rajan (Ranjini), also from the parent company, was the Sales
Head.
Two months into her new job at Herbal Cosmetics, Sangeeta was trying to get back to her high-performance standards as earlier. The last 8 Fridays’ meetings had not been quite reassuring. Unlike her previous two companies’ weekly sales review meetings, these weekly review meetings at Herbal Cosmetics were quite disdainful, Sangeeta thought. She was getting prepared for her 9th Friday’s team meeting. These weekly sales review meetings were meant to take stock of the sales targets and course corrections if any.
9th Friday Sales Review Meeting
With a very positive sales outlook for the next quarter and with a deep sense of composure, Sangeeta was ready for 9th Friday’s sales review meeting. “Hope not one of those 8 meetings”, Sangeeta fervently wished. Not a person to be easily intimidated, Sangeeta knew she would be a star performer at Herbal Cosmetics with little more time and genuine support. Her hope was short-lived though.
During the meeting, Ranjini, her reporting manager, insulted her, making personal remarks, in front of the other colleagues. Sangeeta had failed to clinch a coveted corporate sales deal which had left Ranjini fuming. “You might be newly-wed for your family but you are no longer a new employee here. Two months is good enough time to understand a market. You were hired at a hefty package for your experience. Is this your experience? Herbal Cosmetics has lost a big business opportunity. I don’t want such mishaps again else you better find your way out as there is no place for idiots on my team,” Ranjini shouted...........
Discussion Questions
I. What is workplace toxicity? Why is it important for companies and employees to be sensitized on the effects of workplace toxicity?
II. What are all the various forms of workplace toxicity? From the given sequence of events and conversations at Herbal Cosmetics, identify all the signals of workplace toxicity.
III. ................
Exhibits
Exhibit I: Leaders Fired for Toxicity
Exhibit II: Likely Impact of Toxicity at the Workplace