Of all the complaints employees of large US companies made in Glassdoor reviews, feeling disrespected went with the sharpest drop in how they rated the company’s culture, slightly more even than calling the culture toxic outright.¹

The signs of a toxic workplace with the most research behind them, chiefly a large analysis of US employee reviews, are five patterns: disrespect, exclusion, unethical behavior, cutthroat competition and abusive management. A single bad day, a hard deadline or a clunky approval process does not make a workplace toxic. Mistreatment that repeats and lands on people who cannot easily push back does. The four-step check below turns those patterns into questions about your own team.

It is also common. In a 2022 global survey by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Lloyd’s Register Foundation, run by Gallup, more than one in five employed people across 121 countries, about 23 percent, said they had experienced violence or harassment at work during their working life.²

Reading the room is one of the skills studied in emotional intelligence research; here the question is whether the trouble is the culture or just a bad week.

A toxic workplace is a pattern, not a bad day

Researchers who study mistreatment at work separate the toxic from the merely unpleasant with three tests: how often it happens, how long it lasts, and whether the target can defend themselves. Norwegian bullying researchers Morten Birkeland Nielsen, Ståle Einarsen and colleagues define bullying as frequent harassment by superiors or co-workers over a prolonged period, which the employee finds hard to fend off. The third test separates bullying from an ordinary row: the target comes to feel unable to fight back because of a gap in power, either formal, like a manager’s authority, or informal, like who has more allies.³

A large 2018 study in Belgian workplaces, a convenience sampleconvenience sample: A group of study participants chosen because they were easy to reach, such as students, app users or online volunteers, rather than drawn at random from the population of interest. Results from such samples may not hold for other people.Full entry in the glossary, found that severe bullying seemed to be a distinct experience rather than a stronger dose of everyday conflict, with by far the lowest well-being and the highest strain.⁴ Australia’s Fair Work Commission draws a similar legal line: behavior counts as bullying when it is unreasonable, happens more than once and creates a risk to health and safety, while reasonable management action, such as a performance improvement plan, does not.⁵

1. A one-off: one harsh comment or a bad day; unpleasant, but not a pattern
2. Repeated over time: the same kind of mistreatment, often, for weeks or months
3. Hard to push back: the target cannot easily defend themselves, often because of a gap in power

Picture two managers in a hard quarter. One snaps at the team on Friday and apologizes on Monday. The other belittles the same analyst in front of colleagues every week, and the analyst has learned that answering back makes it worse. Only the second fits what researchers call bullying.

So before you judge, count.

Signs of a toxic workplace: the five that research singles out

The clearest evidence on which problems employees link to a toxic culture comes from Donald Sull and Charles Sull, co-founders of the culture-analytics company CultureX, with William Cipolli and Caio Brighenti. Their 2022 analysis in MIT Sloan Management Review named the Toxic Five from what US employees criticized in Glassdoor reviews.

The study

Limited evidence

1.3 million US job reviews, and the five complaints tied to the lowest culture scores

The team measured which negative topics went with the lowest culture ratings, on a 5-point scale. Five clusters had by far the strongest links to low ratings: disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat and abusive. Feeling disrespected was the strongest single topic, and a mention of it went with a culture rating about two-thirds of a point lower, all else equal.¹

Treat it as a well-drawn map rather than a verdict: reviewers choose to write, the sample covers only large US companies, and it ran in a business magazine without peer review.¹ All five concern how people are treated rather than how the work is organized. The everyday examples below are ours.

Disrespect, and people shut out

Disrespect looks like ideas brushed aside with a sneer, or the same people talked over in every meeting. Exclusion means some people are treated unfairly because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, disability or age, and it also covers cronyism and cliques that decide who is in. The authors warn that leaders who watch only average ratings may miss exclusion, because it can hit a small number of people hard. If one group keeps being passed over, count it as a sign even when most colleagues seem content.¹

Rules bend and colleagues undermine each other

Unethical cultures show up as dishonesty, false promises, sugarcoating and ignored rules, such as safety or patient-privacy regulations: being told to promise a client a date everyone knows is impossible, say. The cutthroat sign is easy to confuse with ordinary friction: complaints about uncooperative teammates and silos were common but made little difference to culture ratings, while complaints about colleagues actively sabotaging one another, throwing each other under the bus, went with much lower ones.¹

Managers who are abusive, not just stressed

Abusive management means sustained hostility, not a boss having a bad day: bullying, yelling, belittling, verbal abuse and talking down to staff. Few reviewers described their manager this way, but when they did, their culture rating was lower still.¹

Judge a workplace against these five, not against every irritation: a chaotic calendar wears you down, but it is a problem to fix.

Checking your own workplace in four steps

Four steps test your workplace against the evidence without confronting anyone. They help you see clearly; they prove nothing to anyone else.

1. Sort what you see into the five signs

List recent incidents under the five headings, or under none. A note such as “Tuesday: my proposal laughed off in the team meeting” goes under disrespect; “shared drive crashed again” goes under none. If most items land under none, the problem may be the job rather than the culture, though heavy workloads carry their own risks.

2. Count how often, and ask who could object

For each item, note how often it happened, over how many weeks, and whether you, or the person targeted, could safely object. One sarcastic remark in March is an incident. The same remark every Monday since March, from the person who approves your leave, is a pattern.

3. Keep a dated record

Acas, the workplace advice service for Great Britain, suggests that anyone who thinks they are being bullied keep a diary: what happened, how it made them feel, dates and times, evidence such as emails or screenshots, and any witnesses. Most bullying happens out of sight, it adds, so a lack of witnesses should not stop anyone reporting it.⁶ The guidance is British; a dated record is useful anywhere.

4. Watch what happens when someone speaks up

Notice whether problems raised lead to change, or whether the person who raised them is sidelined; where complaints go nowhere, people learn that speaking up is a waste of time. Going to HR is one route, with real powers and real limits.

WiserHours

Signs to check over the past few months

• People are belittled, mocked or talked over, again and again
• Some groups are treated unfairly, or favorites get the best work
• I am asked to mislead people or break rules
• Colleagues sabotage each other or take credit to get ahead
• A manager yells at, demeans or bullies people, not just on a bad day
• The same behavior has gone on for weeks or months
• People on the receiving end cannot safely push back
• Complaints go nowhere, or the person who complained pays for it
• My mood, anxiety or sleep has changed since this started

Find this checklist online:
https://wiserhours.com/emotional-intelligence/toxic-workplace-signs/#checklist-toxic-workplace-signs-checklist

Harassment at work is widespread and often kept quiet

The ILO’s first global survey on violence and harassment at work found it widespread around the world. Psychological forms, such as insults, threats, bullying or intimidation, were the most common, reported by nearly one in five employed people. Only slightly more than half of those affected had told anyone, and the most common reasons for silence were that speaking up seemed a waste of time and fear for their reputation.²

The figures are self-reports, most interviews were by telephone during the pandemic, and the ILO notes that what counts as harassment in one country may pass as mere rudeness in another, so regional comparisons are rough. People who had faced discrimination, for example over gender, disability or ethnicity, were also more likely to have faced violence or harassment at work.²

Silence has a simple logic: if the last person who complained was moved to a worse shift, the next one says nothing. A quiet team is not proof of a healthy one.

What a toxic workplace can do to your health

WHO’s 2022 workplace mental health guidelines name bullying, harassment and mobbing, poor relationships with superiors and high competition for scarce resources among the psychosocial riskspsychosocial risk: A feature of how work is designed, organized or managed that can harm mental or physical health, such as heavy workload, low control, poor support, bullying or job insecurity. Guidance puts changing these conditions ahead of asking workers to cope better.Full entry in the glossary to mental health, and note that bullying is associated with depression, anxiety and stress symptoms.⁷ A 2022 WHO and ILO policy brief adds that violence and harassment at work, bullying included, violate human rights and undermine mental and physical health.⁸

WHO’s evidence here is a 2015 meta-analysismeta-analysis: A study that combines the results of earlier studies on the same question into one overall estimate. Pooling makes the estimate more precise, but it cannot repair the studies it pools: a meta-analysis of surveys is still survey evidence.Full entry in the glossary by Bart Verkuil and colleagues in the Netherlands. Bullying was linked to symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, including in research that tracked the same workers across timelongitudinal study: A study that measures the same people more than once over a period of time, so it can see how they change and which thing came first. Following people over time still does not show that the earlier thing caused the later one.Full entry in the glossary, and the link ran in both directions: workers who already had mental health problems were more likely to be bullied later. The authors point to prolonged stress, since bullying is likely to replay in the mind outside working hours. All the data were self-reported, so the results show a connection and cannot prove cause.⁹

In everyday terms, that replay is the Sunday evening spent rehearsing Monday’s meeting with the manager who mocks you. A 2020 systematic review by Nielsen, Einarsen and colleagues found bullying linked to sleep problems in every study it included, though it rated that evidence low to moderate in quality.¹⁰

Note any change in your mood, anxiety or sleep since a job or manager changed, next to the incidents, and mention it to a doctor. Employers have their own part, covered in how organizations can support mental health at work.

Which of these findings rest on firm ground?

The evidence is strongest for the harm bullying does and weakest for the exact list of signs.

Use the five signs as a prompt for noticing, and the health findings as a reason to look after yourself now.

What the law says depends on where you work

No law defines a toxic workplace, and protection against bullying and harassment varies by country. The international baseline is the ILO’s Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190), which covers unacceptable behavior, whether it happens once or repeatedly, that aims at or is likely to cause physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm.¹¹ So a single serious threat can fall outside the research definition of bullying yet inside the Convention’s. As of September 2026, 56 countries had ratified it, among them Australia, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines and the United Kingdom; the United States was not on the list. For a few recent ratifiers it was not yet in force.¹²

National law decides your rights. Three examples:

• Great Britain has no law aimed at bullying as such, Acas explains, but under the Equality Act 2010 bullying can amount to discrimination when it relates to age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation or another protected characteristic.¹³
• In the US, the EEOC treats harassment based on a protected characteristic as unlawful when enduring it becomes a condition of keeping the job, or when it is severe or pervasive enough to create an intimidating, hostile or abusive environment; petty slights and isolated incidents do not qualify unless extremely serious. The EEOC lists a 180-day deadline to file a charge, extendable by state law; these laws cover employers with 15 or more employees (20 for age claims). In September 2026 its page said it was under review.¹⁴
• In Australia, as of 2026, the Fair Work Commission can make an order to stop bullying for workers who meet its eligibility rules.⁵

Elsewhere, ask your national labor inspectorate or equality body, a trade union, or a lawyer who handles employment cases, and ask early: deadlines can be short. Disagreements that fall short of all this are usually better handled with steps for resolving a conflict with a colleague.

Who to call, from urgent to routine

The US routes below are from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH); the urgency tiers and notes for other countries are WiserHours signposting.

• Now: if anyone is in immediate danger, or you have suicidal thoughts or urges to harm yourself, call the local emergency number first. For the US, NIMH lists 911, or the emergency room, for any threat to life, and 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, open to calls and texts, for anyone suicidal or in emotional distress.¹⁵ Elsewhere, find your national crisis line now, before you need it.
• Soon: if low mood, anxiety or broken sleep keeps returning or makes ordinary days hard to manage, a doctor’s appointment is worth booking.
• Routine: NIMH suggests asking HR whether the employer offers an employee assistance programemployee assistance program: A confidential service an employer pays for that gives staff free assessment, short-term counseling and referral for personal or work problems. It is a route to help, not a replacement for a doctor or for fixing problems in the work itself.Full entry in the glossary, which it describes as free, confidential and funded by the employer.¹⁵ A union representative or a national employment advice service can also explain where you stand.

The bottom line

A toxic workplace is defined less by how bad a single day feels than by patterns: disrespect, exclusion, dishonesty, sabotage or abuse that repeat and fall on people who cannot push back. More than one in five workers across 121 countries report violence or harassment at work at some point in their working life, so if the checklist fits, you are not the only one. Write it down with dates, look after your health, and find out which rules protect you where you work.