Author: ARRC Technology

Career change statistics suggest that the average person will be making a career change approximately 5-7 times during their working life. Which means the likelihood of you encountering a toxic work environment may be higher than you think. Some believe that just powering through it all is the best tactic on dealing with toxic leadership, but there are some highly detrimental side effects that could follow you through to your next workplace.

Below are a few reasons why toxic leadership destroys your morale at a more core level than you may think.

Your voice isn’t heard.

When you encounter a toxic workplace where the leadership isn’t interested in ideas or commentary from the majority of the employees, you’ll start to feel unimportant and worthless over time. Maybe you spotted an area of quick improvement that wouldn’t cost a lot and would really help your fellow coworkers, but your manager dismissed you without even hearing you out. Maybe you completed a task and while trudging through it, discovered a new and more efficient way to complete it, but your boss just nodded and shooed you out of his office.

Consistently getting treated like less than a contributing member of the workplace will erode your self-worth and condition you to not speak up or think of new ways to complete things. Why bother? If leadership isn’t willing to listen or even give you the time of day, why waste your time trying to maximize the productivity of your work environment?

Creativity suffers.

Along similar lines, creativity takes a large hit when you’re operating in a toxic workplace. Because creative endeavors are not just black and white (like finance or sales), they’re vulnerable to more criticism and judgement. And when you have a toxic person in a leadership or management role, your creative side will begin to wilt. Toxic managers are prone to taking credit for things they didn’t do or have a part of, while pointing fingers and blaming others when their ideas don’t pan out.

Soon enough, you’ll find yourself unwilling to put yourself out there and stretch your creative legs. You’ve been taught by reprimand and criticism that new ideas are unwelcome and although you are the graphic designer or copywriter (or whatever other creative), you don’t know what you’re doing and need the helping hand of your toxic manager.

Years under this type of leadership results in a major creative block that could take a long time to unclog, even if you land your dream job in a healthy work environment.

Team mindset crumbles.

The general idea of taking a job is to be part of the team that supports the company in its goals, whether they’re monetary goals, growth goals, or support goals. In an ideal world, your teammates have your back, whether things go well or go south. Say a project flops horribly: in a healthy workplace, everyone learns from the situation. Everyone involved takes responsibility for their part in the project and a new strategy is laid out for future projects. No one is blamed, no one points fingers, no one acts selfishly or rudely about the project.

In a toxic environment, if a project flops, you can bet your bottom dollar that the toxic manager in charge of the project will go above and beyond to the executives that it was everyone else’s fault but his. He had no part in anything going wrong, and tried valiantly to steer the sinking ship to shore, to no avail. The employees just didn’t listen to him, he tells the executives. He would never have done things that way.

Getting blamed and having your abilities questioned is the last thing that will encourage you to work harder on the next project. Your sense of team unity has been torpedoed, and everyone involved is feeling the same way. Teammates are turning on each other in an attempt to save their jobs, when in a healthy workplace, the team would be working even closer together to make sure the same mistakes didn’t happen on the next try.

Why work for someone who doesn’t care?

Although we’ve barely touched the surface of why toxic leadership incinerates employee morale, the gist of the whole concept is this: why work your hardest for someone (or a company as a whole) that doesn’t care? If you’re suffering under a toxic manager who doesn’t listen, treats you like a number, and routinely blames everyone but himself for less-than-stellar results, why are you working there? We spend more than half our lives at work, toiling away to contribute to the greater good, and there are plenty of healthy workplaces out there that will stimulate your abilities and treat you fairly.

No job is perfect, and toxic leadership can develop anywhere, but as long as you keep in mind what’s important and know that you are worth more than suffering under a toxic manager, you can make those career changes confidently. No job is worth your self-respect, your creativity, or your morale.

Social media is a very unique form of marketing because it exists inside the lives of your consumers. If they follow you, by default, you follow them. What could be better than that? Social media can be a cost-effective marketing platform that builds followers, creates brand loyalty, and engages consumers.

Here are five traits of successful social media marketing so you can get the most out of your social media platforms.

Start a conversation.

Speaking of conversations, make sure you start some. That’s why you’re on social media, right? Interact with consumers, generate brand awareness among potential customers and get people to talk about your product, service or industry. If you see some negative replies, look at it as an opportunity. Your responses can establish who you are as a company and transform your followers into true fans.

Treat your followers like customers.

Your social media followers are more than just a number, they’re digital customers with a powerful voice the whole world can see. Respond to their comments—whether they’re positive or negative. Thoughtful interaction goes a long way and can create lasting brand loyalty.

Images, images, images.

More and more, people prefer to receive information through visuals. Images are easier to digest for customers when they are on-the-go. As a result, images generate more clicks, more likes, and more shares. If you’re absolutely dead-set on sharing a large amount of copy, try to place content on top of images.

Calls to action are key.

You don’t just want to engage your following, you want them to click through. Create a call-to-action (CTA) that will motivate your followers to click your link, try your product or check out what you have to share. CTAs result in a higher follower-to-customer conversion rate and increased brand loyalty.

Timing is part of the strategy.

Posting to your social media outlets should be a regular activity, at least daily.  But there’s more to it than that. When you post is even more important than how much you post.

The “when” depends on who your audience is, what social media channels you’re using and what kind of information you’re sharing. For example, professionals are online at different times than teenagers, and they are more likely to click a link in the evening. They’ll also probably be on LinkedIn during the day and Facebook at night.

We’ve all heard the arguments before: lazier people are more creative, and oftentimes, wildly more successful (they have all the time in the world to waste which means they come up with some pretty radical ideas). But then again, that’s not to say that busy bees can’t be creative or successful either. Google’s head of marketing has over 20 meetings each day—she’s pretty darn busy and if you ask most anyone, rather successful, too. And we’re all guilty of procrastination. But is it really such a bad thing?

So then the question naturally becomes: to procrastinate or not to procrastinate? And while the choice is ultimately yours to make, here are a few reasons that lend a little positivity to each side of the coin.

To procrastinate:

1. It can make you more creative.

For some, procrastination can lead to a better outcome, causing you to think of more efficient solutions and more innovative ideas in order to avoid tedious or boring work.

2. It can lead to more important items.

You might put it off, but you’ll probably do something else in its place to justify your procrastination—something that is equally as important, if not more important.

3. It can reveal the missing ingredient.

Delaying doesn’t come out of nowhere. Chances are your mind is focused on the little details or maybe even the bigger picture. Sometimes you need to clear the fog before you can make something really shine.

Not to procrastinate:

1. It can actually take more time.

Many think procrastination uses more of your valuable time, decreasing brain function and causing the effects of sleep deprivation. Like mentioned before, your brain energy is spent stressing over what you aren’t doing and what you need to be doing.

2. It can use more energy.

When we don’t give our minds time to evaluate, plan and decompress, it takes away from our energy—ultimately affecting our work in negative ways. Putting items off until later will give us less time to decompress, as well as more time to stress over not doing something.

3. It can create bad habits.

If you procrastinate once and you’re successful at it, then you’ll probably do it over and over again until something negative happens. And don’t be naive… It will happen. It’s important to nip this habit in the bud. Once procrastination becomes a habit, it gets easier and easier to justify the negative consequences of it.

There are plenty of other pros and cons to each side, but the general rule of thumb is: as long as your work gets done, it doesn’t really matter how you got there. Everyone is different and works in different ways. If procrastination works for you, continue on. If you prefer being a busy bee, keep on buzzing.

Social media can get a bad reputation for being an endless stream of selfies and baby photos. But with the recent devastation of Hurricane Harvey and our very own flash flooding here in Bakersfield over Labor Day weekend, social media can be harnessed for good, too. Here are seven ways social media can make your community a better place.

1. Raise awareness

Not everyone reads the newspaper each morning, but most people check their social media accounts. Hyper-local issues don’t get much play even in regional news, but that doesn’t mean people don’t need to know what’s happening on their local school board or when the local library is holding a talk that they might be interested in. Social media can function as a sort of town bulletin board. Whether it’s letting people know about issues that face the community or just alerting people to a new restaurant that’s trying to build a customer base, social media can be a way to learn about your community in a fine-grained way that you won’t get from other outlets.

2. Solicit small donations with a big impact

A year or so ago, a New York-based writer sent out an idea to her social media followers: call up local schools and ask them if any of their students have unpaid cafeteria balances. Then donate money to pay down those debts. The idea sparked charity initiatives across the country, with charitable folks donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to their local schools to make sure no kids had to go without a hot lunch because of their outstanding cafeteria debts. In cases like these, an outpouring of public support for small-scale acts of kindness can have a big impact. People who donated might only have given $10 or $20, but that can pay off a lot of $2.50 school lunches.

3. Give people a place to meet virtually when they can’t connect offline

The internet allows people to connect with their peers in a safe space regardless of geography. Social media groups for local youth, for instance, offer discussion boards, highlight relevant news, hold social events that allow online members to meet up in real life, and connect kids to opportunities to take part in summer camps, theater troupes, and more.

4. Mobilize supporters

Want to support a topic coming up before the town hall? How about raising funds for a family in need? Or just soliciting help to find a lost pet? Numbers matter. You may not be able to put up flyers all over your town, but you can reach out to hundreds of people with the right social media account. With a little publicity, you can gather support from a much wider swath of your community.

5. Connect neighbors

In the modern era, neighborhoods aren’t always as tight-knit as they used to be. Residents might not know their next-door neighbor, much less the family down the block. But social media can help connect people who live in the same area but otherwise wouldn’t have any opportunity to meet. These private groups and location-specific apps allow rental tenants and homeowners alike to do everything from finding nearby garage sales to crowdsourcing recommendations for handyman services. An online neighborhood group can help you find a sitter for your baby, your dog, or your house. And it can help you put names to the faces you run into every day and alleviate those awkward head nods to the folks next door.

6. Share community resources

Whether it’s helping people understand their rights as rental tenants, publicizing local scholarships for college-bound students, letting people know about free job fairs or volunteer opportunities, or helping disadvantaged groups find support resources, social media can be an effective way to let neighbors know about resources available to them that might be under-publicized.

7. Inspire good deeds

Sometimes people just need a nudge to get out in the community and do some good. In Iowa, a pair of middle-schoolers decided to spend their summer encouraging their neighbors to share small acts of kindness. They set up social media accounts to help inspire their followers, posting weekly prompts like “tell someone they make you happy and why,” sharing different ways that people can give back to their communities, and publicizing the stories of small acts of kindness their followers shared with them.