The recent iHire reports on toxic workplace trends in 2025 showcase how workplace toxicity and bullying is still a prevalent issue across multiple industries. Perhaps the most concerning result for HR leaders is the report that focuses on HR’s role in toxic workplaces that found employees don’t trust HR to help them.
These reports highlight how many companies and HR teams are failing their employees. It is more critical than ever for leaders to take the time to understand and address the root causes of workplace toxicity.
This HR 411 article takes a deeper look at the report’s key findings and what it means for the state of the workforce going forward.
Toxic Trends and Statistics
The report’s goal was to discover what makes a workplace toxic, how these negative work environments impact employees, and whether there is a disconnect between employers and employees when it comes to assessing workplace environments.
The results were concerningly high, with nearly 75% of employees having experienced a toxic workplace and over half of respondents leaving jobs because of such conditions. 59% of respondents went even further, saying they would take a job with a lower salary just to escape a toxic workplace. This suggests a majority of employees value a positive work culture over salary.
So, what are the leading causes that make so many employees feel like they need to “escape” from their job? The report identified seven main categories and found that many of the issues started at the top of organizations and trickled down to employees.
Poor leadership is identified as the leading cause at 79%, with issues like lack of accountability, favoritism, and unethical behavior driving the toxicity. Poor communication was ranked second (70%) with respondents saying inconsistent communications, lack of transparency, and lack of constructive feedback led to heightened stress and misunderstandings.
Unfair treatment of employees like favoritism, discrimination, and unequal opportunities followed closely behind at 68%. Other contributing factors like lack of support for employees (64%), negative company culture (60%), and workplace hostility (59%) were also considered to be major concerns for employee respondents.
The report further proves that on top of poor employee retention, toxic workplaces also exacerbate employee physical and mental health issues, as 60% reported experiencing stress-related health issues due to conditions at their workplace.
When it comes to reporting these issues, only a quarter of employees believe HR will address toxic behaviors, while nearly 45% said they don’t trust HR to help them at all. This statistics could be caused by a lack of response, as over 60% of employees who said they reported issues to HR said nothing was done to fix the issue.
“It’s concerning that nearly half of workers don’t trust HR to address negative or toxic behaviors, including favoritism, bias, gossip, and dishonesty,” Chrisanne Bowden, Principal HR Business Partner with iHire, said in the report. “To ensure a positive work environment where all employees can thrive, employers need to work with their HR teams, managers, and other leaders to enable a culture of trust, transparency, and communication with well-defined processes for mitigating conflict.”
The report also found there might be a slight disconnect in how the workplace is viewed between employees and their employers. When employers were asked how they viewed their current workplace, the survey implied employers have a more positive view of the work environment.
It was noted that while both groups mentioned similar values, each group placed them at different levels of importance. For example, when it comes to ensuring open communication, it was the top priority for employees but only ranked fourth among employers.
This report shows that when there is a difference in expectations and values, employees and their supervisors start to clash. It is critical that employers ensure they are on the same page as employees to avoid vital mistakes that cost them in the long run.
Research Methodology
The iHire reports were released on the same day and pulled from results of the same survey results. One report focused on the overall trends reported by respondents and the other focused on HR’s role in toxic workplace trends. iHire surveyed a total of 2,285 people responded to the survey in December 2024 via the Qualtrics XM platform. These respondents included 1,781 workers and 504 employers, across 57 industries in the United States. Respondents came from iHire’s job seeker databases. All decimal points are rounded to the nearest tenth.
