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Companies Wake Up To the Problem of Bullies At Work (wsj.com)
Reader cdreimer writes: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal (possibly paywalled), two-thirds of Americans have reported being bullied in the workplace in the last year (up from half in 1989) and boorish behavior by bosses and coworkers are causing companies in lost productivity. The report reads: One of the first things visitors notice when they enter the Irvine, Calif., offices of Bryan Cave LLP is the granite plaque etched with the law firm's 10-point code of civility. The gray slab, displayed in the law firm's reception area, proclaims that employees always say please and thank you, welcome feedback and acknowledge the contributions of others. Such rules may seem more at home in a kindergarten than a law firm, but Stuart Price, a longtime partner, says they serve as a daily reminder to keep things civil at work. Incivility -- and its more extreme cousin, bullying -- is becoming a bigger problem in workplaces. Nearly two-thirds of Americans reported that they were bullied at work last year, up from roughly half of workers in 1998, according to research conducted by Christine Porath, a management professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. These people reported they were "treated rudely at least once a month" by bosses or co-workers in the past year -- which Prof. Porath defined as being bullied.Bullying costs companies in ways large and small, cutting into productivity and turning off customers, management experts say. Workplace behavior is under the microscope after recent allegations of sexual harassment in Hollywood, technology and media. Some companies have found, as a result of investigations into harassment claims, that bullying and boorish behavior are more common than suspected.
"treated rudely at least once a month" by bosses or co-workers in the past year -- which Prof. Porath defined as being bullied.
That explains the ridiculous result right there. In other words, a load of garbage.
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(This is a repost of a comment from a previous bullying discussion.)
If you've experienced workplace bullying first hand then you know what a destructive force it is. Your workplace becomes a place of dread and fear. The stress becomes not just a part of your daily life, but a part of who you are as a person. It changes you.
My own experience of being bullied began when I took a job with a company that had just promoted a long-standing employee in to a management position. He had no experience of managing people, he received no training, and he openly said that he didn't want the job. He was visibly stressed almost constantly, and resented that he was still expected to work and not just manage other people's work.
Very early in the job I was shouted at in the middle of a busy office for completing a task that should have been cancelled. It was a foul-mouthed and very personal tirade of abuse, accusing me of being untrustworthy, and came totally out of the blue. Then my manager realised that he had forgotten to mark the task as cancelled, and quietly in a private room away from other staff, he apologised and promised never to speak to me like that in front of people again.
The details of bullying incidents are generally repetitive and boring, so suffice to say, this was just the beginning of what became regular abuse: Shouted at in the middle of the office for things I had allegedly done wrong, and then apologised to in private.
I put up with the abuse for way too long. I'd spoken to my union rep and kept a bullying diary as advised, but I never started a grievance procedure. Colleagues said I should, and one day I ended up talking to the company secretary about it, but I backed off, determined to resolve the issue myself. Ultimately, I told myself, this is a case of two grown men having a clash of personalities, and I should be able to resolve it. But of course I couldn't.
After about a year I had to take time off work for an unconnected health reason, which seemed to go on a lot longer than one might expect. After a week back at work, I was off again with flu, which seemed to go on forever. My doctor was puzzled and I was sent to the hospital for tests. But in conversation with my doctor one time I mentioned about how it was actually quite nice to be off work because it was an escape from the bullying, and it was as if I'd said the magic word. My doctor was certain that the stress of being bullied was the root cause of my poor health. It explained everything. It turns out that a year of sleepless nights and constant anxiety isn't very good for you.
When I finally had to take formal action against my manager, the company was combative, and handled it on the basis that I was making it all up. I opted for the least "official" form of grievance, third-party arbitration, and my manager held his hands up to what he'd been doing and promised to change. Whether he could or not, I don't know, as I've not been well enough to return to work yet.
(Iâ(TM)ve since left that job and my career has gone from strength to strength ever since.)
But, "being treated rudely at least once a month" is NOT the same as being bullied.
If you're getting legit bullied by an entrenched malicious psychopath or sadist, don't go to HR. They're in management's pocket and probably know the person is a SOB anyway. Get a body cam. Record that motherfucker. Create a montage of his or her patterned behavior. When you've had enough, make it understood that social media is a very powerful tool.
People that are prone to be sensitive and have increased leverage for political correctness reasons are themselves frequently bullies. Anyone that has been 6 years old will remember the child that cried to get another child in trouble. Anyone that watches sports will be aware that on occasion someone will pretend to be injured to encourage a referee to punish the opposing team.
We all know this because I assume we've all been 6 before and are aware of professional sports to some extent.
This plays out in the work place in much the same manner in that some people will pretend offense or emotional injury for personal gain or to spite someone they don't like.
There is a movement to discourage awareness of this element of the work place. And while some feel this creates a more welcoming environment for people to express problems... it also encourages abuse by those that don't mind pretending to manipulate their coworkers and employers.
One must be skeptical and reasonable either way. If you get a report... use your best judgement and try to appreciate what is possible and what you know. Naturally you don't want a hostile work environment. But you also don't want a hair trigger whine fest environment because that is also quite hostile.
In the one case you have some bully beating people up for their lunch money... in the other case you have your little sister Susie pretending some imaginary offense to get your mom to punish you... yes... I am intentionally using childish analogies here to get the point across.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
not because I'm a bully, but because they're dumb as a fucking rock and the only way they finally get the point to stop asking the same GD questions is if I growl at them.
I don't mind the first question. Second time I'll tell you to write this down. Third time I'll tell you to refer to your notes and anytime after that, I'll probably yell at you for being stupid.
So I'll quit being mean to them when you quit hiring idiots.
asset
An asset is not a person. It's a thing. A resource. A human resource, which can be leveraged and used up.
I'd love to see more places go back to personnel offices and staff support offices. I'd love to hear companies speak of employees like something other than a lump of coal to be tossed into the boiler.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You think a group of kids following someone around and taunting them is a "microaggression"? A microaggression is "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color."
These kids weren't just shouting one insult as they passed by me one or two times in the halls. They would follow me no matter where I went. If I tried to lose them in the crowd, they'd stick with me and taunt me for trying to get away. When they didn't follow me, they would go to my next class (which meant they needed to know my schedule) and would block my entry (letting other kids through). While I tried to push past them, they'd verbally abuse me more. They would do this EVERY day between EVERY class for three and a half years. That's classic bullying behavior, not saying something that was insulting to me without realizing it. For all their "we were just having fun" claims after the fact, they KNEW they were targeting me for abuse and actively engaged in this behavior.
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