Banning Workplace Bullies

By Sue Bushell, CIO.com

Steve Rudd, an IT and services professional from Tennessee, USA, returned to work from a long weekend a few years ago to find he was starting to get some highly peculiar reactions from the people answering his phone calls.

A bit of digging revealed a co-worker he held in high esteem because of his creativity — who happened to work in the corporate telecommunications group — had been induced by a foe to change Rudd’s name in the phone system to Forest Gump (from the movie starring Tom Hanks).

Never one to be intimidated, Rudd bought the co-worker lunch and plotted his revenge: a WAV file planted on the instigator’s PC that produced a snoring sound whenever his PC went into screensaver mode, (chosen because the individual was frequently out of the office and kept his door locked).

Another corporate bully set his sights on Rudd some years ago. His biggest demand was that all who worked for him be “team players”, which in his eyes clearly meant accepting the philosophy of “his way or the highway”.

“I refused to play along,” Rudd relates. “One day he was chairing a rather large department meeting where he was giving a ‘teamwork’ speech. His favourite phrase was ‘There is no ‘I’ in TEAM,’” Rudd says.

“He made that statement several times through his dissertation. Finally, he repeated the phrase, adding ‘Isn’t that right Mr Rudd’ pointing me out in the crowd. My reply even caught me off guard: ‘That’s true, and there’s no U either’. The laughter was deafening . . .”

Bullies are fun to mess with, Rudd says. They simply don’t know what to do with people who refuse to be intimidated. And if you get your retaliation right, you can even stop the bully from gaining any benefit from their bad behaviour. Adopt the right mind set, he says, and you can easily turn those tables.

The trouble is, of course, that bullies thrive precisely because there are always some people prone to intimidation even as others eagerly take up the cudgels to defend themselves against those they perceive to be bullying them. And corporate warfare, where the strong stand up for themselves and retaliate at will while the more easily intimidated suffer in miserable — and typically highly unproductive — silence, is no answer to the problem of workplace bullying.

Of course workplace bullying is something that is as old as the workplace itself, its causes buried somewhere deep within the human psyche. But a workplace which permits bullying — and in the still largely-macho world of IT bullying is probably more likely to flourish than elsewhere — is a dysfunctional workplace, and that dysfunction is very likely to reveal itself in the corporate bottom line.

High Cost
Researchers estimate one in four employees is likely to encounter repeated bullying at some time in their working lives and that workplace bullying costs Australian businesses between $17 billion and $36 billion each year, with hidden costs including high levels of absenteeism, a breakdown of teams and work relationships and a negative image of the organisation — which is likely to make it much harder to attract the best and brightest. There is also the danger that the workplace that fails to protect employees will expose itself to prolonged and costly litigation.

Failure to adequately tackle workplace bullying has definitely led to greater costs for Australian organisations, both through the workers’ compensation process and higher insurance premiums. In Australia, claims for compensation over stress account for only seven per cent of the total number of compensation claims, but make up 27 per cent of the total cost.

As Robert Sutton, professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University and author of the book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, points out, nasty people don’t just make others feel miserable; they create economic headaches for their companies.

“Companies that put up with jerks not only can have more difficulty recruiting and retaining the best and brightest talent but are also prone to higher client churn, damaged reputations and diminished investor confidence. Innovation and creativity may suffer, and cooperation could be impaired, both within and outside the organisation — no small matter in an increasingly networked world,” he writes.

“The problem is more widespread than you might think. Research in the United Kingdom and the United States suggests that jerk-infested workplaces are common: a 2000 study by Loraleigh Keashly and Karen Jagatic found that 27 per cent of the workers in a representative sample of 700 Michigan residents experienced mistreatment by someone in the workplace.

“There is good news and bad news about workplace jerks. The bad news is that abuse is widespread and the human and financial toll is high. The good news is that leaders can take steps to build workplaces where demeaning behaviour isn’t tolerated and nasty people are shown the door.”

Narelle Hess, an Australian organisational psychologist with Challenge Consulting, says many organisations are confused about what constitutes bullying, leading to bullying going unreported by staff members and organisational failure to prevent and appropriately manage bullying behaviours.

Hess says workplace bullying is defined as “repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a person or group of persons at a workplace, which creates a risk to health and safety”. Intent is irrelevant. Bullying can take place at any time when employees are engaged in work-related activities, including work social events. Bullying can also take many forms including verbal, physical, by letter, e-mail, or text message.

“Workplace bullying can be obvious and aggressive, for example: behaviour or language that frightens, humiliates, belittles or degrades; loud verbal criticism; encouragement to other workers to participate in bullying behaviour; malicious rumours, gossip or innuendo,” Hess wrote in an article for Not-For-Profit Management Magazine last year.

“Workplace bullying can also be subtle and can include behaviour such as: deliberate exclusion of a worker from normal workplace activities; interference with personal property or work equipment; intimidation by inappropriate personal comment; belittling opinions or unjustified criticism; offensive jokes, whether by spoken word or e-mail.

“Behaviour that treats some employees less favourably is also classed as bullying and can incorporate assignment of meaningless tasks to a worker, deliberately changing work arrangements to inconvenience a worker, unreasonably blocking promotion, training, development or other work opportunities and removal of areas of responsibility without cause.

“Bullying by managers and/or supervisors can take the form of excessive or unreasonable work scrutiny, inappropriate or unreasonable criticism of someone’s work or behaviour, constant or inappropriate change or setting of impossible deadlines, tasks or targets along with taking no action to address legitimate grievances.”

Workplaces can also be made toxic through “Workplace Mobbing”. According to the Workplace Mobbing Australia Web site, Workplace mobbing is a “virus” or a “cancer” that spreads through malicious hearsay, rumour and gossip. It is done with the deliberate intention of forcing the target out of their employment.

Accusations of unsubstantiated “bullying” can even be made against the target as the perpetrators realise the benefits of claiming “victim” status. Those targeted are falsely accused and are denied the right of reply or natural justice.

The pattern identified by European research, and now confirmed in Australia, indicates that those at high risk of being ganged up against are:

- High achievers

- Enthusiastic workers (those who volunteer or take on extra work)

- Those with high integrity (won’t condone theft, bullying, etc)

- Those with high ethical standards

- Promoters of human rights, dignity and respect

- Possible whistleblowers

- Those who don’t join in with the destructiveness of the “in” group

- Those with family responsibilities (particularly women)

- Those with religious or cultural requirements

All in the Culture
Bullying is usually preventable, but you can’t solve workplace bullying by weeding out the “bullies” if you have a workplace culture that promotes bad behaviour.

Andrew Baker, an IT operations & information security executive and currently vice president, IT Operations at ARGI (Automated Resources Group) in New York city, says he has worked in a number of environments where corporate bullies have existed, and in some cases, even thrived. When the bully has rank and authority, or is highly skilled, workplaces will sometimes offer some limited understanding as to why the bullying takes place. However, there are other times when there is no apparent reason why the toxic behaviour is tolerated, as the bully lacks authority and is not particularly well skilled or otherwise useful.

“Personally, I never tolerate bullies who report to me,” Baker says. “It undermines the workplace, and leads to a hostile, unproductive working environment. What is much harder to address is when the bully reports to someone else, and for reasons unknown, the other party refuses to take any meaningful steps to eliminate the behaviour and set or enforce proper standards of behaviour for all employees.

“I try to ensure that my team does not foster bully behaviour, and that they rise above it whenever they encounter it. Sinking to the level of a bully simply exasperates the situation and undermines one’s own credibility and professionalism.”

Baker says calling in the Human Resources folks when relationships become toxic can help: when a corporate bully accused both him and his team of favouritism and harassment, a thorough investigation by the HR team fully exonerated both himself and the team, and helped moderate the bully’s activities for a time.

Acceptable workplace behaviour must be anchored by underpinning “organisational values”, says Sydney-based corporate behaviour expert Colin Chodos, managing director at CCS-Corporate Behavioural Specialists.

Chodos says uncivil behaviour in the workplace is often reflected in the leadership and management style. It is most common in organisations which have failed to develop a corporate culture that champions the values at all levels.

Chodos says dysfunctional leadership teams often result from lack of an acceptable behaviour reference base. Their “poor” behaviour is then cascaded into different management levels and the front line. The result, all too frequently, is poor customer service and a lack of productivity.

“The steps to creating ‘acceptable’ behaviour (civility) are fairly straightforward,” Chodos says. “All our experience indicates that it starts at the top: the ‘top of the organisation’ (The Board), the ‘top of the management team’ (The CEO), and the top of the front line (The Team Leader). In an IT context it applies to the CIO, since they manage field engineers and the help desk.

“Steps to manage and improve workplace relations are very varied, depending on circumstances. There is no one strategy. Experience is essential in developing ‘values’ that will have longevity. Importantly, they should measurable and people (at all levels) then held accountable for their daily behaviour.”

As Dr Carlo Caponecchia, a lecturer in the School of Risk and Safety Sciences at the University of New South Wales, points out in a recent article on the university’s Web site, there are times when those displaying bullying behaviour need to be seen in the context of their organisations and the demands it makes on them. Competitiveness and increasing pressure on workers to work long hours, meet deadlines and perform can all have an impact.

“This is not to shift all the blame onto organisations — but to highlight that we need to avoid always vilifying the ‘bully’,” Caponecchia writes.

“A balanced solution would involve making organisations resilient to bullying behaviour, rather than just busting the bully or attempting to rehabilitate the target. Post-crisis intervention — the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff — is not good enough when there are ample signs bullying is likely to occur.

“Similarly, preventing workplace bullying is not just about policy. Zero-tolerance policies are just window-dressing unless they are backed up with a genuine commitment to prevent problems as well as to fix them. That commitment needs to be communicated. At the very least, responsible organisations should be investing in training on bullying awareness and in developing innovative strategies to enable appropriate reporting.”