The hidden cost of bullying
Posted by
Ricki Sharpe on
October 17, 2007
Filed Under
Leadership, Work Behaviour
Evidence that workplace bullying increases costs for organisations keeps mounting. Researchers at Florida State University surveyed more than 180 employees from a wide variety of professions, asking whether they had endured a history of abuse from their bosses, then asking a series of workplace performance questions. Employees working under an abusive supervisor tended to rebel quietly and indirectly by slacking off on the job and handing in sloppy work.
Employees with difficult bosses checked out in the following ways:
- 30 percent slowed down or purposely made errors, compared with 6 percent of those not reporting abuse.
- 27 percent purposely hid from the boss, compared with 4 percent of those not abused.
- 33 percent confessed to not putting in maximum effort, compared with 9 percent of those not abused.
- 29 percent took sick time off even when not ill, compared with 4 percent of those not abused.
- 25 percent took more or longer breaks, compared with 7 percent of those not abused.
Whether the abusive boss causes apathetic employees or vice versa is not known.
“However, it is clear that employee-employer relations are at one of the lowest points in history,†researcher Wayne Hochwarter said.
Employees who did not have a belligerent boss were three times more likely to proactively fix problems and approach their supervisors with ideas to help the company, according to the new study.
Employees say that abuse from bosses includes put-downs in front of others, ignored e-mails and other correspondence and being berated.
Hochwarter and his colleagues conducted another survey in 2006, in which they polled about 700 people in a variety of professions about supervisor treatment, finding:
- 31 percent reported their supervisor gave them the silent treatment in the past year.
- 37 percent reported their supervisor failed to give credit when due.
- 39 percent noted their supervisor failed to keep promises.
- 27 percent noted their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.
- 24 percent reported their supervisor invaded their privacy.
- 23 percent indicated their supervisor blamed others to cover up mistakes or to minimise embarrassment.
Both studies, Hochwarter says, bring to the forefront the damaging interactions between employees and managers that can get played out on a daily basis. “It calls to light this caustic relationship that management and supervisors are often having these days [with employees],” Hochwarter said.
Hochwarter suggested that basic civility, including a commitment to active communication, could resolve many workplace problems.
“If organisations would simply spend much more time addressing issues that relate to trust and communication, then a lot of this would get resolved,” Hochwarter said
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asshole | rudeness | trust | workplace bullying.Comments
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