The economic costs of workplace bullying

Workplace bullying negatively effects workplace productivity. Basically - bullying prevents people from doing their job and it also makes victims - not want to go to work.

If you allow workplace bullying to happen - you should expect to see both lost workdays and also - productivity losses. 

And it's not just me saying that - check out this report on the cost of workplace bullying in the EU (losses are estimated at 239 million euros/ year. 

https://phys.org/news/2020-05-highlights-economic-workplace-bullying.html

If you want to learn how to make this stop - both as a humanistic leader and as a human - considering taking one of my online courses. https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Managing conflict in the workplace before it turns toxic

I am the founder of Humanist Learning Systems. I teach how to stop bullying and harassment in the workplace using behavioral science and a focus on dignity and compassion.

What needs to be done? 

First – understand that is totally ok to disagree in the workplace. What isn’t ok – is to turn a disagreement into a conflict.  Disagreements are things you discuss and work through to get to a good solution to whatever the problem is. Conflict is when you decide to not like the person you disagree with and instead of solving the problem, you fight them. Conflict is actually an irrational and emotional response to what should be – just – normal problem solving 101.  People who routinely respond to disagreement by turning into a conflict – either need to be taught collaborative problem solving so they don’t jump to conflict, or they need to be let go so that the people capable of rational collaborative problem solving – can get on with it!

Who needs to handle it? 

The managers do. If a conflict arises in a work team, there are a few things that could be happening. It’s up to the manager/leader to figure out what is going on and help redirect the team out of conflict into collaborative problem solving. IF that is even possible. Because – sometimes it’s not possible.  So – what are the things that could be going on?  Welll.

1. You could have a disagreement and the people don’t have the skills or a tie breaker to make a decision so the team can move forward. In which case- make a decision and help the team move forward.
2. You could have a personality that is sensitive and through past experience assumes disagreements are conflicts and so enter fight mode instead of collaborative problem solving mode.  In which case the manager can help coach them into collaborative problem solving.
3. You could have a bullying masquerading as conflict. In which case, you need to figure that out – and get rid of the bully. Bullying is NOT conflict. It’s not a fight. Bullying is bullying. It is one person harassing another person – for no good reason. They might rationalize doing this as – they are in a conflict as if that makes inappropriate harmful behavior ok  - which it doesn’t. Harassment/bullying serves no legitimate purpose.  How can you tell if it is conflict or bullying? By redirecting people into collaborative problem solving.  People who can move into collaborative problem solving are capable of it. Bullies – usually can’t – because the problem isn’t a disagreement. It’s that one is harassing the other because they can. Just – don’t allow the behavior and the person who is doing it – needs to be let go if they continue.

What issues commonly trigger conflict that lead to bullying, intimidation, harassment, etc.

This question is framed wrong.  Conflict isn’t bullying and doesn’t lead to bullying. Bullies excuse their behavior by saying – they are in a conflict – as if that justifies their behavior. It doesn’t. People in conflict – can be talked down into collaborative problem solving. If someone is a bully and they are using conflict to hide what they are doing – then nothing actually triggers this to become bullying/intimidation/harassment. It already is bullying/intimidation/harassment and it’s inappropriate in the workplace.  Heck – it’s inappropriate to turn a disagreement into a conflict. Bullying and rationalizing it as a conflict – is just – really horridly not ok.   Can bullying/harassment/intimidation escalate?  Of course it can. And it will. That escalation is one of the ways managers can know – this isn’t a conflict. It’s bullying. Because – normal people – when they have a disagreement and start to move into conflict – can easily be redirected to collaborative problem solving if they have support for that. People who bully, will bully more and escalate. It’s literally predicted to occur in bullying/harassment situations.

How does conflict impact a workplace? 

All businesses are in the business of solving problems. The better you solve problems, the more successful you will be. This is just common sense. What conflict does and – what bullying does – is it prevents problem solving from happening. Instead of a team deciding on the best course of action, teams decide based on who is the most popular or – who is the louded or who dominates meetings. Our goal – should be good collaborative problem solving. Period. Anything that gets in the way of that – or replaces good problem solving with a popularity contest – is going to hurt your business. It’s also going to cause good people – who are really good at collaboration – to leave. And that will also harm your workplace – because all that will be left  - are the bullies.

With retaliation being the biggest fear (and stats showing how common it is) is it worth speaking up?

It may or may not be.  I don’t recommend it unless you have allies above or parallel to the person who is doing the bullying. And notice – we are now talking about bullying – because – conflicts aren’t actually a problem. Because disagreements aren’t a problem. Inappropriate behavior – ie: bullying/harassment is – inappropriate. So – here’s the problem. A bully bullies because it works. They get rewarded for doing it. Basically – they are creating in groups and out groups and by bullying – they can ostracize someone into an outgroup – which gives them power over the group and over problem solving and decision making within the group. When a behavior – that has been rewarded, stops being rewarded, that behavior will escalate as the person tries to get their reward back. In bullying situations – this is experienced as – retaliation. It’s predicted to occur. How bad it will get depends on how long the behavior has been happening and whether the person is doing it adaptively or pathologically as well as how naturally aggressive they are. This is why – unless you have allies above and parallel to the individual you are in “conflict’ with – it’s not a good idea to take this on because – you won’t win and all that will happen is – more bullying/harassment etc. Just – find a new job if you can.  If, however, there are allies, then – taking this on is worth it. It’s hard. It’s emotionally draining. But you will be doing your company a favor by dealing with this and changing the culture for the better. But again – unless you have support and the company will support you through this – no – it’s not worth it because – you won’t succeed. I don’t like giving people bad news, but I do believe in being honest.

What should the typical course of action look like when a workplace is already toxic? 

Let’s start with behavioral psychology 101.  Specifically, operant conditioning – extinguishing a behavior.  Extinguishing a new behavior is pretty easy to do – you just don’t reward it or negatively respond to it and it never gets established. Prevention is preferable. Once a behavior is established – it’s exponentially harder to eliminate. This is especially true with humans – because we are free range animals. If one human does not give someone a reward – they will work harder to get it or go get it from another person.  Regardless – the protocol is the same. What has to happen to get a new behavior to not establish is the same thing that has to happen to get an established behavior to stop. So – if a workplace is already toxic – you enact a behavioral conditioning techniques – to extinguish the unwanted behavior.  And you do this by targeting the unwanted behavior and making it not work anymore. Then, you keep doing that until the behavior extinguishes. Which is the simplified way of explaining what needs to happen. In reality – what this looks like  is – you eliminate the reward for the unwanted behavior. You train up new behaviors. You go through a change process, and reward the collaborative problem solving and just keep at it.  What normally happens is that almost everyone – likes the changes and are happy with the new way of doing thing. Usually one person – just won’t get with the program. Either encourage them to leave or fire them. Takes about 1 ½ years if done right.  And yes – I’ve done this. I was hired in to do this at a nonprofit. We had toxic volunteer staff relationships. Volunteers thought their job was to spy on staff. Staff didn’t want to deal with volunteers who were spying on them. We reset the relationships. Retrained the volunteers. Assigned them staff partners and fostered collaborative relationships. 9 of our 10 volunteers LOVED it. Staff loved it too once their trust levels went up. One volunteer – the toxic one, just refused. She fought, spread rumors about me. Tried to get me fired and eventually – we fired her. And then she spread some more rumors about me and fought some more. She was gone in 6 months and her influence over the organization was over in 1 year. From their – we could build up the program. In 3 years we went from 10 volunteers with toxic relationships to 200 volunteers donating 20,000 hours of time a year and helping every department within our organization. That’s the equivalent of 10 full time employees.  They key – resetting towards collaboration and not tolerating conflict – not by fighting about conflict, just – keep redirecting to collaboration. The only reason I succeeded – or rather – stayed and kept at it – was because upper management supported me and begged me to keep at it. Had I not had that support, things would not have changed.

What about when it's on the verge of turning toxic? 

Redirect to collaboration. Things will only turn toxic if someone isn’t capable of collaboration.  You can use the same behavioral approach. Remove the reward for the unwanted behavior – conflict. And reward collaboration. Actively. Be aware that the individual in question – might already be wielding a lot of power and likely has been doing these behaviors successfully before they got to you. If that’s the case – then removing the reward will cause them to escalate and fight. Just keep focusing and rewarding the behavior you want – collaboration and don’t allow the person engaging in “conflict”/bullying behavior to succeed.



Hope this helps. Again – I train on this approach and have both individual course and a conflict bundle - https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/ 

How do we get rid of workplace bullies?

I teach a behavioral approach on how to eliminate abusive behavior. Bullying is a behavior – it needs a behavioral solution.

How we can get rid of workplace bullies when those bullies are workplace leaders?  

Well – it depends. Are they the ultimate boss? If so – you can’t. If they are a middle manager and have people above them – you can, but ONLY if upper management supports the effort and understands how their responses either support behavior elimination or support the continuation of the behavior.  In other words, people need to learn what actually works to get unwanted behaviors to stop and to take their role in making that happen seriously.

If you're a workplace that has turned a toxic culture around, how did you do it? 

I was hired once to fix a toxic volunteer culture at a nonprofit. Staff volunteer relations were toxic. Volunteers thought their job was to spy on staff and turn them in for malfeasance. The result is no staff wanted to work with volunteers.  When I came in – I created job descriptions for volunteers and did a training on what we expected them to do. Most were quite happy to actually be of help. Only one person was not. We gave that person time to adjust to the new role expectations and when she failed – we fired her.  She attempted to retaliation (which is normal and predicted using a behavioral model) and she failed.

Relationships and culture improved from there.  The big thing I did – was I recruited volunteers willing to help me change the culture and staff members who were willing to experiment with the volunteers. I helped the people with good intentions willing to experiment and reset the relationships. I helped them work through initial difficulties and trust issues until – they were working well together as a team. As I had success with individuals – other staff members requested I help them too. At each stage – I put in the time to coach and help the participants – establish positive working relationships.  We went from 10 volunteers with toxic relationships to 500 volunteers working in every part of the agency – including our law enforcement aspects (we were an animal welfare agency in CA).  My volunteers put in over 20,000 hours a year – which was the equivalent of 10 full time employees.   Let me help you understand this. 1 toxic volunteer was costing us 10 full time employees! That’s a lot of lost productivity. Now think of how much damage one toxic employee can do. It’s important to tax this seriously and put in the work required to reset relationships and build trust.

What advice do you have for companies to do the same?

1. Be realistic. I get calls all the time from companies who ask me to train a toxic employee to be less toxic. I can’t do that. No one can.  If you want to fix the problem, you have to take responsibility for fixing it. There is no magic way to fix it and you can’t offload the problem either.
2. Take responsibility for fixing the problem. If you want to eliminate toxic workplaces you must eliminate the toxic individuals. And then, you have to do the work to re-establish trust in the teams and between people. This takes time and effort and if you don’t put the time and effort it – it won’t happen.
3. Don’t assume people are toxic. Most people want to be in positive work relationships and respond well to coaching. Always go in assuming people will surprise you and will respond well to support and coaching. But if someone does not – eliminate them.

What role does HR need to do (and step up to) to stop bullying?

HR needs to help upper management learn what exactly needs to happen to get bullying to stop. That means – if they don’t know exactly how to get unwanted behavior like bullying to stop – they need to learn it – because until they know the behavioral science behind how to get unwanted behaviors to stop  - they won’t be able to help upper management. Often – all that is required is tweaks to some of the systems, a compassionate attitude and consistency. The first step is to learn the behavioral science so you can make those tweaks.

Who needs to be involved? 

If upper management is not on board – any effort to  change culture will fail. Bullies will not be eliminated.

HR needs to be involved to help create the processes that help support the change and the improved methods for stopping bullying behavior and resetting relationships. Again – what needs to happen to reset relationships – is time intensive. And – some people – won’t respond to coaching  - so having compassion based processes to help people learn to behave better and to eliminate them if they don’t – are what HR should be helping with.

Middle managers need to be trained on these new processes and they need to be coached on how to properly handle problems as they arise. Middle managers are the key. You either help them succeed or the initiative fails.

What do they need to do? What resources should be in place?

Everyone needs to be trained on how to eliminate unwanted behaviors and how to reward wanted behaviors and people need to have a clear understanding of what exactly those behaviors are that we are reinforcing and rewarding and what exactly to do when an unwanted behavior occurs. So – a training on behavior modification is needed along with ongoing support and coaching so that middle managers can actually reset relationships and build positive trusting teams. HR and upper management need to know what to do if – a middle manager is a bully and how they handle their non-compliance with the new processes. Everyone should be on the same page – because – when it comes to eliminating unwanted behavior – consistency is key.


Let me know if I can be of any further help. I have a variety of online programs that teach these techniques – and also do in person trainings. https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Dealing with co-workers who talk about you behind your back

The key to this is dignity.

People who are petty, talk about others in a negative way. Don’t be petty. Be dignified.  If they want to demean themselves by talking about others, that is their business, not yours. If you play their game, and talk about them, you will demean yourself and justify their animosity towards you.

Who you should care about? The people whose opinion matters most – is not the petty people. You can’t change them. The people whose opinion matters most is everyone else who is witnessing this. If you conduct yourself with dignity and grace in the workplace, then when those petty people try to bad mouth you, others will respond by defending you as a person of dignity and grace. You don’t actually have to defend yourself from petty gossip. You just have to behave with dignity and professionalism. Be above reproach. You never have to defend yourself and if you do try to defend yourself, you turn what was petty gossip into a conflict. If you fight, your real audience, the witnesses, will decide you are in a conflict and partially to blame. No one wins in a conflict.  This is one of those situations where you win, by not fighting. 

There is science to back up this approach. It has to do with how unwanted behaviors are extinguished. You don’t positively reinforce or negatively reinforce the behavior you don’t want. You just don’t reward it.

Pretending like the views of these petty people don’t matter and doing your work with dignity and grace and treating everyone in the office, including the gossipers with dignity is the best way to remove their reward.    

How do you actually do this? Don’t take the bait and don’t feed the trolls. If you are asked about something, demure and say – well – you aren’t interested in gossip and you are focused on getting the work done well. Do not isolate yourself or allow the gossip to cause you to isolate yourself. Be out there. Be friendly. Most people respond to friendliness with friendliness. Win people over by being nice, dignified and professional in your work.  That’s all you have to do.

Does this work?  Yes.  I have had people gossip about me and spread rumors about me my entire life.  I have also always had friends and supporters.  I one time had people who were gossiping try to get me fired. My allies protected me from them, so I never had to fight them. The same thing happens in neighborhood dynamics. The good dignified people – find each other. The petty gossips – find each other.  Don’t focus on the petty people. Find the good dignified people and make friends with them. 

To learn more - take one of my online certified classes - https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

How do you deal with a workplace bully without ruining your career or appearing weak?

It is possible to stop a workplace bully without ruining your career or appearing weak. It isn't easy, but it can be done. But only if you have help.  Here is how you do it and yes, this technique is validated by science - operant conditioning - extinguishing a behavior. 

1. Remove the reward. You can do this verbally and professionally if it is a live in person situation where they say something. You can have a retort ready. Standing up to a bully looks like standing up. Making eye contact, showing you are not afraid of them and saying something along the lines of - we treat people in this company with dignity and respect. You don’t need to argue. Just - remind them of the importance of professionalism.
2. Document everything. Every incident. No matter how small. Bullying is a pattern of behavior. Not a single incident. To prove it is bullying so HR can get involved, you need to provide documentation on the pattern of harassment you are experiencing. A good documentation log should include when, where, who, what exactly happened, and who witnessed it and any documentation you have to prove it happened. Here is a sample you can use: http://thebullyvaccine.com/downl...
3. Remain professional. The other person is behaving inappropriately - don’t join them. Continue to document and remove the reward and in the meantime, figure out who else is being victimized and what allies you might have to help you with this. A workplace bully usually doesn’t just have one victim. They have multiple. If you can document a pattern of harassment, that isn’t just about you - but about the entire work group, it will make it easier for HR to understand the scope of the problem and deal with it.

The above is the easy part. What happens next is the difficult part.

Once you a remove the reward and start documenting everything - the bully is going to escalate their behavior. This is predicted to occur. It’s part of the behavioral extinction process. This means - they will either try to retaliate, or they will escalate their behavior in some way. Don’t let that upset you. It means what you are doing is working and you have disrupted the bully’s control over the work group and yourself and they are trying to get that control over you and others back. Don’t let them.

Once you start removing the reward and reporting them - you need to do so consistently. We have about 70+ years of research on behavioral extinction and being consistent is absolutely key!!!!!!! The way you get through this with your career intact and not appearing weak is to remain calm and professional and allow the other person to behave badly. You are giving them every opportunity to behave professionally. The fact they aren’t - is on them, not you. Eventually what happens is that they either stop or their behavior becomes so egregious it can’t be ignored anymore. That’s on them. Not on you. You just are being a professional dignified person.

If you give up before they stop or they get fired, you will make the situation exponentially worse. So once you start - stick with it.

It is absolutely critical that you behave professionally through this all and not give anyone anything to latch on to to hold you responsible for what is going on.

Now, what I’ve described above is very hard to do and I don’t recommend doing it - unless you have allies above or parallel to the bully in terms of authority. If the bully is the top boss - you won’t be able to do this. It’s only if there is someone above them that is willing to make them stop or fire them that you will succeed.

I realize that is not pleasant information to hear - but it’s realistic. One of the ways to get through the onslaught that will be directed at you - is to understand you aren’t just doing this for yourself, but for your other co-workers who are also suffering.

Finally - the documentation you collect - keep doing it through the escalation and keep giving copies of everything - on a daily basis to HR. This will help them see the retaliation - which is illegal and help them take appropriate action.

And if you get fired, you can use that to file a wrongful termination lawsuit if necessary.

Learn more:

https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

How to motivate a bully - not to bully - HR edition

One of the questions I get asked a lot is how to convince a bully to not bully.

The problem of bullying is my area of expertise. I take a behavioral approach. In general – convincing a bully to not bully is not something that can be done easily and even if you could convince them – it probably wouldn’t change their behavior. So what should you do instead?

There is an assumption in most anti-harassment and anti-bullying programs that is that if we could just convince the bullies to not bully – the problem would go away. That’s why most sexual harassment training programs are basically 2 hours of “don’t do it – it’s illegal.”  Obviously – that doesn’t work.

Even with a person who is motivated to change – change is hard because it’s not just a matter of wanting to change. It’s about actually changing behavior. Extinguishing unwanted behavior is the hardest of the behavioral conditioning techniques to master.

The good news is that you don’t actually need a bully to want to stop bullying to make them stop bullying.  You can train them to stop by not allowing bullying to work.  (Note: This works for most people – but not all – some are not in operant control of their behavior and they will blow out spectacularly).

Instead of trying to convince someone who doesn’t want to stop – to stop. You train the people who want them to stop – on how exactly to make the unwanted behavior stop.  Focus on helping the victims learn what they want to learn and supporting them and the bully – through the behavioral change process. This helps remove the reward for the unwanted behavior and rewards the behavior you do want.  This isn’t easy to do and any behavioral modification trainer will tell you but it can be done.

The key is for management to understand how this behavior extinction is going to play out so they can support it until the unwanted behavior is extinguished and replaced with more pro-social behavior.  AND management needs to know what to do if it turns out that person isn’t in control of their behavior – which is rare – but does happen.


PS – I just wrote about this on my blog since I keep getting calls from companies wanting me to train a problem person – but refusing to educate themselves about what needs to happen. They just want an outsider to fix this person – and really – unless they educate themselves – it’s not going to happen. http://humanisthappiness.blogspot.com/2018/10/who-should-you-train-when-you-have.html 

In the meantime, if you are finally ready to learn what actually has to happen to make bullying and harassment stop in your workplace - take my online class for HR professionals which is approved for both HRCI & SHRM recertification credits so you can educate yourself. https://humanistlearning.com/workplacebullying1/

If you are an employment lawyer - I have a CLE program for you too. https://humanistlearning.com/stop-bullying-in-the-workplace-for-lawyers/

And finally - and most importantly - hire me to do a staff training - start with your leaders and we can work our way down to line staff. And yes - you can use me for your sexual harassment training and onboarding programs.
https://humanistlearning.com/sexual-harassment-compliance-training/

What makes a speak up or whistle blowing program effective?

According to Wim Vandekerckhove Principal Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at the University of Greenwich, the key – is perceived responsiveness. Where people feel like their action made a difference. In behavioral terms – that means – it was positively reinforced. He says that companies should really think about ways they can be responsive without violating legal parameters.

There is a 10 minute interview with him on his research below. Looking at speak up programs – they know what doesn’t work – he looked at what does – and it’s consistent with what I teach in my programs.



He recommends multiple channels through which to speak up – with specific emphasis on casual channels – where you don’t report – but where employees can ask questions about whether something is ethical or not in a confidential way.  What he calls integrity questions. Where people can ask questions, and get counseling on how to proceed without actually reporting someone.   Because the feedback is immediate and usually helpful – people feel like action was taken, they were taken seriously and it reinforces and builds trust – the concern doesn’t go into a black hole where – nothing happens.  One company publishes the Q&A for other employees.  There are no legal restrictions on what you can talk about.

This “reporting without reporting” can also help identify patterns of concern for the organization. This is important because – the unwanted behavior – is often a pattern of behavior and seeing those patterns is crucial to helping stop it.

Always nice when the research in one area validates the findings in another. In this case – what he found was that speak up processes and mechanisms that positively reinforce people for speaking out – works.  Which is exactly what the behavioral science approach predicts. And it's exactly what I teach you should be doing in my online courses on how to stop bullying & harassment in the workplace

Learn more about taking a behavioral approach to the problem of bullying & harassment - here: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Dealing with a Toxic Narcissist in the Workplace

The nice thing about narcissists – especially the raging ones – is that they aren’t in control of their behavior. They behave pathologically – which means they are insanely easy to manipulate because their behavior in response to certain stimulus is predictable. You can use that to trigger them in certain ways. Run circles around them basically.

The problem is that it is physically and emotionally draining to do this.  Like all bullies, managing their emotional needs takes time away from actually getting work done.  It is better to get the toxic person out of the office and fire them. They are a massive black hole of lost productivity.

I once fired a toxic volunteer from a non-profit I worked at and in 3 years, we had increased volunteer output to 20,000 hours per year. That’s the equivalent of 10 full time employees. That’s a LOT of lost productivity caused by 1 toxic person.

How do you deal with them?  It depends on who they are.  If they are the boss – you either manage their narcissism so that their impact on workflow is minimized, or you quit.  There are no other options if you cannot fire them. You either help manage their condition to create space for everyone else to get work done, or you allow them to wreak havoc in the workplace or you quit.

If they are a co-worker, the best course of action is to manage their narcissism so that it isn’t directed at you or your team while simultaneously setting them up to be fired.  And again, that’s fairly easy to do because their behavior is super predictable.  And to answer your next question – yes – I’ve done this before – successfully on more than one occasion. I’ve only experienced retaliation a few times but could ride that out because of the weakened position of the narcissist by that point. In a couple of the cases the narcissist didn’t know it was me who set them up.

How does someone do this?  You must have a good grounding in how behaviors are shaped and triggered. This allows you to set up conditions that will trigger the narcissist’s bad behavior and gets them to escalate. While you are doing this, you are simultaneously – personally – feeding their ego so they come to rely on you to keep them sane.  You do this to keep the narcissist from interfering with employees and the work flow by keeping them occupied elsewhere.  It’s a defensive move – not an offensive move.

If they are not the boss, you can then trigger their bad behavior in an area that doesn’t impact workflow, but that makes it obvious to upper management that this person is a problem. It takes a little bit of planning and strategizing to do this well.

What you don’t do is try to change them. Narcissism is a personality disorder. If you aren’t a therapist, you can’t fix it and it’s not your job to fix it. Your job is to minimize the harm the narcissist does to the company and the employees and the workflow. It’s pretty much a full time job managing the mental health of a narcissist in the workplace, which is why it’s best if they get fired. But if someone doesn’t take on the task of managing them, they will persist and continue to wreak havoc. This is one of those – someone’s gotta do it situations. Unfortunately.

And before anyone accuses me of not having compassion for someone with a legitimate mental health issue - don't. If they were responsible and taking care of their mental illness and dealing with it constructively - they wouldn't be toxic to the workplace. It's because they aren't dealing with their illness constructively so that they minimize the harm their condition does to others that they are a problem. Until or unless they take responsibility - they will continue to be a blackhole of lost productivity. And again, it's not the employer's or coworker's job to fix them. It's their responsibility to seek the mental health care they need. Not allowing a narcissist to wreak havoc - may actually help them understand - they need help.

If you want to learn more about how exactly - to deal with the behavioral problem that narcissists create - I recommend my comprehensive program on bullying in the workplace. It is 6 hours long. For a reason.

https://humanistlearning.com/workplacebullying1/ 

Dealing with Sexual Harassment - from Hillary Clinton?

It recently came to light that Hillary Clinton did not fire a man on her 2008 staff who had harassed a young lady on her team.  Hillary responded by posting an article on Facebook about what she did and why she did it in response to what happened.  I don't want to discuss the relative merits or demerits of Hillary as a political candidate, but I do think her sharing of her thought processes and how she handled it is worth discussing from an HR/humanistic business management perspective.  So here goes.

First - her essay:

Key points:

1) She believed the alleged victim and took immediate action to make sure the accused no longer had access to this person. She also gave the victim a better job - promoted her.
2) She demoted the person accused but did not fire him. She did ensure that his access to other people and women in particular was limited.  She says she took this route because as far as she knew it was an isolated incident and she believed in giving him a second chance - but in a trust but verify sort of way so that he would not be able to hurt others on her campaign.

While it is very easy to second guess her decisions given that the man in question did go on to harass someone else at another job. I will not be doing that here. Instead I want to highlight what I thought she did right.

Too often, when people complain, they are isolated to protect them while the accused is left free to do whatever they want. This has the impact of socially isolating the victim and limiting their ability to do their jobs. When we do this - we are punishing the person who was brave enough to come forward and report what happened. Hillary not only supported this young woman - she rewarded her for coming forward.

Now, before anyone gets all antsy about how if we reward people for reporting crimes we are going to end up with a lot of false reports, don't worry about that. False reports are pretty easy to spot and don't stand up to basic scrutiny and investigation. Also, the rate of false reporting is quite low. Our problem isn't that we have a bunch of false reports, it's that people aren't reporting crimes of this nature when they happen in the workplace.

The person who was isolated and demoted was the harasser, not the victim. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, but did not leave him free to hurt others. He has monitored so he would have no opportunity to hurt other women on the team. Yes, that seems harsh - but it does give the accused the benefit of the doubt.

We do not know what actions Hillary took to verify the story of the young lady. I assume she did not demote someone without first verifying the story.

What I do know is that unless you take reports seriously and verify them - you won't know. So take reports seriously. Verify. There are not 2 sides to this. Either someone behaved inappropriately or they did not. If they did - they should no longer have access to other members of the team. If you don't fire them, isolate them so that they no longer have the ability to harm others.

And, if you verify that a claim was true - reward the person who came forward and notified you.

Which is worse? Dealing with someone who has behaved inappropriately - or allowing a predator to prey on your staff for years because people are too afraid to come forward? In case you are wondering - it's the latter. Not only in terms of harm done but this impacts workflow and is an enormous legal liability. People with courage to honestly tell you what is going on and that crimes are occurring in your workplace - should be rewarded.  People who are found to have behaved inappropriately need to be monitored closely and if necessary isolated so they no longer have access to their victims and other potential victims.

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To learn more about how to stop harassment and bullying in the workplace take my online course: Workplace Bullying for HR Professionals

https://humanistlearning.com/workplacebullying1/

Workplace Bullying in the Construction Industry

It's bullying awareness month. Workplace bullying effects every industry. Nurses, academics and construction workers. Learning how to stop it is good for you and good for business.

I was contacted recently from the folks at Worksafe British Columbia.  They help companies across the province keep their employees safe from workplace injuries. One of the things they do – is help protect people from bullying, because bullying isn’t just an interpersonal annoyance. It’s a health and safety risk as well.

Worksafe BC has a great set of videos for workers in the construction industry in particular – talking about bullying. It is rare that I see content that is actually useful – so I am including links to it here.

Even if you aren’t in construction – I want you to watch this video.  It is about the work impact and the safety impact of bullying. It’s about what it means to be a good manager getting good work out of your people. Bullying is NOT a valid management technique.

To see all their videos and content on bullying go to: https://www.worksafebc.com/en/resources/health-safety/videos/bullying-and-harassment-in-construction/builders-not-bullies?lang=en&ReportID=37706

If you don’t currently offer harassment training that teaches your employees how to get this behavior to stop – start. Don’t just offer them a training that says harassment is against the law. Give them a training that gives them the positive skills to stop bullying for real.

If you are in Canada – be aware that Ontario employees now have to provide sexual harassment training (see: https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/canada-ontario-employers-have-new-workplace-sexual-harassment) And all Canadian employers have a legal obligation to make sure employees are not harassed. If you aren’t already providing this training – it’s time you start.
I can provide this training for you – in a way that covers the law AND how to make it stop. I have generic versions and state & province specific training (CA, ME & CT in the USA all require harassment training).

 Employers who have used my training report dramatic improvements in the moral and working environment.  You owe it to your staff and to your company to provide a training that can really help.

Details and information at: https://humanistlearning.com/sexual-harassment-compliance-training/

Finally, a post about workplace bullying I love

I’m not really going to post much here. I just want you to follow this link and read through it ALL!!! Don’t worry – it includes graphics.

http://www.quill.com/content/index/healthcare/healthcare-resources/how-to-squash-workplace-bullying-without-bullying-back/default.cshtml

What I like is that this is thorough. It’s not filled with meaningless platitudes or drivel.

The Best Way to React to Passive-Aggressive Behavior

Question:
It can be difficult to be on the receiving end of passive-aggressive behavior. It can leave you feeling agitated, angry, or insulted. But what's the best way to react? What steps can you take to point out the passive-aggressive behavior without escalating the situation?

Answer: 
I deal with this in the context of bullying and take a behavioral approach to the problem. Here are 6 steps to take to deal with passive aggressive behavior.

1st, understand that a passive aggressive person probably isn’t in enough control of their behavior to stop. They aren’t doing this to be jerks – they can’t help themselves. It’s a control issue thing that is most likely beyond their control. In other words, don’t expect them to magically stop. They won’t.

2nd – Don’t take it personally. They are the one with the problem. Once you understand they are passive aggressive, it isn’t about you. It’s about them and their inability to function normally. It’s entirely possible that they have a mental health problem they are dealing with.

3rd – Document everything. If you have a verbal agreement with them, send them an email to confirm the agreement. That way when they don’t do what they said they would do there is a document that proves they didn’t do what they said they would do. This prevents these situations from devolving into a he said/she said argument. This allows you to win the argument without arguing!

4th – Be consistent over time. By remaining calm, polite and documenting everything, so as to avoid confusion, you prevent the passive aggressive person from being able to play their normal games. They will respond to this lack of control by getting increasingly frustrated. In other words, they will start to behave worse. Their behavior will become more overt & egregious. This is an extinction burst, and it’s predicted to happen. Just stay the course and allow them to dig their own hole.

5th – Don’t think that others don’t see it. If someone is passive aggressive with you, they are that way with everyone. Again, most can’t help themselves.  So when they start to attack your character, don’t worry about it. It means you have knocked them out of their comfort zone and they are starting to panic. Passive aggressive people don’t normally engage in overt attacks. They are passively aggressive. When they become overtly aggressive it means their cover has been blown.

6th – remain professional and polite. Don’t worry about how poorly they are behaving. Don’t sink to their level. Rise above and showcase how professional and nice you are. As the passive aggressive person escalates their bad behavior – the contrast between you as the professional and the passive aggressive person as the problem will become clearer and clearer.  You will end up winning this battle without even fighting, because sometimes you win – by not fighting.

To learn more about how to deal with bullies and passive- aggressive people, get my book The Bully Vaccine

Or take my course – how to stop harassment & retaliation in the workplace.

Workplace Bullying in Australia – Official Report

Australia’s government takes workplace bullying very seriously. Perhaps we should too.

Australia passed a safe workplace bill several years back and the government has to file annual reports. This is basically like America’s OSHA. They are charged with trying to keep people from being hurt in the workplace – like people falling from heights or getting lung diseases because of exposure to chemicals in the workplace.

One of the things they track, in addition to employees falling from great heights, is workplace bullying.  Australia views workplace bullying to be a seriously enough problem that their workplace safety group considers it part of their mission. For those of you in America, this is like having OSHA issue guidelines on how to reduce workplace bullying in addition to their reports on how to use explosives safely while mining. (And no, I’m not making that up – in the 2014/2015 report – Workplace bullying is on page 38, explosives and mining are on page 39 – see: http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/SWA/about/Publications/Documents/938/safe-work-australia-annual-report-2014-15.pdf).

You may be wondering why bullying is listed among other more egregious ways people can get hurt in the workplace.  Well, it has to do with workplace culture and the impact workplace culture has on health and safety issues.  That and the fact that workplace bullying causes psychological harm that can be quantified.

So – here’s the link. First off, workplace bullying is harmful and causes an amazing amount of lost productivity. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. What I want you to get out of this post is that when people are being bullied, they are less likely to report health and safety hazards.

This isn’t even about whistle blowing. If an employee goes to their manager to report a problem, a real problem that will have health and safety implications and the manager responds to them as if THEY are causing problems by alerting people to the problem, employees learn very quickly that the manager doesn’t want to know or deal with this.

If the manager starts treating the employee who reported a problem badly to “punish” them for causing problems, well – everyone in the workplace notices and understands and gets the message. Health and safety isn’t important in this company. Speaking out will get you in trouble.

Want to know how things like the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster happen? The Deepwater explosion killed 11 people, injured another 16. This wasn’t simply an environmental disaster. It was also a health and safety disaster.  And it was caused, by a workplace culture that didn’t tolerate people bringing health and safety problems to the attention of their managers.  When problems were brought up – they were ignored.

Want to ensure you have a safe workplace, make sure your employees aren’t being bullied by managers who don’t want to be bothered with problems because they know, their bosses don’t want to be bothered by problems and so on up the chain of command to the very tippy top.

Is workplace bullying a leadership problem?  Yes. Yes it is.

Want to learn how to get it to stop? Take one of my courses at Humanist Learning Systems.

Reasonable Management Action vs. Bullying

What constitutes reasonable management action vs. bullying is a question of ongoing concern for many companies, especially since there is an increased awareness of bullying and legal remedies being sought.

I had this same question come up when I spoke at the FL SHRM conference so it’s something that needs to be clarified. Bullying is harassment and harassment is normally defined as a pattern of behavior that is intended to harass the recipient and serves no legitimate purpose. (FYI - your state law’s definition of harassment may vary – this is a synopsis of Florida State law.)

For it to be bullying or harassment – it has to be a pattern of behavior. In other words, it has to happen more than once.  It has to harass the recipient of the behavior. AND the behavior has to serve no legitimate purpose.

When we apply this to the workplace, the applicable term is reasonable management action. Was the behavior part of normal management responsibilities or was it unnecessary.

Australia passed a Fair Work Act in 2009. It has an anti-bullying component. The first cases are now being tried and in one of the first, the concept of reasonable management action was clarified. (see: http://www.awdr.com.au/first-bullying-decision-defines-reasonable-management-action/)

In the case linked to above, receiving complaints and investigating them is reasonable management action even if the effect of receiving complaints and investigating them harassed the person being investigated. The management’s action in this case served a legitimate purpose.

What you are looking for when investigating and responding to reports of abuse/harassment/bullying is whether the behavior served a legitimate purpose or not. How someone responds to another’s behavior may vary. They may feel harassed even when that was not the intention. To avoid the subjective quagmire of hurt feelings you can simply ask – was this behavior necessary? Or did it serve no legitimate purpose?

If it served no legitimate purpose – it needs to stop. To learn more about this – consider taking one of my workplace bullying programs at Humanist Learning Systems: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/ 

Tipping Point in Workplace Bullying

The tide is turning away from tolerating abusive behavior in the workplace.  At least I hope it is.

Abusive behavior, whether it is in the form of a horrid manager or a horrid coworker, causes real harm to the victim in the form of emotional distress. And this harm negatively impacts the company’s ability to function and serve customers.

Abusive management is as damaging as other forms of abusive relationships.  Just as a battered woman may be terrified of doing anything that will upset her abuser, an abused customer service rep is unlikely to go out of their way to help a customer if they think doing so will bring down the wrath of their supervisor on them.

Scared workers are ineffective workers. But the blame doesn’t lie with the victim. It lies with the abuser who is creating an atmosphere of fear.

Workplace bullying is serious business that negatively affects your business. There is a reason why more and more business leaders have finally decided to stop tolerating abusive behavior in their workplace. There is a reason why California just changed their law to require all companies with more than 50 employees teach their employees how to stop abusive behavior in the workplace (see: http://www.prlog.org/12392861-is-your-company-ab-2053-compliant.html)

The government of Australia considers bullying in the workplace so destructive that they estimate it costs their economy between $6 and $36 billion in lost productivity every year so they have taken steps to fight it as a nation.

Bullying in the workplace is no longer something that can be hidden. We live in an age of digital media and social sharing and bullies are now leaving digital trails of their crimes, and yes, stalking and harassing someone is criminal behavior.

All this heightened awareness of the problem is great. But let’s not waste this moment. One of the reasons bullying endures at all levels of society is because it’s hard to stop. It requires specialized skill and knowledge. The good news is that these skills are easy to learn and teach. What needs to happen now is that we start teaching these skills to our employees.

If you haven’t already learned what it is you need to teach – take my free 2 hour course – Creating a Sexual Harassment Training that Actually Works.  And if you are a victim of bullying consider taking – Ending Harassment & Retaliation in the Workplace.