Top 10 Ways to Reduce Bad Behavior at Work
(from BLR HR Daily Advisor 11/23-24/2009)

Workplace incivility is an often overlooked, expensive, yet treatable malady, says the new book, The Cost of Bad Behavior. Authors Christine Pearson and Christine Porath show how to calculate the cost and what to do about eliminating the undesirable behavior.

What Is Workplace Incivility?
Pearson and Porath offer several examples of incivility:
•Taking credit for others’ efforts
•Passing blame for mistakes
•Talking down to others
•Spreading rumors
•Setting others up for failure
•Belittling other’s efforts
•Withholding information
•Making demeaning or derogatory remarks
•Taking resources someone else needs
•Paying no attention to people, texting during meetings, failing to return phone calls or respond to e-mail.

What’s the True Cost?
Pearson and Porath have developed a system for calculating the actual cost of incivility. Essentially, you estimate the numbers of employees who will, for example:
•Lose work time worrying about an incident and future interactions with the offender
•Lose work time avoiding the offender
•Experience a lessened sense of commitment to the organization
•Intentionally reduce their efforts at work
•Intentionally reduce their hours at work
•Leave their jobs because of incivility
•Be indirectly affected by observing uncivil behavior

Add to that the number of customers who will turn elsewhere because they are turned off by the incivility they experience when dealing with you.

Once you know that, you calculate cost based on hours lost and sales lost. There are, of course, a number of assumptions involved, but the underlying result makes it clear: This is a bottom-line issue; uncivil behavior really does cost companies substantially.

The good news is, you can do something about it, and it’s not overly time-consuming or expensive. Here’s what Pearson and Porath suggest:

1. Set Zero-Tolerance Expectations.
Set clear expectations for civility from the top. For example:
“Treat each other with respect.” (from Boeing’s integrity statement)
“Treat everyone in our diverse community with respect and dignity.” (from the mission statement of the Mayo Clinic)
“Nike was founded on a handshake.” Implicit in that act was the determination that we would build our business based on trust, teamwork, honesty, and mutual respect. (from Nike’s Responsibility Governance statement, which is reviewed and signed annually by every Nike employee.)

2. Look in the Mirror.
Remember, say Pearson and Porath, that as individuals rise in the organization, they are less and less likely to hear negative information, including that about their own civility. Here’s what the book suggests:

Self-examination. Ask yourself:
•Do I behave respectfully to all employees?
•Do I take my frustrations out on employees who have less power than I?
•Do I treat individuals, on whom I rely or who can do good things for me, better than others?

Peer review. Seek out the opinions of peers who may be straighter with you than subordinates.
Videotape. Videotape yourself at meetings. One CEO who did this was stunned: “I didn’t realize what a jerk I sounded like.”

3. Weed Out Trouble Before It Enters.
The easiest way to foster civility is to keep uncivil people out, say Pearson and Porath. No uncivil vendors, contractors, customers, or employees. To accomplish this:

Do thorough reference checks. Pearson and Porath were “stunned” to see that many firms don’t bother with reference checks, or do very cursory checks.

Don’t go on gut. Your gut feeling may generally be reliable, but collect evidence.

Desperation. Don’t allow yourself to act hastily out of desperation, Pearson and Porath say. Take the time to be sure of a good hire.

4. Teach Civility.
Many offenders “just don’t know any better.” Pearson and Porath’s research suggests that training can make a difference. For example, teach coaching, how to listen, how to respond, and how to receive and give feedback.

Also, include civility at performance rating time.

5. Train Employees and Managers to Recognize and Respond to Signals.
Many offenders reported to Pearson and Porath that their companies just didn’t seem to care about how employees treated one another. The employee thinks, why should I bother if no one cares? Charge your supervisors and managers to be alert for signals of incivility.

•Are there certain people with whom no one wants to work?
•Are there certain managers whom no one wants to mentor?

6. Put Your Ear to the Ground.
Combining 360 feedback and organizational data is very helpful at pinpointing problems, Pearson and Porath have found.

Organizational data, such as absence records and turnover stats, can reinforce 360 results. However, say Pearson and Porath, be very careful using these data. Take into account the many reasons why two facilities in different areas of the country, or doing different kinds of work, could reasonably have significantly different results on the various metric scales.

7. When Incivility Occurs, Hammer It.
If you ignore incivility, say Christine Pearson and Christine Porath, authors of The Cost of Bad Behavior, it festers. It continues toward the people it started with and expands to other people. Some of Pearson and Porath’s research participants noted that they have stopped using the internal hiring systems at their companies because they have been burned by managers who gave glowing recommendations to uncivil workers just so that the manager could pass the problem off to another department.

Pearson and Porath stress the great importance of civility where employees interact with customers. On Disney properties, they say, reports of incivility are dealt with instantly. “Suits” (security personnel, dressed in business attire) descend out of nowhere, and the employee is gone.

8. Take Complaints Seriously.
It takes a lot of courage for lesser-empowered individuals to lodge a complaint about incivility. They fear not being taken seriously, or worse, being made to feel that they are the ones committing the crime.

To counteract that, employees need to know that you will respect their complaints and take action. Pearson and Porath note that in talking to employees, they have never had any difficulty finding out who are the uncivil members of the staff.

9. Don’t Make Excuses for Powerful Instigators.
Pearson and Porath have heard lots of excuses for habitual offenders:

“That’s just how Darwin is.”
“We can’t afford to lose Sally.”
“We’re dealing with Rob, but bringing him around in his own time [his own way, in his own style]. That is the best approach to use with him.”
“I don’t like to get involved in employees’ personal matters.”
“Tracy doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just [overworked, having problems at home].”
“I have bigger problems to deal with.”

The cost of cutting loose habitually uncivil employees will never be as much as the outrageous price of keeping them, Pearson and Porath say.

10. Invest in Post-Departure Interviews.
While departing employees often won’t speak up in an exit interview, Pearson and Porath find that they often will open up 6 months later. Give that a try, they suggest.

A Plus Benefits Comments:
The cost of sending a post-departure interview questionnaire to a former employee is relatively small when compared to the information that might be discovered from the returned forms.

If nothing else, the employee who has left your organization may feel that you really did care about them and other employees. A good employee who departed may think about returning or the former employee may be more willing to refer qualified friends and associates to your company.

Can’t we just all get along? It’s a big part of civility. Organizations that practice and enforce civility experience less stress and higher productivity as well and lower turnover.

Randall Barker is the VP of Human Resources for A Plus Benefits, Inc.