An issue that has recently been under some scrutiny by experts and reporters across North America is bullying in the workplace. Reports, survey results and general concerns have led the province of Quebec to become the first jurisdiction in Canada to create legislation outlawing workplace bullying, modelled after existing laws in France, Sweden and Belgium, and governments in North America are watching Quebec to see whether and how this law will work. Interestingly, a study conducted in the United States, as reported by the Globe and Mail back in March, 2005, concluded that bullying in the workplace is more likely to come from co-workers than from managers. The study found that a quarter of the respondents surveyed experienced some instance of bullying in the workplace, and of them 39% claimed the bullying was done by another employee, as opposed to the 14.7% who said it was by a supervisor (the rest, according to the Globe, reported bullying by external customers or non-employees). But bullying is not the only epidemic in the workplace that is being examined. Rudeness, according to organizational psychologist Dana Law, is also on the rise, and there is often a very fine line between rudeness and bullying. Both social problems are a form of “psychological harassment,” and can have similar detrimental effects on employee productivity, employee motivation, absenteeism, employee dissatisfaction, and even employee retention rates.
In general, rudeness and bullying in the workplace are on the rise, and there are several explanations for why this might be. In our modern, fast-paced, technologically advanced organizations, employees are expected to have more skills, have higher levels of productivity, and often are given greater workloads. The work environment has also become a more competitive one in today’s society. As a result of these increased stresses, people in general have become more self-focused and less inclined to think of others and their feelings. Yet another problem on the rise in modern workplaces, as outlined by an article published by the Globe in June, 2006, is the presence of “psychopaths,” particularly in positions of power, and this has in turn led to an increase in bullying. These psychopaths excel in the workplace because they generally can manipulate interviews and their bosses to their advantage, they are willing to take risks, and they exhibit high-potential characteristics that are desirable in employees. They also often lack the scruples that the rest of us have to prevent us from taking advantage of others in order to get ahead. These workplace psychopaths, whether or not in leadership positions (yet), have no qualms about abusing co-workers, whether through rudeness, bullying, or stealing co-workers’ ideas and blaming mistakes on others. Since they can be difficult to identify, due to their seemingly desirable and employable traits (including a strong drive and determination, among others), they often go unchallenged and continue to weaken the company by lowering morale and sometimes even pushing qualified co-workers to lower their own productivity or to leave the company.
It is important for organization leaders to be aware of these potential workplace problems, for the improvement of their own leadership behaviour, as well as to be able to recognize bullying and rudeness in other employees. The Globe offers some warning signs you can look for to identify psychopaths in the workplace, such as being deceitful, lacking remorse or conscientiousness, and being low in consideration of others. It is extremely important that human resources managers take steps towards identifying bullying or rudeness early on, though employee opinion and satisfaction surveys or company health surveys. Employees are not likely to stick around in an environment where they feel belittled, ill-treated or unappreciated, so it is up to management to recognize and deal with these issues before they begin to have detrimental effects on the organizations’ most valuable resource—human resources.