From Fired to Fired Up

Welcome to my first podcast on Workplace Fairness and Dignity. This launch tells of how I went from fired to podcast. And so in that spirit, I am calling this, my introductory piece: From Fired to Fired Up! On it you’ll hear the following:

A primer on who I am/brief biography;

How I went from fired to launching a podcast;

How I came into the position from which I was fired, and my firing by Webex one year later;

Why I launched this podcast, why I think the topic of workplace dignity and fairness needs to be promoted;

How workplace dignity and respect is considered a “revolutionary” concept and why there needs to be a paradigm shift, normalizing respect and dignity in the workplace;

Things I have learned on this topic, including who tends to bully, and who they bully, including the breakdown by gender.  

Materials referenced in this episode:

Clutch is a ratings and review company for IT marketing and business services companies. The website for Clutch is clutch.co  https://clutch.co/)

2017 Workplace Bullying Institute U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey, Gary Namie, PhD, Research Director. https://workplacebullying.org/download/2017-wbi/ 

Pfeffer, Jeffrey. Dying For A Paycheck. HarperCollins  (2018). 

Pfeffer, Jeffrey (2018, May 2) How your workplace is killing you. BBC.com. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180502-how-your-workplace-is-killing-you

Yamada, D. (2008) Workplace Bullying and Ethical Leadership. Values Based Leadership Journal. 1(2).  http://www.valuesbasedleadershipjournal.com/issues/vol1issue2/yamada.php

MUSIC: Vintage Background Jazz Atmosphere by Volodymyr Piddubnyk; Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly; Morning Sun by Will Van De Crommert. 

Transcript

[MUSIC – Intro – Vintage Background Jazz Atmosphere by Volodymyr Piddubnyk]

Welcome to my first podcast on Workplace Fairness and Dignity. This launch tells of how I went from fired to podcast. And so, in that spirit, I am calling this, my introductory piece From Fired to Fired Up! 

I had no experience with podcasts before I created this one.  On it you’ll hear the story of my firing, and why I created the podcast, and why I think the topic of workplace fairness and dignity is a social justice issue.  

I also have a blog of the same name on Blogger.com; it’s a companion piece to this podcast; Please do visit it. 

Here’s the outline of topics for today’s podcast; we’ll talk about:

What can you expect from this and future podcasts

What will be the posting schedule, format, the content

Why is this topic, workplace dignity and fairness, important

I’ll give you a brief bio about me 

And we’ll talk about:

Why I did decide to create a podcast 

I’ll share things I have learned that will be topics in future podcasts

I’ll let you know what will be the next podcast topic when we sign off

Here’s what you can expect:

I’ll post this podcast weekly. My goal for the podcast is to provide useful information on current workplace topics, particularly about companies that are doing the right thing, and that are known for how they value employees. I also plan to have interviews with people who will speak on topics like workplace leadership; how organizations can, and should, focus on and ensure employee dignity; and how to create an environment where toxic, abusive behaviors are not tolerated.  You can expect to hear information on workplaces with ethical practices that promote employee dignity and respect. You will also hear the stories of people whose experience is that of mistreatment at work. I will invite guests who can speak to leadership and to what contributes to a healthy organization that values rather than denigrates their workforce. The topics will be current, relevant, and if you tune in I will work to make sure you feel you’ve spent your time wisely.  

We’ll talk today about unjustified firings, another type of workplace mistreatment that causes emotional and economic damage to people. Why this topic is important is it is an issue that people, understandably, don’t want to publicize. They have been fired, it could be for no justifiable reason than someone higher in the pecking order on the job dislikes them. This happens much too often, and I want to crack open the black box that keeps secret the destruction caused by these firings, that can shame the fired who have no reason to feel ashamed. Let me tell you a little about me, and why I saw the need to create this platform to highlight the issue of Workplace Fairness and Dignity. 

[MUSIC – Intro – Vintage Background Jazz Atmosphere by Volodymyr Piddubnyk]

 A little about me:

I am from the Boston area. I have a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Massachusetts, a Master of Science from Suffolk University in Organizational and Adult Learning, and a masters's in Journalism from Northeastern University. More recently I worked in Human Resources as a staffing recruiter. What I love about the work is being able to consult with hiring managers on their staffing needs and to make recommendations based on my experience and expertise. I also get to present candidates who may be otherwise overlooked, and to provide the opportunity for everyone to get a fair chance. Meeting and speaking with candidates who have a breadth of life experiences and backgrounds is also something I consider a privilege. 

I had been doing this work until September 16th of 2020 when I was fired from such a job, one I really enjoyed and was good at.  I spoke out about abusive behavior and unprofessionalism and I was fired soon after, by videoconferencing, WebEx, to be exact. 

[MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly]

Fired, by videoconferencing, during the height of a once in a century pandemic I was now a statistic, a 53 year-old Black female, unemployed, discarded by my employer, just because they could. So, I taught myself new skills including how to create a podcast, a skill for the 21st century. I now have a platform to discuss this meaningful issue of workplace fairness and dignity and to give voice to other people who have been treated in a similar way. Also, I created the platform to promote organizations that are doing well by their employees, to highlight those that are committed to doing the right thing.  I want to be an example to others too, people of any age, race, background, to say that when people mean to harm you, if you can find a way do so to use that experience as a step up.   

But, back to when I was fired three months ago, by videoconference. 

[MUSIC – Intro – Vintage Background Jazz Atmosphere by Volodymyr Piddubnyk]

The entire process took about 12 minutes. I didn’t see it coming, I got no warning, no PIP – y’know that Personal Improvement Plan which a friend calls the courtesy notice that you should be looking for a new job, nope, I didn’t receive that, no nothing. I had returned to work on Wednesday after taking a couple of vacation days off. I received an email sent at 9:00 AM from my supervisor telling me to meet with her on a WebEx conference, videoconference that is, with the Human Resources Representative, in 15 minutes. 

That’s right, I was to meet her at 9:15 AM. In the meeting the first thing the HR Rep. said, with tears glistening in her eyes, was that day was to be my last day on the job. During the meeting my supervisor read off a script, the firing letter was emailed to me while the supervisor read the script. What led to the firing was that approximately two months prior I had spoken up about abusive behavior by that supervisor. So now by firing me the supervisor, and really, chances are the leadership, sought to silence me, to create shame, and to make sure my colleagues got the message about who should be next if they should speak up. I also read it as, who do you think *you* are? You are nobody, and you need to be put in your place. So, they made sure the message was received. I was disposable, I thought, particularly because of who I am. 

That action to fire me was so suspect, they tried to cover it up and they hoped I would be shamed enough to keep quiet. So, then I resolved to shout it to the world, to shed light on something that they sought to hide. Because you know what? Sunlight is the best disinfectant. 

[MUSIC – Morning Sun by Will Van De Crommert]

More of my story

To begin at the beginning: On August 29th, 2019 I was absolutely thrilled to get an offer letter confirming the start of my employment set for September 29th 2020 with the state of Massachusetts working in another department with the same agency I had worked for previously for four years before I left to attend graduate school full-time. 

I had been working in recruiting for a large prestigious university in Boston. And there I developed a diverse skillset beyond recruiting and I really enjoyed the work and my colleagues. I was gonna hit the 5-year mark which is about as long as I can take doing the same thing, because as you can see from my bio, I enjoy learning and I enjoy new challenges. At the university I received a promotion and two of my supervisors advocated for more pay for me before they left the organization. I received a university award for my contributions representing the organization in the local community. I was well-respected for my work ethic and for my professionalism. There had been quite a few organizations that had reached out to me about job openings. But I really had no reason to change jobs other than for something I could grow from and be passionate about. There was no reason to change jobs just for the sake of change. 

Then someone from this state agency reached out to me about a job that sounded exactly like the type of thing I wanted to do for my next job. It had a diverse portfolio of work and included things like recruiting, creating and developing training for employees, all things I had done and had a background in, but now on a larger scale for an agency that was quite massive. I spoke with this person, who became one of my supervisors, and over a period of months, I interviewed for the job: they called my references, did a background check, got me cleared. Within about three months, I got the offer. The job was a promotion of sorts with a decent salary increase. 

I started and enjoyed the work. Even more so I really enjoyed my direct co-workers were just great people – we worked well as a team. The other colleagues I interacted with in the office were really good to work with too. I was liked, respected and trusted by the people who interacted with me during the course of the job.  Then the lockdown happened which definitely changed things. 

[MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly]

Once we went into lockdown, I bought my own computer the first week of the shutdown to replace my 10-year old computer that couldn’t do the heavy lifting of working from home. By July I was Working 16-hour days, for a so-called 35-hour a week job. I got a call on Easter Sunday from my two supervisors regarding work, and I volunteered to do some work on Easter Sunday as they knew I would, which is why they called me. I would complete assignments and go beyond, and they gave rave reviews through emails, texts, calls about my work quality, my work ethic, right up to and even some time after I spoke up, two months before my firing. The thing is, I would have continued the long hours if all the hard work didn’t accompany the abuse, which was just too much extra. Call it the stress of COVID lockdown, but the department leadership continually issued completely impossible directives and expectations which changed constantly, on a daily basis. And subsequently my supervisors become abusive and unprofessional, and that’s when I spoke up. When that started I had to say something and I was therefore fired. 

On September 16th two weeks before my one-year anniversary on the job was when I received the bookend to my hiring letter; this time it was my firing letter. [MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly] This is after I got a strong performance review in August.  The supervisor outlined how within that one month that she had lost confidence in my abilities.  

Now, I am someone who is able to be thrown into a variety of situations and I  just “run with it”. And it occurred to me that after I had spoken up the supervisors attempted to do just that, to set me up for situations where they thought I would fail. But, they couldn’t come up with me failing on the job so they gave up and made up that the supervisor had lost confidence in me, in that last month. She also said that I said I said I wasn’t a fit which was something she said, not me. I have worked in Human Resources and have taken graduate coursework on Human Resources and the Law, so I knew that anyone can be fired for a reason as simple as your boss dislikes you, which is something that a lot of people really don’t realize.  

So, that firing letter, which I just found so insulting said “During meetings the supervisor expressed concern in numerous meetings, about your inability to keep up with the pace and volume and service delivery.” This was ONE MONTH after she gave me a great review and talked about all my hard work. She said I had expressed dissatisfaction with my responsibilities and stated this is not the right fit for me based on the pace and volume, none of which I said. The only way that could be true is if speaking up about abusive behavior meant I wasn’t a fit because I wouldn’t stand to be bullied. And that’s probably what she meant, and in that case she would be correct. 

[MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly]

During the last few minutes of my firing, by videoconference, after I had listened to my supervisor read off a script, and avoid eye contact with me, I said that said that I had no regrets about anything I had said that led to my termination, because, I said if no one speaks up change doesn’t happen. 

So there you have it. And, I have GOT to tell you…  it feels AWESOME to tell the world!

[MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly]

It’s ironic. during the time we were working from home we received so many emails about racial justice, and resources for learning more about issues related to race, stemming from the George Floyd murder and the related protests.  Yet, here we are, the leadership for the department signed off on firing a Black middle-aged woman, who was a productive employee, just for speaking up for herself. Organizations often tout diversity programs. Hiring for diversity sounds great, for marketing, but when you have “diversity” and it’s a threat to the very people who are required to fulfill the “diversity requirement”, what do we have? It’s really just something to think about. So, why this platform? The podcast, the blog? My goal here is to speak out for people who don’t feel that they can. And to shed light on the dark corners where abusive workplace behavior is normalized. I also want to provide a platform to highlight the places where employees are valued and treated like human beings deserving of respect and a recognition of their humanity.

I am a writer and by nature and an activist around issues of fairness, especially in the area of employment. And based on personal experience and seeing up close the very real damage caused by people in positions of power who lack the aptitude for managing human beings there needs to be an accounting. For these reasons, this is why this topic of workplace fairness and dignity is a social justice and a human rights issue, to me.  

When one loses one’s job it feels like an act of violence for that person who loses their livelihood, especially when the decision has nothing to do with what’s best for an organization, but rather because of a personal bias, but just because the person with more power can do it. Choosing to terminate someone’s employment, because you can, is an abuse of a given trust, one given by the organization.  But it is all legal as workplaces in the U.S. are “at-will”.  That said, plain old abusive behavior, and firing someone without cause, while unethical, is perfectly legal in the workplace.

The workplace is where people go to provide an honest day’s work in exchange for a paycheck to support themselves and their loved ones. It’s not a place to go to earn a paycheck with a dose of abuse and petty malice from people who have the power to inflict that misery. Let’s shed light these practices where they exist, and also highlight to leadership how costly tolerance for this behavior is to the organization and to the human beings doing the work of powering the organization. That will be in another podcast. But right now I’d like to say things can be different. 

 [MUSIC – sound effect]

 At one time it was accepted at one time that women could not be Episcopal priests. It was accepted that Blacks and Whites should not sit in the same sections in the theater, in public spaces, in churches. At one time it was accepted that gay people should not have positions of power or be in public life. It was accepted practice for people to smoke in the workplace at one point. It is accepted that workplaces are tolerant of abusive behaviors that create real, measurable harm to employees. 

 And there should be a paradigm shift. Too many organizations these sanction behaviors that violate human decency and they give lip service to promoting the appearance of fairness. Maybe it’s not the employee who is lazy or troublesome. Maybe the problem is abusive management.

[MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly]

 I’m gonna digress into a somewhat political issue because I feel it’s important to me that I say this. The current Massachusetts governor, Charlie Baker, ran the best company I ever worked for. That was Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. The things that made an impression on me about the organization is working there in corporate headquarters I never once heard of employees complaining of cruel and unprofessional behavior by their supervisors. It wouldn’t have been tolerated. A respectful workplace was promoted and that was the stated expectation. Something that the governor would do, the current governor would when he was CEO of Harvard Pilgrim was he’d send a company-wide email every Friday highlighting employees who exhibited kindness, or went beyond the call of duty. I can see why with this approach brought the organization out of receivership. His philosophy was, when he led the organization: Hire the right people to do the job and then get out of their way. And there, I saw how he viewed and treated the employees as though they were valuable to the success of the organization. And so they in turn gave the best output and Harvard Pilgrim would consistently be rated the number one health plan in the country.

But, the governor left Harvard Pilgrim, and became chief executive of this unwieldy bureaucracy that’s state government. That changed the dynamics, um, the calculus and what he could control in an organization of close to 140,000 employees. I do believe at the highest levels where he was the chief hirer, (I know it’s not a word) he likely hired the people he trusted to do the right job and got out of their way. And so many, many, layers down in the bureaucracy, too many layers down to count, I find myself, fired by videoconference, by someone who’s working as a representative of state government. 

[MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly]

Some things I have since learned that are random but related topics I will revisit in more depth as we go along. 

Jeffrey Pfeffer A professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, wrote a book that I would recommend, it’s called: Dying For A Paycheck. He also wrote an article, How your workplace is killing you, published in 2018 on BBC.com. In his article Pfeffer says:

The workplace is making people sick and even killing them – and people should care. With rising health-care costs all over the world, the workplace has become an important public health problem.  

 Workplace bullying is a subset of an abusive and toxic workplace. And Suffolk University Law Professor David Yamada is an architect of a “bullying bill” for the Mass. state legislature. In 2008 he wrote an article in the Journal of Values Based Leadership. In the article, Workplace Bullying and Ethical Leadership, he describes what workplace bullying is, and what it is not. 

He says:

Workplace bullying does not concern everyday disagreements at work, the occasional loud argument, or simply having a bad day. Furthermore, it does not involve interpersonally difficult aspects of work, such as giving a fair and honest evaluation to an underperforming employee. It’s not about gruff [as opposed to] easygoing bosses, because bullying often transcends management styles. Rather, bullying encompasses a power relationship, whether vested in organizational hierarchies, interpersonal dynamics, or both, that has crossed a line and become abusive.

Clutch is a company that is a ratings and review company for IT marketing and business services. And, they reported in June on feedback they got about workers’ perspectives on the global protests that erupted in response to the murder of George Floyd. Here are the findings they reported from the survey that they did of 755 workers in various companies: 

A majority, 76 percent of workers in the U.S., think racism and discrimination are a problem in the workplace. Of the 76 percent only 44 percent thought it was a problem their own workplace. 

That said, of the 755 workers surveyed, 64 percent of the African-American workers surveyed believe racism is a problem in their own workplace. But, for that 44 percent, racism and discrimination happens, it only happens in other companies that’s what that 44 percent of those surveyed thought.

Some other interesting information I have learned, comes from information from the Workplace Bullying Institute, and highlighted by Professor Yamada: 

There are types of bullying that occur between targets and aggressors. Yamada says that where in the workplace the bullying tends to be “top-down” it is “disproportionately harmful to female workers. He talks about findings from a survey done by the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI). 

A recent survey done in 2017 by the Workplace Bullying Institute on Workplace Bullying  in the U.S., a study was published that included a random sample of over 1,000 adults that found the following:

• Of the people engaging in bullying behavior 70 percent of bullies were male: Their targets by gender were female targets at 65 percent and male targets at 35 percent
• Of women engaging in bullying, 30 percent of bullies were female: Their targets, though, by gender were other females at 67 percent, and 33 percent of their targets were male  

The study covers the racial group breakdown as well, but I am just going to stop at those two points. 

 David Yamada says bullying targets are varied and the reasons certain people become targets are equally varied. They could include weak performers, who may be vulnerable to bullying because of their different personality characteristics. High-level performers are also bullying targets who “trigger reactions from insecure bullies,” he says, “who see them as a threat”. Other targets may be bullied because of race, gender other characteristics that may bring out the bully’s biases. 

 The way to address bullying in an organization, Yamada writes, is for leaders at organizations’ highest levels to make clear that workplace bullying is unacceptable. In addition, the way sexual harassment and workplace violence have been incorporated into employee education, so should the issue of workplace bullying be incorporated. He addresses the issue that I’m sure exists in many organizations. And he says, “The bully is often someone who has become skilled at the “kiss up, kick down” strategies and able to “hide his abusive side from superiors who review his performance”. He can also be popular with management “including those who will determine his fate”. But even so, Yamada says corrective actions such as coaching and counseling tend to yield changes that are only temporary for people who are so inclined.  

 [MUSIC – Funky Brass Time by Jason Donnelly]

 He makes a point that I think is important. He says workplace bullying is not a single issue, it’s not an “isolated” problem: “Workplace bullying is strongly associated with other forms of aggression and misconduct at work.” He says the idea that people are “entitled to be treated with dignity at work does remain a somewhat revolutionary concept.” 

Dignity at work does remain a somewhat revolutionary concept as Professor Yamada said and I think it’s because of what I personally consider the normalization of bad behaviors such as bullying, intimidation, and abusive conduct and the concept that power in the workplace entitles people who have no business managing others to wield their power over other people. Yamada says these supervisors and these managers believe that their direct reports should conform to their personal interests rather than that of prioritizing the interests of the larger organization of which they are both employees.   

 Full disclosure, I interviewed Professor Yamada for a story on workplace bullying for a blog I maintained while I was in graduate school.  

Now, here are my two cents for some suggestions about attitudes and actions needed to create change: 

[MUSIC – sound effect] 

What organizations need is to be committed to ensuring employees have the right people management: People that are going to be supervisors and managers who want to manage, not for the power, but because they have good people skills and want to use those skills to enable the success of the people they supervise rather than to abuse their power.

Implement reviews of managers and their management skills, anyone who actually manages other human beings should be reviewed, and give the people being supervised the opportunity to provide input. 

Have accountability for bad managers, make them accountable for actions they take with employees.

Hold management accountable for turnover. 

Who’s leaving, why?

Be better at hiring. The human costs for employees and the cost to the organization may be too high otherwise. (A coming topic on a future podcast, a podcast on the cost of bad management to the organization)

It is my hope that we reverse the normalization of abuse and cruelty that exists in organizations; this destroys people’s lives and impacts their families. It is my hope that this conversation becomes a vehicle for a larger one where what is normalized is healthy, respectful organizations where employees can go to deliver for their employers, and to maximize their productivity. 

The best advice I could give to organizations, leaders and management came from someone I know who has directly managed scores of employees for three decades. This person said the following about the management challenges they faced over the years. They said: You know, people when they are teenagers, you fire them and for whatever reason, they are teenagers, and their earning years stretch before them, they’ll go out and get another job. For adults, for many people, their job is their anchor. For the most part, unless someone is just inherently incapable of doing a job, you don’t just get rid of people. For many people they tie their future to their job, it’s what they are counting on to help their later years. You don’t just disrupt someone’s livelihood, because just you can. 

 [MUSIC – Intro – Vintage Background Jazz Atmosphere by Volodymyr Piddubnyk]

 Thank you for listening. I welcome your stories on people who have had similar experiences to me, or just tell me about topics you would be interested in hearing about related to workplace dignity and fairness. You can email me at: workplacefairnessanddignity@gmail.com. 

I am dedicating this first podcast to the memory of Gitau Mwangi, who worked for my former organization and who died too young, last year, in 2020 at age 41. Gitau, your name will not be forgotten. 

My next topic will be on  COVID-19 and its effect on work culture now.

During the podcast I mentioned Clutch, you can find their website at Clutch.co. Workplacebullying.org is the site for the workplace bullying institute

Tune in next time. 

[MUSIC – Intro – Vintage Background Jazz Atmosphere by Volodymyr Piddubnyk]