Workplace Abuse and Creating Accountability

This episode discusses, in the first half, research findings on how workplace abuse increases during economic downturns, such as that caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic, and the types of people on the job -- employees and supervisors-- that engage in that behavior. It also discusses the researchers' recommendations on how organizations should implement policies that combat workplace abuse. (Time: 1 min - 8 min 49 sec) 

Additional information on topics in this section:

What defines an abusive organization;

Employment laws do not protect employees from workplace abuse (unconnected to discrimination in the workplace);

Why managers and supervisors exhibit abusive behavior;

Researchers’ recommended solutions to abusive workplace behavior;

The cost to an organization from abusive management behaviors .
 
 
The second half discusses a current story of a high-level official forced to resign when her bullying, harassment and creation of a toxic work environment went public through current and former staffers.  (Time: 8 min 50 sec - 18 min 43 sec) 

Additional information on topics in this section:

The dollar cost of poor managers to U.S. organizations, according to Gallup;

Recommendations about how that lost revenue could be spent creating a healthy workplace culture, including promoting a zero-tolerance policy for bullying behavior;

Today’s segment is dedicated to the Chief Executive who told his staff on national television: If I hear you treating with disrespect or talking down to any other employee no matter what level position they hold, I will promise I will fire you on the spot. 

Materials referenced in podcast:

Ebeid, F., Kaul, T., Neumann, K., Shane, H. (2003) Workplace Abuse: Problems And Consequences. Workplace Abuse: Problems And Consequences. International Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER), 2(6). https://doi.org/10.19030/iber.v2i6.3811 

Bassman, Emily, & London, Manuel (1993). Abusive managerial behavior. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 18-24. 

Powell, Gary N. (1998) The abusive organization. Academy of Management Executive, 12(2), 5, 95-96. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1998.650520

MUSIC: Strut That Way by Will Van De Crommert; Do the Funky Strut, by Bobby Cole; Laid Back Jazz Music Theme by Bobby Cole; Bossa Zone; Morning Sun, by Will Van De Crommert;  Hip Hop Power Rap, by Bobby Cole.

Transcript

MUSIC: Strut That Way by Will Van De Crommert

Welcome to today’s podcast of Workplace Fairness and Dignity. Today’s episode is titled “Workplace Abuse and Creating Accountability”. 

Today’s podcast starts off with the effect of COVID-19 on the workplace, a discussion of the causes of workplace abuse, and a current interesting international story about a high-level official who was forced to resign this week due to workplace bullying and harassment. 

MUSIC: Do the Funky Strut, by Bobby Cole

This once-in-a-century pandemic, COVID-19, has harmed businesses; workers seek to remain employed and not join the ranks of the millions of unemployed, and they are even more inclined to put up with workplace abuse; abusive management are more emboldened. With these circumstances in play, forms of dissent are now more easily dismissed on the job seen by some in charge as “you should just be grateful you have a job”. 

MUSIC: Laid Back Jazz Music Theme by Bobby Cole

Three researchers at Western Illinois University, (Ebeid, Neumann & Shane) published a paper titled “Workplace Abuse: Problems and Consequences” they published in the International Business & Economics Research Journal. Although the paper was published in 2003 and refers to the economic recession of the early 2000s, the topics are still relevant today, especially where the authors reference global economic downturns that contribute to the fear workers have about losing their jobs. 

The authors attribute the increase in workplace stress due to the layoffs, mergers, restructuring done by companies during the economic recession. The impact, they say, of the recession, such as the job cuts that occurred globally, resulted in a significant increase not only in workplace stress, but also in abuse on the job.

The authors say, “An organization becomes abusive when it permits or tolerates abusive employee treatment by supervisors or managers.” 

MUSIC: Bossa Zone.

 Ebeid, Neumann & Shane ask: What is Workplace Abuse? They quote Gary Powell who wrote in the Academy of Management Executive in 1998, he wrote The Abusive Organization. Powell said: An organization/employer that makes employees do what management wants through fear, intimidation and coercion, is described as abusive. Abusive organizations operate with callous disregard for their employees, not even displaying what might be a minimum amount of concern for their human needs.   

Job stress used to be synonymous with work abuse, but it is when stress is the direct result of managerial or supervisory practices aimed at gaining control of an employee that it becomes work abuse. Work abuse is not just targeted at individuals at lower levels. It can also be directed at managers, supervisors, and entire units or departments. 

It is not hard work that causes managers the greatest amount of stress. Most accept long hours and pressured deadlines as part of the job. What triggers harrowing days and sleepless nights is a syndrome that can be called impossible expectations by an organization or employer. 

3:13 MUSIC: Do the Funky Strut, by Bobby Cole

Powell continues:  There is a fine line between an abusive and a discriminatory organization, and it is therefore difficult for people to distinguish between the two. An organization that violates existing employment laws is engaging in discrimination. However, an abusive organization may not be in violation of anti-discrimination legislation. Existing employment laws or directives do not protect employees in an abusive organization. 

MUSIC: Morning Sun, by Will Van De Crommert 

Ebeid, Neumann & Shane look at the Causes of Workplace Abuse: The causes of abuse in organizations are [great and many] and the abuse of employees could come from many angles. They say, condoned by the structure of organizations, a few individuals will pursue and use their status and power to compensate for or secure their positions. The goal of those who have power is to attain personal well-being and comfort. And so to achieve this comfort, these individuals popularly known as management, abuse their power as a way to get things accomplished. 

In the Leadership and Organization Development Journal in 1993 Bassman  & London wrote about abusive managerial behavior and they explain that there are no standard guidelines for the treatment of subordinates abused by supervisors or managers in many organizations. The pressure to preserve their respective positions in an organization, they say, may prompt these managers to abuse their subordinates. However, the reasons managers are abusive may not stem from fear of losing their power alone but can be also triggered by personality disorder, job stress, and learned violence.  

5:02 MUSIC: Do the Funky Strut, by Bobby Cole

A manager who exhibits abusive behavior may have considerable self-confidence and some managerial skills to cover up this “gray” behavior. The benefits of abuse may also stem from personal gratification – that is, a manager may feel more in control and have an attitude of superiority. 

They say learned association like stereotyping which is based on negative and positive sets of beliefs about a certain group have helped to sharpen the edges of abuse in organizations. There is no doubt in today’s workplace that either stereotyping or discrimination persists in organizations. The existence of this behavior may not be intentionally pursued but it could still be present even within a respectable, well-known organization.  

MUSIC

Ebeid, Neumann & Shane offer recommended solutions, and they say: to help prevent abuse, organizations need to incorporate policies against that behavior and to put those policies into the performance evaluation and reward system of supervisors. 

Cherie Estrin wrote about emotional abuse in the workplace. She wrote an article in 1998 for Legal Assistant Today. Estrin placed the responsibility of addressing workplace abuse with leadership; she says, “…ultimately, emotional abuse is a management problem, and it must be addressed by leadership in a larger context. 

The solutions to this costly behavior are systematic says Estrin, and they include:

Breaking the silence that surrounds such incidents to promote open airing of employee concerns. Creating an organization-wide policy not to accept abuse under any circumstances.  And, opening communication channels to give sustained life to the new non-toleration policy.”  
6:54 MUSIC: Laid Back Jazz Music Theme by Bobby Cole

Why should organizations bother to do any of this? Because, the benefits to the company include: 

Reduced employee turnover and greater employee loyalty;

Lower levels of absenteeism, increased employee; and 

Customer satisfaction, improved product/service quality, increased productivity -- this is something not enough employers pay attention to. It should be obvious; if you treat your employees well, this is likely going to have a positive effect on how they work with customers in and out of the organization.

Ebeid, Neumann & Shane’s recommendations echo Estrin’s.  Their recommendations include that a “zero tolerance” policy should be developed for the organization. 

They also say that while policies are often developed by Human Resources departments with some input of some levels of management, it’s crucial for executive leadership to support such a policy and to clearly model the behavior.

7:47 MUSIC: Laid Back Jazz Music Theme by Bobby Cole

Other recommendations include educating managers and employees on acceptable behaviors and workplace conduct. 

This makes sense to me. I have learned in my career that often in the workplace you get people with all different kinds of backgrounds and personal experiences together.  Some people do have knowledge gaps about what others would consider “common work etiquette”. Not only that, there are those who come into an organization expecting to repeat behavior that they demonstrate in their personal lives or at a previous job, they may need to be educated about what is acceptable at their new organization.

The authors also recommend linking performance evaluations and any rewards with desired behaviors for an abuse-free healthy workplace. 

Of all the recommendations, I believe that this is the one that could do the most to yield the desired behaviors. 

Creating an incentive to promote good behavior also allows for people to see that there is accountability for meeting expectations in how others are treated in the work environment.  

8:47 MUSIC: Bossa Zone.

Now, about that international story about the high-level official forced to resign when bullying and harassing behavior came to light.  

The Washington Post, on Thursday, January 27th, had an article by reporter Amanda Coletta, titled Canada’s embattled governor general resigns amid bullying, harassment allegations. A governor general, apparently, is the Queen of England’s representative in Canada. 

So what does a Governor General do? The governor general serves as commander in chief of the Canadian armed forces; the person represents Canada at home and abroad; and grants royal assent to bills so that they become law, according to the Washington Post. 

This is the back story: Independent consulting firm, Quintet Consulting Canada, whose website lists a specialty in HR management consulting, they conducted an outside “workplace review” of Rideau Hall which is the office of the Governor General, and they found that the Governor General, Julie Payette, and her Deputy led a “toxic” work environment that included workplace harassment. 

The allegations about Payette’s behavior came from 12 anonymous current and former staffers who said that “Payette verbally abused staffers, reduced them to tears, dismissed their work harshly in an effort to humiliate them and was prone to disquieting outbursts.” 

10:10

This story was first shared with me by a friend who saw it on the CBC Canada, that’s the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation online, and that story said Payette was forced to resign this past Thursday, on January 21st, after the completion of the report by Quintet that looked into the allegations made by the current and former staffers. The CBC Story was titled, Payette stepping down as governor general after blistering report on Rideau Hall work environment and it was written by Ashley Burke. The Washington Post said the findings in the report were so “scathing” and that’s a quote, and “blistering”, and that’s another quote, that for Payette, a former Astronaut, it was untenable for her to have continued in her role. Unsurprisingly, there was high turnover at Rideau Hall.

The Washington Post’s description of the events originally told to the CBC is “that Payette led a workplace that was a ‘house of horrors’ (and that’s also a quote) replete with harassment and bullying”. 

11:11 MUSIC: Morning Sun, by Will Van De Crommert 

The questions I had were… 

• What led to this review, what had to happen for what the CBC called an unprecedented third-party review? Who hired the independent consulting firm? 
  • So, I learned that there is a federal office called The Privy Council Office or PCO, which is part of the secretariat and federal cabinet of Canada. The CBC reports that the PCO launched the review in July of last year “in response to a CBC News report featuring a dozen public servants and former employees confidentially claiming Payette belittled and publicly humiliated the staff”. Payette’s deputy who was also a long-time friend was accused of the same behavior. 
• The head of the PCO described the report as “disturbing” and “worrisome”. And he talked about her giving her resignation to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and that’s when she and Trudeau discussed the report. 12:03 

MUSIC: Hip Hop Power Rap, by Bobby Cole

So What did Payette have to say for herself? Well, for her part Payette acknowledged “tensions” and that everyone has everyone has "a right to a healthy and safe work environment."

Here, Payette acknowledges the tensions which is a complete euphemism for what was referred to as a “house of horrors”. Then she parrots the words that she is supposed to say. But her behavior is proof that she doesn’t understand the meaning of the words, “healthy and safe work environment”.

She goes on to make the point in a formal statement that “no formal complaints or official grievances were made during her tenure (which actually started in 2017). These official grievances were not made, which would have immediately triggered a detailed investigation as prescribed by law and the collective agreements in place, I still take these allegations very seriously”. 

What I hear is that she really had no defense. She had to start quoting law and policy but she just had no understanding of how she affected people. She talks about how no one filed a formal grievance, etc. etc. Well, yes, because they were terrified. They knew what would happen should they be identified in any way. Things would have gone from a house of horrors to who knows what for the complainants?! MUSIC: Hip Hop Power Rap, by Bobby Cole

She says, and this is also a quote, "We all experience things differently, but we should always strive to do better and to be attentive to one another's perceptions."

Again, she’s parroting all the right things, but, to me it’s proof, she doesn’t really understand because she says “everyone experiences things differently”. So, she’s suggesting that workplace abuse and bullying that she engaged in is about how the people on the receiving end perceive it. It’s not even clear she understands – or maybe she just doesn’t care – about why her behavior was unacceptable.

The rest of her statement says it’s a good time for her to resign because her family needs her, etc. Okay.

Justin Trudeau’s statement said “Every employee in the Government of Canada has the right to work in a safe and healthy environment, and we will always take this very seriously”. The statement continued that “Today’s announcement provides an opportunity for new leadership at Rideau Hall to address the workplace concerns raised by employees during the review”. 

14:17 MUSIC: Hip Hop Power Rap, by Bobby Cole

In all honesty, the Post reported that when news of workplace harassment first were launched, the Prime Minister defended Payette as an excellent governor general. There had been questions about whether she had been sufficiently vetted. She had dazzling credentials: A Former Chief Astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency, she had an Engineering degree, attended McGill University, speaks 6 languages, performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. My question is, are there human beings organizations are willing to sacrifice at the altar of prestige, to hire an abusive individual with the right pedigree who’s allowed to treat others badly, with little to no accountability. 

One of the things I find noteworthy about this story is that a high-level official was actually held to account and forced to step down for mistreatment of employees. But first, there was the initial, and typical, denial by leadership. I suppose you could consider it loyalty, but what message does it send to the people who are experiencing the mistreatment

I think some people reading the articles about how the nice Canadians felt about their treatment at the Governor General’s hands, they may think, “disquieting outbursts?”, Oh, you think that’s bad, let me tell you about…  But, why, why should we have to do that? It’s not about everyone being super pleasant to each other all day long, it’s about people not being afraid to go to work, about people being treated with dignity as the expectation. There is no perfection, but we all know abuse is abuse, we know it when we see it. It shouldn’t come on a grade, as in, oh that’s not bad. People have bad days, but bad days should be the exception, not the norm and there should be limits to what type of behavior is allowed in any workplace, where people go to work, not to be abused.  

16:00 MUSIC: Laid Back Jazz Music Theme by Bobby Cole

As a staffing recruiter when I interviewed candidates at any level, even those at the executive leadership level, when I knew they would be supervising staff directly I always asked questions that would elicit answers that provided insight on how they worked with people above them, below them in the organizational hierarchy, and how they interacted with peers. 

Even if you get someone hired who slipped through who had the right answers and portrayed themselves as good colleague, the goal is to at least ask the questions. I always wanted to get people hired who I would want to work with or for. So I tried to do that for the other employees in the organization. These are questions that need to be asked – how people think about treatment of other individuals, do they give it any thought; it’s important to learn if their mindset is all about power or providing a collegial respectful environment while expecting excellence, but valuing each person’s right to be treated well. Excellence and decency are not mutually exclusive. These are things to really determine before the person makes it through the door.    

The fallout of not addressing Payette’s behavior is this: 

• The staffers went public; they went to the CBC
• It cost 150,000 Canadian dollars of taxpayer money to handle the legal bills surrounding the accusations and for the office to hire a former Supreme Court justice to represent the accused. 
  • It always costs a lot to protect bad management 

17:28 MUSIC: Hip Hop Power Rap, by Bobby Cole

Gallup says poor managers drive employee disengagement; and they cause U.S. organizations $450 to $550 billion a year. What if organizations plowed money they lose from propping up poor management into maintaining a healthy work environment, for all employees.

Plow the money into demonstrating to employees that they matter...  Starting with maintaining a workplace that insists on respectful communications, putting in the time and the commitment to training and communication of expectations... Promoting  zero-tolerance for bullying behavior.

An organization that adopted this philosophy would not need to do marketing; the philosophy of caring for employees would sell itself. Think of the word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals that could come from employees, this would be the ultimate in marketing. 

18:18 MUSIC: Do the Funky Strut, by Bobby Cole

Today’s segment is dedicated to the Chief Executive who told his staff on national television: If I hear you treating with disrespect or talking down to any other employee no matter what level position they hold, I will promise I will fire you on the spot. 

Thank you for listening. 
(18:44)