Bullying in the Workplace New York State Labor & Employment Law Section Fall Meeting, 2016

9/16/2016

Bullying In the Workplace New York State Labor & Employment Law Section Fall Meeting, 2016

Foundations of Workplace Bullying Dr. Loraleigh Keashly, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI

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Continuum of Conflict

Civil..…...Uncivil…...Misconduct…...Illegal….....Criminal

• Respectful Bullying • Destructive Disagreement Mobbing • Dangerous • Friendly Protected class Climate Competition Discrimination • Violent • Creative Harassment

Bullying Mobbing • Repeated, persistent, patterned, and • Malicious attempt to force a person enduring acts of aggression. out of the workplace through • Unwanted by the victim. unjustified accusations, harassment, • Done deliberately or unconsciously and emotional abuse. • Cause humiliation, offence, distress. • Involves rallying others into • Creates unpleasant work systematic and frequent “mob-like” environment, interfere with job behavior against target. performance and health harming • “ganging up” (Davenport et al consequences for targets and 1999) bystanders. (Einarsen 1999)

Bully Mobbing Victim Frequent and Frequent and Prolonged Prolonged

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Categories of behavior

•Threat to professional status **** •Belittling opinion, public professional humiliation, accusations regarding lack or quality of effort, damaging rumors, undermining the target’s authority, excluding/ignoring the views of the target, unreasonable/inappropriate monitoring, constant criticism, misuse of evaluation/performance processes •Threat to personal standing •Name calling, insults, intimidation, spreading untrue rumors/gossip, criticism in front of others, judgment questioned, devaluing with reference to age or other characteristics/attributes.

Categories of behavior

•Isolation **** • Preventing access to opportunities, physical or social isolation. •Destabilization • Failure to give credit when due, meaningless tasks, removal of responsibility, repeated reminders of blunders, setting the target up for failure. •Obstructionism ***** •Impeding the person’s ability to perform, interfering with/blocking the target’s work, refusal to provide needed resources and support, repeated failure to return phone calls/email, causing others to delay actions. •Hostile/angry expression •Yelling, cursing, pounding fists on table, invading personal space, threatening gestures

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Cyberbullying

• Electronic communication as a medium • the use of language or images to defame, threaten, harass, bully, exclude, discriminate, demean, humiliate, stalk, disclose personal information, or contain offensive, vulgar, or derogatory comments with an intent to harm or hurt the recipient (Cassidy et al 2014, pg. 278) • Many forms • Flaming, harassment, denigration, cyberstalking, masquerading, outing, mobbing/shaming • Unique features: • Boundarylessness • Invisibility/anonymity • Concreteness/permanence

Distinguishing features

•Negative behaviors •Persistent • Frequency – weekly to daily • Enduring - occurs over a period of time – how long? • Average 16.5 months (Namie & Namie, 2003); 1 month to 10 years (Burnazi et al 2005) •Patterned – variety and sequencing/progression • Critical consideration • Tied to impact

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Pattern and Process

“It is the accumulated number of acts over time, and the summarized pattern of behaviors, and not the particular and individual acts involved, that constitutes the menace. As isolated acts of aggression, such incidents may be mildly offensive and even tolerable. However, when accumulated over time, these acts will be highly destabilizing and a distressing situation to those exposed. Following from this notion, bullying does not seem to be an either-or phenomenon, but rather a slowly escalating process with increasingly more harsh treatment of the target.” (Einarsen & Nielsen 2014, pg. 2)

Distinguishing features •Focused on the identity & character of another •Exposure causes harm •(unnecessarily) disruptive to work, to access to opportunities • Unwelcome & unsolicited • Context - Without “reasonable” justification • Power imbalance (formal v. informal) • Ability to defend oneself – Key distinction re conflict • Multiple sources of power • Use/abuse of power

What about intent?

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What bullying is not….

•People not getting along •High performance standards •Corrective feedback – constructive, fair •One-time verbally aggressive outburst •Expression of conflicting opinions •“Direct” communication •Techniques such as irony, satire, hyperbole, conjecture, and refutation

Experience with bullying

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Who are the actors?

• General working population: equally likely to be coworkers or supervisors • Affects behaviors and impact • Men and women equally likely to be bullied or be bullies • Significant proportion is same sex harassment. • Risk of spirals and cascades

Costs of bullying

• Work adversely impacts their emotional health • Work adversely impacts their physical health • They are more dissatisfied with their current job • They are more dissatisfied with the organization • They are more likely to transfer to another department • They are fearful at work • Work is a source of stress • They are less committed to the organization • They are more likely to leave the organization True for witnesses too! (Keashly & Neuman, 2008)

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Impact on organizational “bottom-line”

•Lost productivity •Impediment to creativity •Turnover - talent flight; retention; bright flight •Non-tenure track more likely to leave •Withdrawal; Disengagement •Lateral transfers (difficult for disciplinary based faculty) •Increased accidents & sabotage (distractibility) •Increased sickness & stress leave •Time and attendance problems – absences •Adverse impact on customer satisfaction •Legal costs – Workers’ Comp, lawsuits and job actions •Loss of public goodwill and reputation •Hostile/toxic/fearful workplace climate •Increased risk of workplace violence

Pathways to bullying

Intrapersonal • Target and actor characteristics – negative affect • Affect perceptions and provoke behavior • Displacement of aggression; predatory bullying Interpersonal • Conflict ineffectively managed and escalates by reciprocity • One becomes unable to defend self • Pairings of types of actors and targets Intragroup/Organizational • Features of unit that stimulate and support bullying

Baillien et al (2009)

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Target vulnerabilities (Aquino & Lamertz, 2004; Lutgen-Sandvik & Fletcher 2013)

• “Provocative” • “Aggressive” • Communicatively assertive • “Submissive” • Rigidly conscientious • Organizational position • Outsider status • Communicative skill

Actor Vulnerabilities (Lutgen-Sandvik & Fletcher 2013)

• “Accidental” (response to pressures) • Expectation that others understand “not personal” • Unaware of impact • “Conforming” (observational learning) • Modeling what see around them; what gets permitted • Culture of “how things get done around here” • Narcissistic” (insecure, vulnerable) • Driven by fear of appearing incompetent; face-saving • self-absorbed; lack of empathy • View as better than others and be treated as such • Psychopathic • Least frequent but “popular” perception • Motivated to gain power • Socially and verbally facile • Blame others for negative situations

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Organizational influences: Bully culture? Result of unit or organizational features that stimulate bullying (Salin, 2003); • Enabling – features that affect whether bullying even possible • Rigid hierarchy, power imbalance, low perceived costs/risks, lack of enforceable policies, qualities of working env’t such as perceived injustice, lack of autonomy, role state stressors, perceived norm violation; negative conflict climate

Organizational influences

• Motivating – features associated with bullying as a “rational response” to those viewed as threats or burdens • Internally competitive env’t, perceived norm violation; constructive dismissal strategy; “permission to harass” • Precipitating – features that may “trigger” bullying assuming other features in place • Organizational change (downsizing, restructuring, budget cuts, changing or unstable leadership, increased diversity) • Create stress, anxiety or frustration and thus can lead to aggression

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Organizational responses (Keashly, 2001) 1. Company responsibility • Working around the problem • Promised action with no discernible outcome • Direct action with respect to the actor 2. Target responsibility • No action taken • High performing instigator (Williams, 2013) • Minimizing target’s complaint • Attributions to personality • Blaming of or retaliation against the target

Fran Sepler, Sepler & Associates, Minneapolis, MN

Practical Issues in Workplace Bullying

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To Policy or Not to Policy

• “Respectful Workplace” Expectation or Values Statement • Respectful Workplace policy • Non Harassment Policy • Anti Bullying Policy and Anti Harassment Policy

Implementing Policies

• Definitions are Critical • Should define problem behavior in terms of targeting, intensity, frequency, intent (deliberate) and impact. • Ensure agreed upon analytics for cases that are non conforming or debatable • Describe process including limits on privacy and alternatives for resolution

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Case Finding

• Limit the scope of new cases • Must be happening at present • Must involve people who by necessity have professional contact • Must be employment behavior • Exclude union advocacy and historical discipline or performance management

Preliminary Evaluation of Bullying Cases

• Are they other types of organizational issues being “misfiled” as bullying? • Can there be an informal resolution that takes power, status and authority into account? • Has there been an attempt to address or resolve the problem, or will this be a “surprise?’

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Sample Analytic

Alleged behavior is Repeated and/or Persistent or Severe Targeted towards one or more people, but not targeted towards others (i.e. not a “bad manager) Involves one or more of the following Verbal abuse (yelling, belittling, name calling) Physical threats or intimidation (standing very close, balling fists, pushing or shoving) Work sabotage (destroying work product, “bombarding” with impossible assignments, withdrawing resources to do work, interfering with work activity) Humiliation or emotional abuse (mocking, intentionally embarrassing, sharing information inappropriately, public harsh criticism, badgering or shunning) • Has had a demonstrable impact on the ability of the complainant to do his or her job

Investigation

• Use standard of “situation as a whole” as opposed to the assessment of each single action • Use preponderance standard for finding, higher standard for discipline • Must assess long standing behavioral, performance and cultural issues now emerging • Patterns are more persuasive than incidents • Identify protected class issues as appropriate

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The Critics are Sometimes Right

• Even in the face of well administered policies and excellent training, there are problems • “The Death Spiral” and “bad employees” • Legitimate Supervisory Behavior Subject to Complaints • When HR is Bullying • Superstar Bullies Who Pay the Bills

The Death Spiral

Poor •Harsh Performance feedback •Criticism •Fault Finding • Lack of clarity Loss of •Humiliation • Lack of support confide •Threats or • Denied tools to nce Personal Criticism do job Bullying • Somatic and Psychological Behavior stress

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Coaching For Those With Bullying Behavior

• Must Acknowledge • Must Be Tangible Consequences for Failure to Change • Threat to status, threat to employment. • Strict Behavioral Coaching • Monitoring for Recurrence and Reprisal • Use Feedback Mechanisms Outside Enabling Structures. • One Up Coaching

Training and Education

• Terms such as “civility” create more issues than they solve. • Behavioral focus: turn to empirical data such as neuroscience • Humanize the bullying persons as well as the targets • Integrate implicit bias into content • Focus on desired outcome- human metrics that support morale and productivity • Do you feel respected? • Does your employer value you? • Does your work matter?

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Emerging Issues

• Quiet Bullies • Bullying Cultures • “Front of the House” and “Back of the House” and Relative Worth • Indispensable or Superstar Bullies