Bullying and HR

Check out this article, which discusses what happens when HR is the target of bullying.

As a Conflict Consultant, I can attest to the pressure and abuse HR has to deal with on a daily basis. Some my clients are HR professionals who call me for advice and guidance. HR professionals are between the rock and the hard place of having to take complaints and the confront the alleged bully. How could they not be victimized? Those who use bullying tactics are used to getting their way by intimidating others and they won’t stop at HR.

Interestingly, some are not even aware that they are behaving like bullies, which creates more challenges for the HR professional. But things can be different and many bullies can learn new behaviors.

I’m Kathleen Bartle, a strategic consultant on workplace conflict to executives worldwide for more than 20 years. My work brings individualized solutions to your teams’ lost productivity, loss of key personnel, low morale, and the high costs resulting from bullying, abrasive behaviors and interpersonal workplace conflicts. You can contact me here.

Leadership Training: Will it Solve my Bullying Situation at Work? No. Here’s Why.

You’ve just about had it with the bullying situation between your employees but your “bully” is a “subject matter expert” so you cannot dismiss him.

People are complaining about this person, important people are leaving their jobs because of the abrasive behavior, and you are running out of options. You’ve tried discussing the issue nicely and rationally with the abrasive person. You’ve tried negotiation, mediation, threats, and pleading. You’ve even tried some general coaching. Nothing seems to be working.

It looks like you’re going to need another tactic. Will leadership training work?

Leadership Training vs. “You Can’t Make Me!”

Leadership training is a wonderful tool for people that legitimately want to improve, and are interested in developing themselves. For certain superstar employees, it is one of the best options for improving “ways of being”, and ultimately, productivity.

But leadership training only works on people who want to be trained, and can make changes and improvements in their behavior. This isn’t going to work with employees displaying aggressive or bullying behaviors. Aggressive people do not see their behavior as a problem. They do not empathize with their targets or employers, and they do not recognize that they need leadership training. So, leadership training does not work, nor does any other kind of group training, for that matter.

So What Now?
In a situation like this, you need specific strategies and tactics to control the aggression. You will need to identify exactly what type of abrasive behavior you are dealing with, and you will need to have a concrete approach to changing that behavior. You will also need specific measures for assessing improvements. What you do not need is a general program that focuses on leadership, civility or “how to get along”.

I’m Kathleen Bartle, a strategic consultant on workplace conflict to executives worldwide for more than 20 years. My work brings individualized solutions to your teams’ lost productivity, loss of key personnel, low morale, and the high costs resulting from bullying, abrasive behaviors and interpersonal workplace conflicts. You can contact me here.

Bullying Consequences Could Cost Millions for Australian Company

Every day seems to bring new lawsuits from the targets of workplace bullying and harassment. This latest filing in New South Wales, Australia is by far the most costly suit I have seen at $14.5 million.  That’s a lot of money to pay for both coddling workplace bullies and ignoring the total costs that come from strategic bullying behaviors.

You can read more about this historic case here.

Company Culture: Do You Have an Aggressive High-Pressure Workplace?

There are many business cultures that reward aggressive and competitive behavior, particularly in science, academia, and law.  Is this your workplace? If so, then you expect the best from yourself and from the people who work for you. You like to win.  And you surround yourself with other people who like to win. After all, competition is excellent for developing the right employees who can succeed in your business, right?

Company Culture Changing?

But now you have new and younger employees who are complaining about the business culture and labeling it aggressive and abusive. These employees can deliver your bottom line, but they do not like the culture. This is a fundamental conflict between the culture of your organization and the needs of some of your new and younger employees.

So, you have a problem. Before you take action, ask yourself these questions:

• Do I want to change my organizational culture?
• If so, how much change do I want?
• What would it take to make the changes?
• Would I rather say goodbye to those who are not comfortable with this demanding environment?
• If so, are there any young people who welcome the highly competitive culture of my business?
• How will a culture change impact my top-level employees?

Consider Carefully
If your organizational culture embraces aggressive behaviors, these are among the critical questions you need to ask yourself BEFORE you take action. The answers to these questions will determine what you should do about the complaints because you are going to have to do something. Ignoring the complaints about aggressive and abusive behavior is not an option because they are expensive and have serious impact on your bottom line.

Company Culture Can Move Forward

If you want to get ahead of these problems, then it is time to contact me, Kathleen Bartle, MA. I am an Executive Conflict Consultant and I can help you answer these questions and help you with an action plan. After all it is your ROI. You need to do everything you can to keep it high and help it grow.

HR Policies Alert: How to Help an Abrasive Person

The Situation
You have an employee who is a dynamic thinker, a powerful strategist, a skilled technician and someone who knows how to deliver the goods. The same employee is also driving everyone crazy with their abusive and abrasive behavior and comments. And, you have to decide whether or not the benefit of the contributions outweigh the costs of investigations, staff turnover, potential liability, your reputation as a leader and the reputation of your company.

HR Policies: Yes You Have Conflict…Now What?

If you want to keep your employee, then:

• Don’t ignore the situation and hope everything disappears
• Don’t yell at them and threaten them and demand they behave (this doesn’t work)
• Don’t send a letter from your lawyers threatening termination (this doesn’t work either)
• Don’t conduct an investigation and decide that the person is not misbehaving (that makes everyone else angry and then you face the costs of losing your next level of best and brightest)

Do hire a Conflict Consultant who understands what is driving the person to misbehave and who can help the person learn new styles of communicating (if you pick this choice be sure to hire someone with experience and a proven track record)

HR Policies Sometimes Need Outside Help

I know how employers think about these conflicts and I know what can be done to reduce or eliminate the conflict. If you are faced with the challenges of having a difficult employee who is costing you far more than he or she should, then ask for help.

Company Culture: Bullied by Management?

As an HR professional, you probably have a plan for when an employee complains to you about bullying coming from their boss or management. But does this plan account for the work culture of your organization? If not, how do you move forward?

Company Culture: What Type is it?

The first question you should ask yourself is not “who is the bully, what’s the bullying about or even what am I going to do about it. The first question to ask is“what is the culture of my organization?” Why? Because your approach to handling the bullying complaint will differ depending on your answer to the “culture question”.

Hierarchical Structure
If you work in a more hierarchical structure, like in high-pressure sales or science, then you may work for management that has a “take no prisoners” approach. In this case, there is probably no policy in HR around workplace bullying, and probably no existing procedure to fall back on. This culture reinforces bullying type behaviors. Your leaders will see the bullying as appropriate given the organizational structure. Bullying is seen as an asset because it’s interpreted as good leadership.

Therefore, when someone comes to you complaining of bullying, you will have to manage their expectations about what can be done. When bringing a complaint to management, you should avoid describing the pain and suffering of the target of bullying. Instead describe the costs of the bullying in terms of dollars. How is it hurting productivity? How is it hurting the bottom line? These are the arguments you have a chance of winning. Remember that hierarchies like this are focused on the bottom line rather than on the human aspects of the workplace.

Human-Focused Structure
If you are working for an organization that has a more human-focused structure, then you can focus on the details of the bullying complaint because you “have upper management on your side”. If you have a more human-focused structure in your organization, you probably have a policy. And chances are you have officers above you who will agree that it’s not a best practice to behave in a bullying manner. Here, you have a better chance of getting a handle on the situation.

In this situation you can focus on gathering information about the complaint including: What type of bullying am I dealing with? Is this complaint part of a pattern of complaints? What has happened that brings the target to you to report the bullying behavior? You can explain the issue in BOTH the emotional consequences that the employee is suffering, and also how it affects the bottom line.

Position Yourself Wisely
If you want to position yourself to do something about bullying, you have to do it based on the culture of your organization. By understanding your environment, you have a much stronger chance of making the right move.

Company Culture: Get Support

In either case, whether it is a hierarchical company culture, or a more human-focused company culture, you have options. If you need help making your next move, contact me, Kathleen Bartle, Conflict Consultant. I have years of experience helping people just like you.

Workplace Conflict – Tips for Developing Preventative Policy

One way to help deal with workplace conflicts including bullying type behaviors is with a policy prohibiting such behavior. Though policy does not stop the behavior outright – it will give targets and the HR department power to take action. Why is this important?

The Cost of Doing Nothing
Employees who feel bullied are less productive, need more sick days, and often move on to a new job. All of these actions cost your employer money. Worse, if the offending behavior continues, you can expect to have mediation and litigation costs.

Workplace Conflict Policy Content

Policies should include definitions of unacceptable behavior, procedures for reporting, guidelines for evidence, and the range of consequences and options for the HR Department.

Spread the Word
Training programs that introduce policies to employees and enforcing the policies can go a long way to helping curb the costs and consequences of workplace conflict and bullying behaviors. Once your policies are in place you can choose among various options including transfers, training, specialized consulting for one-on-one training, or termination.

Workplace Conflict: Be Proactive

Of course, given my experience as a Conflict Consultant I am confident that specialized consulting and one-on-one training can help your bullying employees to stop the workplace conflict behaviors that negatively impact your bottom line. Contact me, Kathleen Bartle, MA. I am an Executive Conflict Consultant and I can help you answer these questions and help you with an action plan.

Workplace Investigations: Do You Make These Seven Major Mistakes?

Have you received a complaint from an employee about a workplace conflict that seems to be interpersonal in nature and that likely hurts productivity? If so, then the time has come to roll up your sleeves and initiate an investigation.

Before you launch your investigation, check out these seven common mistakes employers make when investigating complains like bullying and abrasive behavior.

Workplace Investigations : Seven Major Mistakes

Mistake #1: Tell the “wrong” people about the complaint and the people involved.
This is a big no-no. You should run the investigation with complete confidentiality to maintain credibility for the investigation itself. No one is going to believe your investigation is legitimate if you announce ANY opinions about the parties or the probable outcome. It is bad for morale, and potentially catastrophic for the reputation of you and your company.

Mistake #2: Draw conclusions based on personalities instead of facts
If you could completely trust your instincts about personalities, you wouldn’t have to run an investigation. Your impressions of people are strictly limited by your perspective as an employer and how they interact with you. Your other employees have differing relationships to the parties involved, and your personal feelings should have no influence.

Mistake #3: Be inclined to err in the direction of the person with authority
Your managers know better than to misbehave because it is bad for their reputation and their career, right? No, not necessarily. Often, interpersonal conflicts source from people in authority, and their subordinates have little recourse but to complain to HR. It is key to the investigation that you look at complaints objectively and not assume that the person in authority is behaving themselves.

Mistake #4: Make excuses for bosses who have a reputation for being tough
You shouldn’t be making excuses for anyone in an investigation. But this is especially true for people in authority. Being a tough boss is not a bad thing but sometimes the boss crosses the line and believes that being tough is the same as abuse. Making excuses undermines the experience of the person making the complaint, and it also paints you as a having a clear bias.

Mistake #5: Identify with the accused because you understand “bullying”
You cannot downplay the seriousness of the accusation of “bullying” but you owe it to everyone involved to conduct a fair investigation. Don’t let your personal feelings cloud the investigation.

Mistake #6: Assume that all conflict behavior must be bullying behavior
Not all conflict behavior is “bullying” behavior. There may be something more complex going on than you realize. If you start with a false assumption, you may end up drawing a false conclusion.

Mistake #7: Propose an ineffective solution to the problem
For your organization, implementing the wrong solution is like a surgeon amputating the wrong leg. It puts your investigation in the position of actually harming the organization and leaving it in worse shape than when it began.

Workplace Investigations Should be Based on Knowledge and Facts

For more information about how to understand the various types of abrasive or bullying behaviors and more information on workplace conflict, contact Kathleen Bartle, MA, Conflict Consultant.

Hostile Workplace? When You Need to Initiate an Investigation.

Conflict is everywhere. It cannot be helped.

Regardless of how motivated your employees are to behave, put a few ambitious, sensitive, or abrasive people together and you are bound to have some conflict.

But as an employer – where do you draw the line? How much of the conflict you are seeing is normal and healthy, and how much of it creates a hostile workplace? And when do you need to take matters into your own hands and initiate an investigation?

Hostile Workplace or Healthy Conflict?

What is important to understand about conflict is that not all conflict is the same. There are different types of conflict. and each type of conflict requires a different response. The three kinds of conflict you are likely to experience at work are:

1. Substantive Conflict: disagreements about overall direction, policies, values and goals. These are the kinds of arguments you might see in a political debate.

2. Procedural Conflict: disagreements about processes and procedures to best reach a shared goal. An argument about how to sell the most widgets is an example.

3. Affective Conflict: This is interpersonal conflict. This is the type that flares up and seems so very personal even as it threatens the productivity and stability of the whole workplace. Most complaints about “bullying” fall into this category, and this is the kind of conflict that could create a hostile workplace.

Hopefully, most of the conflicts you experience at work are the substantive or procedural kind: disagreements about how to accomplish goals. These are generally “healthy” conflicts because you can focus on outcomes, goals, and processes rather than personalities and emotions.

But when affective conflict is present in your workplace and an employee files a complaint, then you have a lot of murky waters to navigate. This probably includes an investigation that feels more like a balancing act than a straightforward “just the facts” process.

Hostile Workplace: Do I Really Have to Investigate?

Yes, most likely you do. If your employee’s complaint seems like it may violate company policy or federal law, then you are most likely required to conduct an investigation, even if the employee who sought your help does not wish to have one. Federal law makes investigation mandatory if there is suspicion of job discrimination, a violation of health and safety laws, or illegal drug use and all of these issues can be part of affective conflict. Even if you suspect no law is broken, it is still best to investigate any alleged misconduct that is brought to your attention. In the case of a potentially hostile workplace, better safe than sorry.

Hostile Workplace Investigations Require Careful Planning

It is one thing to initiate an investigation. It is quite another to run the investigation properly in a way that doesn’t make things worse. Whether you are choosing to do the investigation in-house, or outsource it as an independent investigation, there are many pitfalls to avoid. Do it correctly, and your organization can thrive. If you do it incorrectly, you may have a real disaster on your hands. In my next blog I will discuss the pitfalls of running a hostile workplace investigation, and how to avoid them.

For more information about the three kinds of conflict, whether the conflict you are experiencing requires an investigation, and how you should run the investigation, contact Kathleen Bartle.

Filing a Complaint- About Abrasive/Bullying Behaviors? Seven Steps To Make It Easier

Filing a complaint about a workplace conflict, especially when there is abrasive or bullying type behavior, is a big decision and I am not surprised if you hesitate.  Many others in similar situations have faced the same legitimate concerns.  

Filing a Complaint: Seven Reasons Why It is Difficult

1. It is risky to call attention to the matter because you are admitting you have a situation you cannot handle.
2. You are afraid seeking help will harm your reputation.
3. You are afraid to admit you are a target of serious workplace bullying because you feel ashamed of being in a bullying situation.  
4. It is scary people people may take “sides” in your dispute and you could be left without a support system.
5. It is scary because people who have witnessed the abuse may refuse to support your claims, leaving you without the evidence you need to help you succeed.
6. It is risky because you cannot be sure that HR will offer help and support.
7. You are worried that the abrasive person will retaliate and no one will be able to protect you.

Because of these fears and potential risks, it is no wonder you are not sure whether to make a complaint or not.  But you really want help, and staying in the situation is not a viable option for you.  There are things that you can do to move yourself forward without making yourself even more vulnerable. Consider them carefully.

Filing a Complaint: Seven Steps to Make it Easier

1. Check to see if your company has an anti-bullying or a civility policy. If so, know that policy and use it to help you make your case.
2. Get the scoop on how your company deals with conflicts regardless of their policies. IF they are loathe to take action, for example, then think long and hard about how you want to proceed. At least try to protect yourself from retaliation and lower your expectations for a strong outcome that works well for you.
3. Do not label the conflict. HR needs to make their own decision after an investigation. If you put a label on the behavior, you are forcing HR to take sides. That will not help you.
4. By avoiding any labels you can present your complaint as information. “I thought you would like to know…” is better than “Help me. My boss is a bully” because it makes you the “voice of reason” instead of someone with an ax to grind.
5. Document, document, and document.
6. Have an exit strategy so that if you have to leave, you’re ready to do so.
7. Consider a confidence/assertiveness training program to learn how to take care of yourself, and to know when to speak up and when to be quiet.

Filing a Complaint: There are Always Options
Remember that in ANY bullying or abrasive situation, you do have options.  There is no need for you to stay in a negative situation.  Think carefully about your next move and get to it quickly.  Living with bullying behavior kills your self-confidence. Believe me. I know what it can do and I know what works, and what does not work. After all I live the conflicts every day.

For more information about how to handle bullying/abrasive situations, contact Kathleen Bartle.