Hi Dr Flis
My name is Lindsay and I’ve recently transferred to a new section that supports our top executive, which is a high tempo, high stress environment.
Last week, HR met with my boss and I to talk about the ‘dysfunction behaviours’ that have been reported recently, including online stalking and abuse, gossiping, bullying, and harassment. We were stunned.
HR has recommended placing everyone on the annual Respect In The Workplace re-fresher training, however I’m unsure that this is going to make much of a difference.
Can you help me please?
Kind regards,
Lindsay
Hi Lindsay
It’s really important to understand that dysfunctional work behaviours may sometimes make no sense at all.
I’ve inserted a video snippet below (or get the link here) that I’ve taken from my Pilot Program to help explain how dysfunctional or unhealthy, toxic conduct can start.
Sometimes, unhealthy or dysfunctional work behaviours arise from unremitting stress that’s seen as unusual. For example, people may have been asked to ‘surge’ to meet a specific work demand, yet for some reason the stress hasn’t abated.
Also, there are different types of work stressors that can easily create dysfunctional conduct. These stressors can arise from a specific job, a workplace relationship, or from the work environment itself (i.e., culture/climate). Furthermore, studies have found significant links between people’s perceptions of high work stress and perceptions of low organisational justice. What do I mean by this?
Organisational justice is based on whether people perceive that they’re being treated fairly at work (e.g., fair salary/remuneration, fair management decisions and treatment, and fair processes and procedures).
Functional, healthy behaviours are more likely to develop when people feel they’re being treated fairly, and can trust their leaders, managers and processes.
Dysfunctional, unhealthy behaviours tend to arise when people feel that they can’t trust their leaders decisions or the work processes, and feel physically or psychologically unsafe.
STEP 1. Find out what’s really going on
It’s critical to first clarify what’s causing the unhealthy work environment before jumping into an implementation strategy, and so avoid making things worse.
Ask HR to run an anonymous health survey to unpack people’s worries and concerns (these surveys are good for teams with 50+ people) or consider implementing my Workplace Wish List, which is a simple, non-threatening tool I developed specifically for these situations.
Step 2. Build people’s skills and confidence to protect themselves
It’s can also be a good idea to provide people with the skills and confidence to accurately spot dysfunctional, unhealthy or toxic behaviour together with safe strategies to managing the conduct without making matters worse.
Locate a good course, or you can try my Experts Course: Expertly Managing Unhealthy, Dysfunctional Work Conduct.
There may also be some confusion about how to correctly diagnose the difference between bullying and other dysfunctional or toxic behaviours. As I describe in my ‘Beating Bullying Behaviours’ course, bullying behaviour is identified by three criterial including (1). persistent behaviour that’s designed to hurt, embarrass or defame a target(s), (2). That’s conducted by someone who’s perceived by the target as more powerful, (3). against whom the target(s) feels powerless to defend themselves.
Step 3. Build respectful, functional and healthy team behaviours and attitudes
If you want to avoid focusing on specific people or teams, it may be easier to build respectful, functional and healthy team behaviours. To help you get started, feel free to use my Respectful Work Cultures Blueprint to get going.
This blueprint is the foundation of my Creative, Healthy and Engaged Workplaces Initiative (CHEWI) program.
CHEWI is a two-pronged methodology. Firstly, it provides leaders, employees, HR, L&D and OHS professionals with the strategies and tools to actively build and instil respectful and healthy values, behaviours and attitudes into teams, workplaces and organisations. Secondly, it provides a framework that helps teams, workplaces and organisations to safely spot and manage dysfunctional or toxic conduct.
Dr Felicity (Flis) Lawrence | Email: [email protected]
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
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