Having mice studying the rats doesn’t seem to do much, either. Psychology, that famous answer to everything, is now weighing in with its few available nano grams of interest. A paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology focused on employee responses that made things better or worse. Unsurprisingly, being helpful (Ha!) and compassionate (Why?) made no difference at all.
Nor did “retaliation,” that open-ended expression which is rarely quantified, help. Apparently that invites “more public ridicule,” again a norm expressed as if that was acceptable.
The Washington Post has an article called “Research says your bad boss may be making you sad, lazy and fat” containing a graphic which lists over 30 “bad boss tactics.” Taken individually, they’re quite enough to cause serious stress and workplace dysfunction. If you check out this graphic, you’ll recognize a lot of these tactics — and notice that few of them happen in isolation. The abusive boss is also usually doing multiple forms of these tactics.
So the new study, citing a monolithic 250 subjects studied over six months, found that a vicious cycle existed (You don’t say!) and that they didn’t respond to positive overtures. The researchers, to their credit, say they simply found out what doesn’t work.
Now for some op-edding:
I’ve worked in the employment sector for years. I used to see reports of planned abuse of employees on various forums (Nursing Jobs.org, CV Tips.com) on a virtually hourly basis. People at all levels of severe stress would report the boss had completely upended their shifts, lives, etc. and the collateral damage to their attempts to exist.
The sheer level of malice was the most obvious symptom of degrees of the above. Even doing things which were illegal, directly or indirectly, was routine. Single mothers, in particular, would have their hours rearranged as to be totally impossible.
Consider the bad boss, planning the day’s hell for staff. This psychotic behavior is worthy of any kind of respect? These underachievers seem to cluster around the middle management/supervisor level, with or without a few staff stooges to help them. Nitpicking and constant abrasion are the norms.
One of the worst examples I’ve ever seen was, ironically, that of a neighbour. She and a friend had a car accident. My neighbour’s friend had some sort of rib injury. They went to see the supervisor and reported the accident. “Work through the pain” was all this genius said, regardless of business liabilities or anything else. Fortunately, a co-worker called an ambulance.
Consider the mentality where a useless cliché is the response to a workplace injury. This particular employer is famous in Sydney as a jerkoff workplace. It’s not easy to get that reputation in a city with so many other contenders for the crown. They’re all like that in this place, according to folklore.
The “employment industry,” “HR professionals” and management science don’t seem to have any remedies. Maybe some practical experience in these areas might help? Perhaps finding out what you’re talking about would be of assistance?
A few pointers:
1. There is no need whatsoever to abuse staff. Mistakes are mistakes. Fix.
2. If you behave like a total jerk to your staff, you’ll never be able to trust them. Expect to be lumbered with some serious explaining to do when someone competent makes a real effort to retaliate at your expense like a bit of inspired fraud or major damage to your workplace assets.
3. Relationships with anyone in the workplace have to have some reason to be viable. Constant negativity guarantees dysfunction.
4. Bullying and abuse are absolute top of the range worst practice in the workplace. Competent employers know that. So do competent HR people. You can judge an employer, and their likely insolvency or criminal law cases, by how they respond to these nuts and bolts breakdowns.
5. Patterns of abuse are easy to spot. Absences, sick days, performance review meltdowns, people coming to the workplace with firearms, the subtle hints aren’t exactly hidden.
6. A workplace full of miserable people is also easy to spot. The source of the problem will be the boss.
7. Workplaces run by bad bosses tend to be highly bureaucratic, bean counting, fault-finding circuses. Staff are more scared that a comma will be out of place more than a customer will sue the employer down to their plumbing.
In the CBS take on this research, a researcher comments that “…organizations expect 100% commitment from their employees”. But — follow the logic here — because that’s now considered normal, you don’t get any praise for more work or anything else.
Tell me — why do you expect 100 percent commitment to your nasty little misery and crap factory, guys? Why do you expect your pathetic ego to be the fountain of all priorities for other people?
The article also points out quite rightly that bad bosses lead to high turnover of staff, which is incredibly expensive. That employers are either too stupid or too lost in their own hallucination of their workplace culture to recognize those millions going down the tube doesn’t inspire much faith in the ability of senior management, either.
This year alone, Apple and Amazon have bequeathed to history a series of tales about two of the top employers in the world failing to recognize basic problems.
Bezos, at least, had the sanity and perhaps the decency to acknowledge the issues. It’s not clear what’s been achieved since. But if two top corporations don’t seem to know what’s going on, the rest are likely to be as bad or worse. From what I’ve seen for myself, the rabid rat norm is doing very nicely in its nutcase dreamworld, as it has been for decades.
OK, so — what’s management science doing about this hideous mess? More verbosity, or practical training? Anyone noticing our sainted corporate leaders mentioning the problem? It’s a no-go zone, because it reflects very badly on basic competence all the way to the top. Most people won’t say “We have no idea how to run our own managers”.
Suggestion — find and eliminate the jerks. (If you want nutcases and jerks, you can always go out and buy a packet.) Your workplace efficiency will go up, sick days will go down, and you won’t have to replace everyone every three years. Worth a shot?
