Workplace Bullying and Top Talent

Friday, September 27, 2013

 

According to The Healthy Workplace Campaign, workplace bullying takes the general forms of:

 

•Verbal abuse.

•Offensive behaviors that are threatening, humiliating or intimidating.

•Work interference or sabotage that prevents work from getting done.

 

Writing for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Roy Maurer reports that since 2003, two dozen states have established legislation which provide protection for bullied workers and allows them to sue without the need to first demonstrate discrimination.

 

The basis for workplace bulling behavior is complex and employers are generally not equipped to address or correct it.  However, failure to address situations of workplace bullying can have both a direct and an indirect impact on an organization’s efficiency and productivity.  This impact can include increased turnover, lowered levels of service, missed deadlines, and potential litigation against the employer for “allowing” a hostile workplace to persist.

 

An article in the Harvard Business Review for January-February 2013, “The Price of Incivility”, authored jointly by Christine Porath and Christine Pearson paint bulling as an infectious disease.  The authors conclude: “Incivility [bullying] is expensive, and few organizations recognize or take action to curtail it.”

 

Gary Belsky, writing for Time’s Business and Money, reported on a Canadian study in which it was found that “witnesses” to bulling may be as impacted as the intended target of the bullying event.  So visualize this, some of the organization’s top new talent are in a conference when Employee X berates the comments and questions of a co-worker.  What impact is there on the employer’s new top talent?  One, they will adopt that same behavior or two they will start looking for their next job.  Either way, it can be assumed that the unit’s productivity will suffer if such behavior is allowed to continue.

 

An employer’s “brand” is an essential part of the organization’s talent recruitment and retention toolbox.  Street rumors, even if unfounded, concerning an environment which tolerates bullying, can dull the sharpness of the ability of an organization to attract and retain the best talent.  As most organizations have sought to diversify their talent base, they have adopted policies which do not tolerate inappropriate verbal and non-verbal behavior towards women, minorities, and other protected groups.  Jackson Lewis, a US based law firm, dedicated to representing management exclusively in workplace law matters, recommends the adoption of workplace bullying policies.

 

In its efforts to source, recruit, and retain top talent, an anti-bullying policy sends a strong message to current and future employees that the organization will not accept such behavior.  In the same manner that employers have worked to foster a conducive work environment for women, minorities, and others, businesses desiring to attract and retain top talent need to consider the chilling impact that bulling has not only on their top talent, but on their customers and clients.

How to Lose Great Employees in 10 Easy Steps

Friday, September 20, 2013

 ● Ignore them – disregard their advice and suggestions.

Great employees don’t expect to have their advice and suggestions noticed or taken seriously.

● Hide them – bury them somewhere so no one knows they exist.

Visibility to organizational executive management and customers is overrated.

● Don’t challenge them – great employees do not want to be tested.

Great employees don’t want any additional responsibilities; they already have enough on their plate.

● Forget recognition – they are happy being the unsung heroes.

There is no need to recognize great employees, anyway they shun the limelight.

 ● Rewards aren’t required – great employees are rewarded by their jobs.

Just working for the organization and their managers is enough of a reward.

● Don’t promote them – they are too valuable where they are.

The organization cannot afford for great employees to move into other roles.

● Exclude from projects – great employees are not motivated by project work.

Great employees would not enjoy the prospects of a special assignment.

● Isolate them – they work best off-line, excluded from other employees.

Working with others on a team is something from which great employees shy.

● Don’t provide training – great employees do not need training.

Great employees are already fully trained and if they are not, anyway, they are insulted by training.

● Exclude from interviewing – they have no insights into a candidate’s potential.

Great employees are uncomfortable interviewing job candidates.

Great employees start with great hires.  Short changing the sourcing, recruiting, and selection process is akin to including out-of-date ingredients in a cake.  Great employers are absolute in their desire to hire the best employees – and to keep the best of the best.

Interviewing, A Talent Acquisition or A Talent Management Tool?

Friday, September 13, 2013

 

Most organizations would agree that interviewing job applicants is important to the overall success of the business operations of their company.  Likewise, most managers and supervisors would argue interviewing is an essential component of their leadership roles within the organization.  Where disagreement is most likely to occur is in the discussion of the best interviewing method used to select the top job candidate.

 

While not part of the actual interview technique, interviewer preparation, avoiding illegal questions, and the interview environment are important aspects of the overall candidate selection process.  Lack of interviewer preparedness sends a strong negative message to the candidate about both the interviewer and organization.  Even today, there are examples of organizations straying into areas of questioning which should be avoided, and suffering the outcomes.  It is amazing to see some of the locations in which job interviews are held.

 

The purpose of the interview is oblivious; identify the top candidate so the organization can extend an offer, fill a vacancy, and move on to serving its internal and/or external customers.  But how does a hiring manager distill down to that top candidate?  After all, candidates are not homogeneous single dimensional entities.  The highest level of technical skills will not overcome a shortfall of interpersonal communications skills in a role requiring constant interaction, cooperation, and collaboration with others.

 

Candidate interviewing techniques are as varied as the organizations utilizing them, however, they can be classified in two general categories: non-behavioral and behavioral.

 

Non-behavioral interviewing techniques are often lists of yes and no or short answer questions which can be visualized as a check-off list.  Answering “Yes”, to “Do you know how to use Excel?” provides the interviewer with no depth as to knowledge or skill level the candidate has in “using” the tool.  “Yes”, does not tell us anything about the degree of sophistication of the candidate’s experience or the environment in which Excel was used.

 

Behavioral interviewing techniques attempt to dig deep down into the candidate’s past experience.  It gets at the what, when, where, why, and how of how they performed their work and under what conditions.  By restating the Excel question to, “Tell me about the most difficult assignment you ever had using Excel?”, the interviewer can expand into add-on questions.  One possible add-on question might include: “What made this assignment so difficult?”.  From this line of questioning, the interviewer might learn about conflicts with other work assignments, availability of other team resources, time constraints, and whether or not the assignment was successfully completed.

 

No interviewing technique is perfect.  Candidates have been known to “pull one over” on a single interviewer.  When behavioral interviewing is used with multiple interviewers, each focused on a different aspect of the position, it becomes less likely that a bottom rung applicant will be mistake for a top candidate.  Interviewing is both time consuming and expensive.  However, selecting the wrong candidate may prove to be even more time consuming and more expensive.