A WORK CULTURE OF INCIVILITY HAS A HIGH PRICE FINANCIALLY
INCIVILITY is rude, disrespectful, boorish behavior or unsociable speech.
AKA…employees or bosses who BULLY through insulting, blaming, and belittling in front of other team members or customers, abusive screaming speech, lateral destructive conversation, slander, gossip, exclusion, rejection, mocking, putdowns, public shaming, breaking confidences, numerous forms of anger, impatience, threats, retaliation, un-forgiveness, and holding grudges.
CULTURE
(It’s the way we do things around here)
CULTURE is the lived out values, norms, rituals, symbols, and both the accepted and rejected behaviors of a company or organization. A culture of INCIVILITY is highly diseased, infected, and dysfunctional. This culture is costing you thousands if not millions of dollars.
Over the past 20 years Christine Porath and Christine Pearson have researched incivility and this is what they discovered.
Unbelievably, 98% of employees reported experiencing uncivil behavior and in 2011, 50% of employees reported they were treated rudely at least twice a week up from 25% in 1998!
The following statistics, from Porath and Pearson are from a poll of 800 managers and employees in 17 industries involving workers who have been on the receiving end of INCIVILITY.
REASON #1
63% OF EMPLOYEES LOST WORK TIME AVOIDING THE OFFENDER and 80% LOST WORK TIME WORRYING ABOUT THE INCIDENT.
DANG, that’s a lot of lost time, company wide, that could have been used generating profits! When employees are bullied the result is they want to escape both the bully and the environment. There is an emotional toll that impacts employee focus and contribution from incivility. The work culture becomes unbearable to be around and employees do everything they can to avoid the pain they feel from the abusive bully. Ultimately, the employee will be another causality of attrition, which is a financial drain to the company in numerous ways. Bullies create a negative company morale and morale significantly influences financial failure or success.
REASON #2
12% OF EMPLOYEES SAID THEY LEFT THEIR JOB BECAUSE OF THE UNCIVIL TREATMENT
UGH, attrition is always costly. When quality employees leave because of being bullied they negatively affect profit margin. Valuable time and resources are redirected to train replacements. This type of continual hemorrhage is not good. When abused employees leave a company they also carry with them their stories of abuse broadcasting to everyone in the industry about the negative company culture. This affects the next generation of employees because those who find out by word of mouth eliminate the company from their process. Company bullies have a much greater impact upon profit margin than anyone expects affecting lost employees, lost credibility as a company, lost customers, and lost productivity.
REASON #3
13% OF WORK TIME-THE EQUIVALENT OF SEVEN WEEKS A YEAR-IS SPENT DEALING WITH THE AFTERMATH OF INCIVILITY.
OHHH BABY, that is a lot of time mending broken and abused relationships because of bullying. Relationships are the lifeblood of the company. When your employees are valued, taken care of, respected, affirmed, and know they matter they focus on goals and profits. But, if this is missing in the company culture then energy and focus turn to repairing relationship abuse. This caliber of relational conflict is never easy it’s complex. It is time consuming and can take years to repair. And if a lawsuit occurs you have additional expenses.
REASON #4
78% OF EMPLOYEES SAID THAT THEIR COMMITMENT TO THE ORGANIZATION DECLINED.
WHOA! Employee commitment to the organization or company is directly related to profitability. When employee commitment is low because of incivility they don’t care about the quality of their work, the reputation of the company, or the financial success. Their negative attitude will directly affect what they say and how they treat customers. Employees who experience incivility are not loyal and their trust has been damaged. If they disrespect their company and have lost commitment than their conscience has a hard time persuading customers to buy from a company where employees abuse each other.
REASON #5
25% OF EMPLOYEES ADMITTED TO TAKING THEIR FRUSTRATION OUT ON CUSTOMERS.
YIKES! Culture involves accepted behaviors so if the culture accepts belittling, screaming speech, rudeness, and dispensing anger in how employees relate with each other then it will naturally splash over in how employees treat customers. Additionally, bullied employees take their hurt, wounding, and frustration out on the customer. Remember hurt people, hurt people. This is your worst nightmare. Customers have a choice and when they are treated disrespectfully they leave and when they leave they also inform everyone they know why they left your company. Your company reputation and brand becomes the negative target of everyone in the industry. And it will take years of hard work and culture change to reverse this label.
YES, MILLIONS of dollars is the tag of incivility.
Porath and Pearson reported that Cisco’s tab for incivility several years ago was $12 million! As you can see, incivility in the work culture is expensive for the company. Every company desperately needs to understand culture, create correct culture, know how to maintain culture, so that sustainability and profits soar!
~Angelique
