The impact of workplace bullying

I'd like to share one of my favourite videos on workplace bullying.

Australia has a specific definition of workplace bullying - that being repeated, unreasonable behaviour that creates a risk to health and safety. For those of you who like to go directly to the source, you can find that in s.789FD of the Fair Work Act 2009. This should be kept in mind when actioning bullying items in Australia but that aside, there are some very stimulating materials out there when you consider the matter in its broader sense. Some of these are below: 

One of the pieces I really enjoyed from the video is when it described key style differences between leaders and bullies. The punchline being, "bullying is not a leadership style, it is the opposite of leadership".

Workplace Leaders

Workplace Bullies

·    Leaders inspire and build functional teams.  ·    They value others, reward competence and encourage contribution.  ·    They set good examples, holding themselves to the same high standards they expect of others. ·    They aim for clarity, behave with integrity and maturity and take responsibility for their mistakes. ·    They let others work without interfering. ·    They resolve conflict.

·    Bullies erode and disrupt functional teams. ·    They may use team language but they’re not team players. ·    They devalue others, feel threatened by competent staff and stifle contribution. ·    They set bad examples and exhibit hypocrisy. ·    They pollute the workplace by projecting their own negative stuff onto others, creating confusion and uncertainty. ·    They lack integrity and maturity. ·    They lie and blame others to disguise their own failings. ·    They focus on petty fault finding. ·    They generate conflict and when their   bulling is rooted in personality problems, their behaviour is unlikely to change.

While we're on the subject of comparisons, I also want to share another piece I found particularly stimulating. Below is a table which explores the difference between Bullying and Harassment which I came across and understand to be the work of Tim Field, an activist in the area. 

While I don't necessarily fully agree with all of the points below, such as that it tends to be secret and without witnesses (I have seen examples to the contrary). I think this is a great piece that helps intellectually distinguish two terms that many people use interchangeably without really thinking about it.

Harassment	Bullying
Tends to focus on the individual because of what they are eg. Gender, race etc.	Anyone will do, especially if the bully feels threatened in some way.
Harassment is usually linked to sex, race, prejudice and discrimination etc.	These things play little part.
The person being harassed can usually identify it – particularly with the extent of awareness training conducted in defence.	The person being bullied may not realise it for weeks or months.
Most people can recognise harassment.	Few people recognise bulling.
Harassment will often reveal itself through the use of recognised offensive language.	Workplace bullying tends to fixate on trivial criticism and false allegations under performance. Swearing may be done in private.
The harasser often perceives the complainant as vulnerable to harassment or a challenge.	The complainant is seen as a threat and that must first be controlled and subjugated and, if that doesn’t work, eliminated.
Often harassment is for peer approval, bravado etc.	Apart from initiations, tends to be secret, behind closed doors and with no witnesses.
Harassment takes place both in and out of work.	Bullying takes place largely at work.
Harassment is often domination for superiority.	Bullying is for control of threat (of exposure of inadequacy.)
The harasser often lacks self discipline.	The bully is driven by envy (of abilities) and jealousy (of relationships)

Pay your employees to sleep?

Came across an quick little Human Capital article worth sharing:

Aetna, a US health insurance company has implemented a novel sleep program where they provide Fitbit fitness trackers to help promote healthy sleep patterns for their employees.

If they can prove they get 20 nights of sleep for seven hours or more in a row, we will give them $25 [$33 AUD] a night, up to $500 [$661AUD] a year

They have statistics to prove they're on the right track as well. Atena's CEO claims that employees improved their productivity by 69 minutes each month as a direct result of participation in the program.

I did a little research and it appears Atena has around 5,700 employees. It would be interesting to know if this is being rolled out across the whole organisation or just departments - do staff bring their own FitBits? There may be some privacy implications as well...

Overall however, I think this is a fantastic idea.  One of my first reservations was how this might fairly integrate with employees who have career duties such as flexible working parents. Turns out they thought of that too as the 7 hours are not continuous and can include naps.

It reminds me of a short story a senior manager once told me that stuck. Essentially it was a tale about two woodcutters who were working away when one notices the other is quickly outpacing his productivity and even finishing early. Turns out the productive woodcutter sharpens his axe at the end of each day.

A nice story stressing the importance of tackling presenteeism and taking time to develop your skills / having rest to boost genuine productivity. It's important as HR professionals we drive a culture that encourages people to sharpen their axe rather than just swing harder with a blunt instrument.

Culture and Engagement

I have rewritten this post a few times because the more I read and discuss with experts, the more I realise how many differing views there are on the subject on culture and engagement! Given this, below is a top level collection of thoughts on the subject and some models I found interesting.

Engagement

Generally I have found alignment in my research on the concept of engagement.

Sometimes referred to as an individual construct, engagement can also be referenced in relation to a group or team. Engagement focuses on how motivated and energised staff are in relation to their work and goals. Employees are more likely to be engaged when their values and behaviours are in alignment with their organisations. 

A common way to test engagement is though the 'Say, Stay and Strive' concept. Aon Hewitt uses this model. Effectively it looks at employee actions that are indicators of engagement. Aon Hewitt's model as you can see looks beyond this to identify the drivers which generate those behaviours.

Culture

Culture is where there seems to be a much greater divergence in opinion and models. Currently, my take on the matter is aligned with some work from Denison noting that that culture is an organisational construct. In other words, an emergent property that is created from the from all the individuals in a group working together.

An example of some of the differing concepts on culture is below:

Ryder Group sees culture as the intersection of how people think (rational), feel (emotional) and act (behaviour) in an organisation. The former two elements creating a 'climate' that drives behaviour. 

As a similar but alternative view Aon Hewitt defines culture as an intersection of beliefs about strategy and business models, behaviours and personal interactions, and finally how decisions are made.

One of the more interesting distinctions i've found is that some models strive to achieve a high performance culture that aligns with certain characteristics (Human Synergystics) while others don't prefer any specific culture over another but rather see them as functional or dysfunctional depending on their alignment with company strategy and employees (Aon Hewitt / Culture Amp). Personally at this stage i'm drawn towards the latter however I wouldn't be surprised if my thoughts continue to change as I work more on the subject.