Slings and Arrows of Rudeness: Incivility in the Workplace.
Incivility is at the low end of the continuum of workplace abuse. Workplace incivilities are not violence or harassment or even open conflict, although it can escalate into any on e of those things. Examples of uncivil behavior include sending a nasty and demeaning note, making accusations about a lack of knowledge or undermining an employee's credibility in front of others and being shouted at.
Causes of Poor behavior.
Nearly 25 per cent of respondents to a 1996 nationwide Gallup telephone survey of 1,000 adults age 18 and older who were employed either full or part-time indicated that they were generally at least somewhat angry at work according to the research.
Anger.
Angry employees can destroy team morale, create anxiety among co-workers, engage in sabotage, and other undesirable behaviors, or become so enraged that they spark violent outbursts.
Dealing with an angry employee is both challenging and distasteful. Johnson (1998) states that if a manager tries to defuse a situation, he/should should:.
Confront the employee privately.
Not overreact or gesture aggressively.
Listen without judgment.
Validate the employee's feelings or position.
Help employees save face during an angry situation.
Suggest a delay so people can cool off.
Stress.
Another survey, done at Cambridge University, found that people in all kinds of occupations reported a greatly increased pace of work in the last five years, due to reduced staffing levels. Insecurity about losing status and promotion whips people on as much as fear of losing their jobs. The top five causes of stress in the workplace (Moodle and Borthwick, 2000) are:.
Lack of communication.
Increased workload.
Job insecurity.
Organizational change.
Poor work organization.
Companies have cut people out of the workforce (downsized) with razor-sharp accuracy, but have not trimmed the same vigor of the workloads of the people remained.