Our Blog Archive for May 01, 2007

It’s not illegal to be a jerk. In fact, our workplaces are full of unpleasant and abusive people who don’t discriminate among their victims. These so-called “equal opportunity jerks” are just about everywhere today, and run rampant in our workplaces.

Don’t believe it? Consider this. About 45% of American workers have been the target of workplace abuse. Another study by the Workplace Bullying Institute concluded that:

• 80% of the women and 20% of the men surveyed had been bullied in the workplace
• 71% of bullies are bosses
• 64% of Americans believe that victims of bullying should have legal recourse

Got your attention?

With these kind of numbers, it’s not surprising that one of the hottest selling management books right now calls the issue out, in bold and unapologetic fashion. “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t” by Stanford University Professor, Bob Sutton, is the hip new read. (Pick it up next time you find yourself in Borders, or stuck waiting for a plane. It’s a great book – and as far as I’m concerned, compulsory reading for any lawyer working in a big firm.)

Bullying and Workplace Harassment

It also shouldn’t surprise you that there’s often a connection between abuse of power and sexual harassment. Bullying is just one form of abuse of power.

Bullies demoralize employees, make their victims sick, drain productivity and generally make the workplace a crappy place to be. If it were up to most employees, bullies would be kicked off the island in a nano-second, just to make life bearable again.

But employers, for some reason, are not always so quick to act and allow bullies to continue with abusive conduct. High performers often get a free pass. Certain industries (law, medicine and banking in particular) seem more tolerant. And in today’s űber efficient and fast paced culture, lack of basic etiquette and common decency seems to have become an acceptable by-product of our maniacal focus on growth and profit.

The good news…. some employers aren’t keeping bullies around. In early April 2007, Starwood Hotels & Resorts announced that it’s CEO, Steven Heyer, was out. The Board explained that Heyer was “very difficult to deal with,” basically citing the “extreme jerk” explanation for his departure. And true to the cliché in these sorts of situations involving high powered execs, there were allegations that Heyer had made female employees “uncomfortable,” suggesting that, he’d crossed the line on the harassment front. (The most detailed article was published by WSJ –subscriptions required).

Increasing Legal Risk

When employer action is not quick enough, others tend to step in. A California court recently all but stripped employers of the “equal opportunity jerk” defense in harassment cases (always an embarrassing last resort for a sheepish employer!) if the conduct, although applied equally, impacts one protected class more harshly than another. (This is very common with bullying behavior that is more intimidating to women than it is to men, and can therefore create the foundation for a gender discrimination lawsuit.) In fact, several states have recently or are now considering anti-bullying legislation.

Take Control of Your Bullies!

Because bullying damages your business and can easily lead to harassment claims, it’s important to address this rampant problem. Some simple things you can do:

• Set conduct and behavior expectations. If your culture contributes to bullying behavior, think about making some changes – even small ones can make a big difference. (A bank I used to work with had a hard and fast rule that employees should not be “called out” or disciplined in group meetings.)
• Senior management needs to lead by example. A well known, high-powered bully needs to be addressed head on.
• In my experience, comp and rewards drive 99% of behavior in most workplaces. Don’t reward bullies – in fact, make it cost to be a bully. (Several clients I work with tie a large component of a manager’s annual bonus to employee feedback from 360 reviews.)

Training is Key

If you really want to get your message out, training is critical. You don’t need to go overboard on this one though – and you certainly don’t need a stand-alone anti-bullying course.

What you do need is a harassment course that thoughtfully integrates the broader concepts of workplace respect and dignity. While employees need to understand the basics of unlawful harassment prevention, not all undesirable and costly behavior is illegal. In fact most of that spite and venom falls into the ubiquitous and category of plain “unpleasant.”

And we all know why employees sue. It’s not because of their in-depth knowledge of case law, statutes or employment law treatises. Employees sue because they feel wronged and mistreated. Behind every successful plaintiff, there’s invariably a jerk who went unchecked, and untrained.