Civility in the Workplace Part 2

What behaviors can be considered uncivil? 
Here are some examples:  

• Failing to acknowledge another person’s presence: Ignoring other people’s greetings and well-wishes; walking past a co-worker without so much as a nod or a greeting.
• Using abusive language: Being verbally abusive or using crude language
• Gossiping: Instigating and spreading rumors about another person, regardless of whether the “news” seems accurate or relevant to the accomplishment of the task at hand.
• Discounting an employee's contribution: Deliberately downplaying or ignoring the importance of another person’s statement or work contribution.  For instance, some members in a team may tend to cut off a person that they do not like during a brainstorming session. Taking credit --- or worse, compensation --- for work that you did not do is also an example of discounting behavior.
• Bullying and intimidating co-workers: Threatening violence against co-workers who report timesheet irregularities to management; leveraging the power of cliques in order to ostracize particular individuals.
• Sabotaging individual and company efforts: Intentionally not informing a co-worker who is competing for a promotion of the exact time a client will arrive in the building.
• Discriminating against a particular individual or group: Attacking an individual based on intrinsic characteristics such as race, gender, age, mental ability, and physical appearance.
• Practicing insensitivity against co-workers’ needs: Inability to pay attention to the feelings and needs of others, e.g. not giving a grieving co-worker time off before demanding workplace attendance. Insensitivity may also come in the form of engaging in activities distracting to co-workers, e.g. taking a cell phone call while in the middle of a meeting, not cleaning up the whiteboard as one leaves the training room, and demanding attention from subordinates outside of the prescribed working hours.
• Practicing poor etiquette in dealing with correspondence: Ignoring phone calls and emails, using company email to send private messages, and discussing individuals in mailing lists as if they are not there.

Until next time...

 




Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/