Bad bosses… You can't even leave them at the office.
They follow you home and stress out the entire family
by Mac Mackay
The study surveyed 280 full-time employees about their bosses and then surveyed their significant others about their marital/relationship problems. Questions used to pinpoint supervisor abuse included "How often does your supervisor tell you your thoughts or actions are stupid, put you down in front of others, tell you that you're incompetent or express anger at you when he/she is mad for a different reason."
Questions asked of the employees' partners included ones about their frequency of irritation or resentment at their partner's actions and the amount of tension they felt from fighting, disagreeing or arguing.
And the more abusive the boss, the more the domestic tension.
Employers are legally responsible for preventing bullying and harassing behaviour. It is in their interests to make it clear to everyone that such behaviour will not be tolerated — the costs to the business may include poor employee relations, low morale, inefficiency and potentially the loss of staff.
An organisational statement to all staff about the standards of behaviour expected can make it easier for all individuals to be fully aware of their responsibilities to others.
Summary of the law [i]
Harassment
Harassment is “unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual”.
The Equality Act uses a single definition of harassment to cover protected characteristics. Employees will now be able to complain of behaviour that they find offensive even if it is not directed at them.
Bullying
It is not possible to make a direct complaint to an Employment Tribunal about bullying as it is not related to a protected characteristic.
How much do you know about it?
In our work on Management Course Stage One and Two for Connect we found that the vast majority of employees (being solicitors 3 years or more PQE) did not know the 16 characteristics or criteria [ii] where it is illegal to discriminate against someone at work.
Go on, test yourself. And if you have any uncertainty – get in touch!
What about Employees?
Again turning to the ACAS guide for employees:
Your right not to be harassed by third parties
The Equality Act makes your employer potentially liable for harassment of their employees by people (third parties) who are not employees of your company, such as customers or clients. They (your employer) will only be liable when harassment has occurred on at least two previous occasions, they are aware that it has taken place, and have not taken reasonable steps to prevent it from happening again.
People with an abusive boss are usually advised to first try speaking with him or her and if that doesn't help, to take the problem to higher management. This often fails because it's a rational approach to an irrational problem. Establishing a healthy relationship would require willingness on the part of both parties to do so. And higher management has already spoken by promoting the abusive boss.
And surveys reinforce that these traditional approaches aren't working.
The more negative the bosses' management style, the less happy the workers -- not a surprising finding. When bosses were controlling rather than encouraging, employee well-being was low. On the other hand, when employees felt that their autonomy was encouraged (for example, when bosses gave a "meaningful rationale for doing the tasks" and made employees feel they were being asked to contribute rather than commanded to do something), they also had better overall well-being.
The psychological climate of the organization itself also affected participants' happiness: The more supportive the company, the happier, more productive and loyal the employee.
Some of the findings in the study are intuitive: Most people can tell you that a bad boss can seriously affect one's work experience and overall contentment. But pinpointing the relationship in a scientific study is tricky. For example, it is not clear how and to what degree employees' on-the-job performance affected their bosses' behaviour.
Hopefully, as more studies support the connection, more firms will come to realize how much the attitudes of their supervisors can affect the well-being – and, therefore, productivity – of their workers.
Make a start on the path to improved performance of your firm by ensuring your managers and supervisors regularly review their management skills and look to Connect to provide that support.
[i] Taken from the ACAS guide: Bullying and Harassment at Work: see www.acas.org.uk (Accessed January 2013)
[ii] Yes, there are 16 and we don’t just mean the headline Discriminations Acts – it is the subsections you need to know about! As you are well aware, ignorance is no defence in an employment tribunal!)
Questions asked of the employees' partners included ones about their frequency of irritation or resentment at their partner's actions and the amount of tension they felt from fighting, disagreeing or arguing.
And the more abusive the boss, the more the domestic tension.
Employers are legally responsible for preventing bullying and harassing behaviour. It is in their interests to make it clear to everyone that such behaviour will not be tolerated — the costs to the business may include poor employee relations, low morale, inefficiency and potentially the loss of staff.
An organisational statement to all staff about the standards of behaviour expected can make it easier for all individuals to be fully aware of their responsibilities to others.
Summary of the law [i]
Harassment
Harassment is “unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual”.
The Equality Act uses a single definition of harassment to cover protected characteristics. Employees will now be able to complain of behaviour that they find offensive even if it is not directed at them.
Bullying
It is not possible to make a direct complaint to an Employment Tribunal about bullying as it is not related to a protected characteristic.
How much do you know about it?
In our work on Management Course Stage One and Two for Connect we found that the vast majority of employees (being solicitors 3 years or more PQE) did not know the 16 characteristics or criteria [ii] where it is illegal to discriminate against someone at work.
Go on, test yourself. And if you have any uncertainty – get in touch!
What about Employees?
Again turning to the ACAS guide for employees:
Your right not to be harassed by third parties
The Equality Act makes your employer potentially liable for harassment of their employees by people (third parties) who are not employees of your company, such as customers or clients. They (your employer) will only be liable when harassment has occurred on at least two previous occasions, they are aware that it has taken place, and have not taken reasonable steps to prevent it from happening again.
People with an abusive boss are usually advised to first try speaking with him or her and if that doesn't help, to take the problem to higher management. This often fails because it's a rational approach to an irrational problem. Establishing a healthy relationship would require willingness on the part of both parties to do so. And higher management has already spoken by promoting the abusive boss.
And surveys reinforce that these traditional approaches aren't working.
The more negative the bosses' management style, the less happy the workers -- not a surprising finding. When bosses were controlling rather than encouraging, employee well-being was low. On the other hand, when employees felt that their autonomy was encouraged (for example, when bosses gave a "meaningful rationale for doing the tasks" and made employees feel they were being asked to contribute rather than commanded to do something), they also had better overall well-being.
The psychological climate of the organization itself also affected participants' happiness: The more supportive the company, the happier, more productive and loyal the employee.
Some of the findings in the study are intuitive: Most people can tell you that a bad boss can seriously affect one's work experience and overall contentment. But pinpointing the relationship in a scientific study is tricky. For example, it is not clear how and to what degree employees' on-the-job performance affected their bosses' behaviour.
Hopefully, as more studies support the connection, more firms will come to realize how much the attitudes of their supervisors can affect the well-being – and, therefore, productivity – of their workers.
Make a start on the path to improved performance of your firm by ensuring your managers and supervisors regularly review their management skills and look to Connect to provide that support.
[i] Taken from the ACAS guide: Bullying and Harassment at Work: see www.acas.org.uk (Accessed January 2013)
[ii] Yes, there are 16 and we don’t just mean the headline Discriminations Acts – it is the subsections you need to know about! As you are well aware, ignorance is no defence in an employment tribunal!)
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