Civility at Work

How People Treatment is a Critical Success Driver for Business

Lewena Bayer

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781953349804
• eBook ISBN: 9781953349811
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

In Civility at Work, Lew Bayer describes the business case for civility and explains how organizations can increase employee retention, performance, and overall revenue by creating a workplace culture of human kindness and civility.

In case you were not aware, research focusing on both Canadian and U.S. companies shows that a whopping 98% of people polled have experienced uncivil behavior on the job. And, according to the fourth annual study on Civility in America: A Nationwide Survey, conducted by global public relations firm Weber Shandwick and public affairs firm Powell Tate in partnership with KRC Research, civility in America continues to erode. This year's study found that 70% of the Americans believe incivility has reached crisis proportions. Alarmingly, 81% of the Americans think that incivility is leading to an increase in violence at work. Notably, 80% of the people are dissatisfied with their jobs.

Increasingly, people are choosing employers who understand that civility is good business. In Civility at Work, Lew Bayer describes the business case for civility and explains how organizations can increase employee retention, performance, and overall revenue by creating a workplace culture of human kindness and civility.

CHAPTER 1

Time for Change

Evidence That Incivility Is Rampant

One need only turn on the evening news to see that, as humankind, we are in crisis. All around the globe, this crisis is evident in increasing violence, racism, disregard for resources, workplace harassment, corruption, and inconceivable incivility in public discourse. In addition, and more alarming to me, we are also experiencing increasing incidences in widespread apathy, a lack of collective conscience, a deliberate turning away from our responsibilities to each other as human beings, and a troubling inability to engage effectively and civilly.

Related to this, and as an extreme example of incivility, my heart hurts knowing that an estimated 35,000 people die every day due to genocides in places like Myanmar and South Sudan. Of course, most of us are insulated from this type of extreme incivility, but incivility occurs on a continuum, and although not as extreme as war, we do feel its impacts closer to home too.

Looking at workplaces, which is the focus of this book, the civility crisis is evident, in that a whopping 80 percent of people are dissatisfied with their jobs¹. Notably, the number one reason for this dissatisfaction is employees’ perceived lack of respect and fair treatment. Because the research suggests most of us spend one-third of our lives at work (an average of 90,000 hours over a lifetime²), I would suggest that workplace incivility is a gateway to incivility in the community, to the public square, to our schools, and so on. I would also suggest that this is true of workplaces all around the world.

We carry the impacts of incivility with us wherever we go, and so, the toxicity created by incivility manifests as road rage, stress-related illness, social aggression, social isolation, inappropriate behavior in public places and on social media, bullying, harassment, racism… and the list goes on. We are also seeing the impacts of incivility in our daily interactions, and as you would guess, the research shows incivility is a contributing factor to everything from school shootings to measurable declines in community social capital, and to leadership trust indicators. Quite a gloomy picture overall.

Christine Porath, leading researcher in human performance and author of Workplace Civility³, states,

. . . more than two-thirds of people will cut back work effort, 80 percent of people lose time worrying about what happened, and 12 percent of people will report that they’ve left their job because of an uncivil incident… not only does incivility decrease performance, but people aren’t nearly as innovative, even if they just witness incivility. In team settings, it causes people to shut down, such that they don’t share information or speak up as much. They don’t discuss errors or inform each other of potential problems.

And then, the other issue is that even witnesses, as well as people who experience it, are far less helpful. They are actually three times less likely to help someone else, and their willingness to share drops by more than 50 percent. So, incivility pulls people off track, even for those people who are trying to push forward.

Research by Weber Shadwick and Powell Tate, in partnership with KRC Research, detailed in the 2019 Civility in America report⁴, found that:

• The majority of Americans perceive incivility to be a problem in our society.

• The frequency of uncivil encounters per week rose sharply in 2018 and remains at this level, with 10.2 average weekly encounters. Notably, the location of uncivil interactions has shifted over the years. Uncivil online interactions have increased from an average of 4.4 weekly interactions in 2013 to a high of 5.5 in 2019.

• More than one half of the Americans (54 percent) expect civility to get worse⁵.

• Listed next were the top 10 consequences of incivility—according to respondents:

Online bullying/cyberbullying

Harassment (verbal, physical, or sexual)

Violent behavior

Hate crimes

Intimidation and threats

Intolerance

People feeling less safe in public places

Discrimination and unfair treatment of certain groups of people

Less community engagement

Feelings of isolation and loneliness

The preceding research cited is American based, but we see similar statistics around the world. For example:

Incivility results from kindcanada.org showed:

• Two-third employees report a decline in performance as a result of unkind workplaces.

• 48 percent of the employees who were exposed to an unkind co-worker were significantly more likely to decrease their work efforts.

• 38 percent of the employees noted that they intentionally decreased the quality of their work.

A study of British workers found that 40 percent had experienced incivility or disrespect over a two-year period, with such behavior particularly common in the public sector⁶.

In a study of Australian workers, researchers from Edith Cowan University found that 70 percent had experienced rudeness or mistreatment by their coworkers⁷.

A Canadian study by Bar-David Consulting and Canadian HR Reporter shows incivility affects key business indicato...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Time for Change
• Chapter 2 Defining Civility
• Chapter 3 The Business Case for Civility
• Chapter 4 Civility at Work: A Change Imperative
• Chapter 5 The Civility Culture Compass
• Chapter 6 Assessing Civility in your Workplace
• Chapter 7 The Civility Competency Matrix
• Chapter 8 Putting It All Together
• Chapter 9 Civility in Action: Applications
• Chapter 10 Assignments
• Chapter 11 Answer Keys and Tools You Can Use
• About the Author
• Index
• Backcover