INCIVILITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Incivility in the workplace

Incivility in the workplace

Introduction

Incivility, or employees' lack of regard for one another, is costly to organizations in subtle and pervasive ways. Although uncivil behaviors occur commonly, many organizations fail to recognize them, few understand their harmful effects, and most managers and executives are ill equipped to deal with them. Over the past eight years, as we have learned about this phenomenon through interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, experiments and executive forums with more than 2400 people across the U.S. and Canada, (Allen & Lucero, 2006, 86-103) it is found that incivility causes its targets, witnesses and additional stakeholders to act in ways that erode organizational values and deplete organizational resources. Because of their experiences of workplace incivility, employees decrease work effort, time on the job, productivity and performance. Where incivility is not curtailed, job satisfaction and organizational loyalty diminish, as well. Some employees leave their jobs, solely because of the impact of this subtle form of deviance. Most of these consequences occur without organizational awareness.

Discussion

Incivility has become a regular occurrence at work, whether by witnessing it, experiencing it first-hand, or perpetrating it. Examples abound as reflected by our qualitative data: a boss rebukes his subordinate for wasting paperclips in front of half a dozen colleagues; a salesperson makes sarcastic remarks about another employee in front of a customer; or when asked for extra help, a receptionist refuses flatly, (Forni, 2002, 85-96) suggesting that she deserves to spend the rest of the afternoon reading her People magazine. As for attempting to confront these types of circumstances, some employees have told us that they would be laughed out of the office. As a result, we have found that some employees accept or ignore the incivilities, some collude with them, and others perpetuate them. ...