Kathy Dudley, owner of The Bloomery in Butler, Pa., didn't know she had a bully in her shop until the victim came forward with the problem.
Dudley's hiring of a new assistant manager left a designer, who felt entitled to the position, disgruntled. She made her opinion known by trying to make the new assistant manager's life as problematic as possible.
"Name calling, switching arrangements behind her back, [he/she] even went so far as to look at her paycheck when [the assistant manager] wasn't looking," Dudley explains. The designer "even got another employee on her side against" the assistant manager.
As it turns out, Dudley is hardly alone. Workforce Management magazine recently reported that new research in the Journal of Management Studies shows that American workers are bullied 50 percent more than employees in Scandinavia, and 9 percent of employees don't even realize that it's happening because it's so ingrained into the culture of U.S. workplaces.
Michael Harris, professor of management in the College of Business Administration at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, gave Floral Management readers some advice for dealing with bullies, in "Bar Bullying Behavior", including: take quick, decisive action.
In Dudley's situation, the assistant manager took some initial charge. She confronted the designer, told her she wasn't going to take it anymore and then reported the problem to Dudley. Dudley then had a discussion with the designer, who eventually resigned.
"We make it quite clear in our interviews that this is a team environment, that cattiness is not tolerated, and that attitudes and such should be checked at the door," Dudley says. "We are here to do our jobs and work as a team, and that if you can't survive and prosper in that type of environment, you are not right for our company."
SAF delves into finding and keeping great (non-bullying) employees, during a program at SAF Palm Springs 2007, SAF's 123rd Annual Convention in Palm Springs, Calif., Sept. 26-29.
--Kori Kamradt
kkamradt@safnow.org
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