Incivility in the Workplace

Incivility in the workplace can take many forms, from verbal abuse and harassment, to manipulation to acts of violence. 1.4 million employees experience it each year.

It has tremendous costs, as well. According to Dr. Rajashi Ghosh, an Assistant Professor of Human Resource Development  for the School of Education at Drexel University, incivility costs the U.S. economy $23.8 billion each year. And academic environments are not immune.

On this week’s podcast, I will air an interview with Dr. Ghosh , who was the author of a recent article on the “incivility spiral” in mentoring relationships, which was published in a special issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources, which she also co-edited. In this article, Ghosh examined how different acts of incivility between mentors and mentees can devolve into negative relationships.

With mentoring programs being one of the popular ways that we seek to develop up-and-coming professionals, Ghosh recommends that institutions (and their Human Resource Officers) provide structured approaches, including codes of conduct for mentors and mentees, better orientations for both sides of the relationship about roles, boundaries, and conduct, formal processes for reporting inappropriate behavior, and better follow-up from HR and management.

Drexel will host a Human Resource Development Symposium September 17, “HRD’s Role in Addressing Workplace Incivility and Violence. Online registration is now closed, but if you are interested in attending e-mail Dr. Ghosh at  rg429@drexel.edu expressing your interest in being on the waitlist.

We’ll also talk about my upcoming webinar on Creating a Killer Résumé on BigMarker, a new free webinar service, Hiring for Hope events, and I’ll take your comments and questions on dealing with incivility in the workplace.