employee relations | Your Employee Matters

It’s that time of year again. As 2012 begins to wind down, HR Acuity takes this time to reflect on issues surrounding employee relations and workplace investigations, and make preparations for the year ahead.

We’re now conducting our Fifth Annual Employee Relations & Workplace Investigation Survey, and this year’s topic is a hot one: bullying in the workplace.

According to Dr. Maureen Duffy, an HR consultant to large organizations and the author of Mobbing: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions, between 35 and 50% of workers have been bullied or otherwise abused in the workplace at some point in their careers. In the United States alone, an estimated $250 million is spent annually on expenses related to health care, litigation, staff turnover, re-training, and other issues arising from workplace bullying. HR Acuity is especially interested in the types of bullying that are taking place, and the steps organizations are taking to address incidents of bullying and prevent bad behavior in the workplace.

The opening of the survey follows on the heels of this year’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Performance and Accountability Report, a new report that will be issued annually going forward as part of the EEOC’s new strategic plan. During fiscal year 2012, the EEOC recovered a record amount of money ($365.4 million in private sector administrative enforcement) for victims of discrimination. About 10 percent of this figure involved investigations of systemic charges of discrimination, four times the amount the agency obtained for these same charges in fiscal year 2011. In addition, 111,139 new discrimination cases were received in 2012, an increase of 11,192 (10%) over 2011. Clearly, it is in every organization’s best interest to have well-documented and consistently executed policies and procedures concerning employee compliance with established codes of conduct. Equally important, or perhaps even more so, is having standardized processes in place for conducting investigations into employee wrongdoing.

The survey is completely confidential and open to any organization that wishes to participate, regardless of size or industry sector. Your feedback is immensely important to us, as it will help us to identify organizational best practices and improve employee relations. We look forward to your responses so that we can report what organizations are doing (or are not doing) to address workplace bullying, which is unfortunately a behavior that’s being reported more and more frequently in the workplace.

After the survey closes in mid-January, the results will be analyzed and compiled into a report that will be distributed to survey participants and other interested parties.

Participant background data and survey responses are held in strictest confidence and maintained by HR Acuity. HR Acuity will never attribute any data derived from the survey to a specific company or organization when compiling and publishing survey results. HR Acuity does not use any survey data for marketing or solicitation purposes. Any participant who completes the survey and provides contact information will receive a complimentary copy of the survey findings and results.

I often get asked about the best strategies for improving employee relations in organizations. I always start with respect. Treating employees with respect and fairness should be obvious but just one look at the headlines or the latest EEOC charges indicate that quite a few companies (or their leaders) just don’t get it. So where do you start? While there are a litany of ideas and suggestions that I can provide, a recent article on forbes.com reminded of a simple act that any leader in your organization can start doing right away, costs nothing (well maybe a $.44 stamp) and can make a huge impact on employees feeling valued and appreciated for their contributions.

In her article, Deborah Sweeney writes about Douglas Conant, the former CEO of Campbell’s, who during his 10 year tenure as leader of that organization had written over 30,000 notes (yes, handwritten – place them in envelopes and mail them notes). In the Forbes article, the author boils it down to three reasons why this practice is so impactful:

1) It’s time consuming. This busy leader running a multi-billion dollar enterprise thinks enough of you or what you have accomplished to take time out of his schedule, sit down somewhere with some kind of flat surface and write to you. Sending off an email from his smart phone while rushing to catch a flight just doesn’t conjure up the same feeling of respect (although that is at least a good start and certainly better than nothing.)

2) Do I have to? No, that’s the point. He doesn’t have to…he wants to.

3) The weight of it all. A note that arrives from a boss or a leader in your organization is an unexpected surprise. Sweeney writes, “These personal touches wind up holding a deeper meaning than any of us may know. You’ll hang onto it for well past your last day on the job, tuck it into your wallet to read on a more difficult day, pass it around to family members and friends, and even just privately pull it out from time to time at work. Pen leaves indentations you can feel.”

Coincidentally I had a recent conversation with the former mayor of my town who told me he did the same thing. Every week during his eight years in office, Mayor Glatt took time to hand write notes to the people in his town, Summit, NJ – congratulating a student on an achievement at the science fair, acknowledging a suggesting made for a town improvement or thanking a volunteer for her efforts at the local senior center. He told me the best part is when several years later a citizen, parent or now-grown child runs up to him at the Farmer’s Market on a Sunday morning to tell him how much that note meant – many still carrying the note with them or knowing exactly in which scrapbook it resides so many years later. Mayor Glatt was also the CEO of a large manufacturing company. Both he and Conant get it.

So will this revolutionize your employee relations strategy? Probably not, but it is a good place to start.

Tag Archives: employee relations

Your Feedback Wanted for 2012 Survey: Bullying in the Workplace

Treating employees with respect…one (handwritten) note at a time.