On April 21th, 2014, Canada’s Globe and Mail published Employees Being Rude to Co-Workers? Make It Your Business, an article written by Sharone Bar-David and employment lawyer Stuart Rudner of Rudner McDonald.
Bar-David and Rudner suggest that managers who ignore social exclusion dynamics on their team do so at their own risk. Productivity and health will suffer, while unnecessary exposure to legal risk is also a factor to consider.
Here’s the opening to the article:
“Mary has a way of going on and on about things. With her high-pitched voice and never-ending questions about unimportant details, she gets on everyone’s nerves. Over time, team members have marginalized her by excluding her from social activities. She is not included in chatter around the coffee machine or impromptu after-work drinks.
Unfortunately, this marginalization extends to excluding Mary from informal work-related discussions that relate directly to her duties.
When Mary asks her manager for help, he says there’s nothing that he can do. “I am a manager, not a social director,” he says, “I can’t get involved in everyone’s personal lives. Just ignore it. Get a thicker skin and move on.” As the months pass, Mary is increasingly distanced from the team.”
— Click here to read the article, or here to open PDF of the published article (The Globe and Mail on April 21, 2014), and here for the original article.
— To listen to a webinar of Sharone Bar-David speaking on the new National Standard of Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, click here.
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