Recently I had the privilege of attending a workshop presented by Patricia Latham Ball, a principal at Management Northwest, which is a legal resource for employers. Ball is a former Ada County (Idaho) Deputy Prosecutor in employment law who determined it would be more noble to help companies steer clear of trouble rather than prosecute them for getting into it.

One of the biggest problems in the workplace, according to Ball, is that two thirds of employees say that they are unhappy in their jobs, yet they have no avenue for voicing their concerns or lodging a complaint.

The reasons for employee unhappiness varies, but a primary root is that companies do not adhere to a defined set of standards. Some are too forgiving of employee misconduct, while others are managed by people who themselves overstep boundaries and could care less about rules.

“The result,” according to Ball, “is that people have become more rude.” And that rudeness is being tolerated within companies. After employees have been surrounded by rudeness for a while, it is quite easy for them to feel like they’re being harassed. Combine that with no clearly-defined avenue for them to complain about what they feel isn’t right in their workplace, and their next logical step is to file a harassment claim.

Unfortunately, this chain of events creates even more problems for employers, because harassment claims are required to be investigated by the human rights commission.

I found myself nodding in agreement with Ball’s description of this problem, and also with her solution: Managers need to be trained better in their roles and responsibilities as managers. They need to be proactive in training and equipping their own employees, to hold people to accountability, and to discipline employees who aren’t performing.

What, if anything, would you add to this?

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Filed in Training, Motivation, Management, Leadership, Team Building, Corporate Culture