Harvard Business Review: The Price of Incivility

by Feb 6, 2013

The price of incivility is high when it comes to the workplace. Everyone who has experienced workplace incivility usually ends up responding negatively. This slowly chips away at a company’s bottom line. When employees feel disrespected at work, the results aren’t beneficial to the company. They either get upset and leave their job or just lose the motivation to work. The price of incivility is also shown from disrespectful behaviors displayed between colleagues. When customers see such actions of incivility, they are quick to walk away from the store without making any purchases.

“We’ve interviewed employees, managers, HR executives, presidents, and CEOs. We’ve administered questionnaires, run experiments, led workshops, and spoken with doctors, lawyers, judges, law enforcement officers, architects, engineers, consultants, and coaches about how they’ve faced and handled incivility. And we’ve collected data from more than 14,000 people throughout the United States and Canada in order to track the prevalence, types, causes, costs, and cures of incivility at work. We know two things for certain: Incivility is expensive, and few organizations recognize or take action to curtail it.”

Civility is the platform for organizational success—it is absolutely necessary for an organization to reach its goals. Download our Ebook on Seeking Civility to learn more on how to create a workplace free of bullying and abusive conduct.

 

Catherine

About Catherine Mattice

Catherine Mattice, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the founder/CEO of Civility Partners, an organizational development firm focused on helping organizations create respectful workplace cultures and specializing in turning around toxic cultures. Civility Partners’ clients range from Fortune 500’s to small businesses across many industries. Catherine is a TEDx speaker and an HR thought-leader who has appeared in such venues as USA Today, Bloomberg, CNN, NPR, and many other national news outlets as an expert. She’s an award-winning speaker, author and blogger, and has 50+ courses reaching global audiences on LinkedIn Learning. Catherine’s award-winning book, BACK OFF! Your Kick-Ass Guide to Ending Bullying at Work, was hailed by international leadership-guru, Ken Blanchard, as, “the most comprehensive and valuable handbook on the topic.” Her latest book is Navigating Toxic Work Environments For Dummies (Wiley),

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