Without power and influence HR is ill-equipped to tackle toxic issues
It has often been observed that people leave their bosses, not their organizations. Much of the time, the reasons are mismatches of the mundane kind. The boss doesn’t inspire, doesn’t make good decisions, doesn’t possess the knowledge and wisdom the employee hopes to find.
Sometimes, the bosses driving employees out the door are egregiously destructive — to the individuals around them, the work environment and, when they trigger lawsuits or cause people to take stress leave, even the organization’s bottom line. So how effective is HR in dealing with these problem bosses? It depends on whom one asks.
Ask Normand Côté, director of corporate employee relations at BMO Financial, and the answer is, “we’re pretty satisfied that we do a good job.” Côté said at BMO, the employee relations group has the needed tools and the necessary organizational culture to address problem managers. One such tool is the employee opinion survey, with its specific questions on managers. The other is the employee call centre, which allows people to bring up issues anonymously. A few times a year, someone from Côté’s group may have to make what’s called an “employee relations visit” to investigate a potential problem.
Over the last five or six years, through the introduction of such programs as anti-harassment training for managers, “our employees have become more vocal. They are less afraid to come forward and raise issues. The biggest concern they have is retaliation, but we have prided ourselves that this doesn’t happen. If a manager retaliates against an employee and it’s brought up to our attention, I can tell you that manager will regret having done that.”
Ask a victim of a bully boss and one gets a different picture of HR’s effectiveness. One such victim, a lawyer with about 20 years of experience, said HR wasn’t there for her when she found herself targeted by her boss at the Toronto firm she had joined.
“My boss was threatened by me. I had been longer at the bar,” said the lawyer who had asked to be identified only as Linda. “She was giving me demeaning work, work that a law clerk would get. She criticized me for the way I approached or handled everything. If something I was working on grew into something interesting or challenging, she would take it away from me.” Her boss would yell at her behind closed doors. But things came to a head, said Linda, when her boss verbally attacked her in front of a client.
Linda sought help from the human resources department, but found the HR manager of little help.
“She was very kind and very morally supportive. She called me at home. But she was just ill-equipped,” said Linda. What she did offer was advice that went along the line, “You can confront her, but with this type of personality, you have to be prepared that if you confront her, you might be fired. That’s just the kind of person that she is.”
Although various people throughout the organization had heard of this boss’ reputation as a difficult and dismissive manager, the problem was she was highly placed, said Linda. The HR manager that Linda had turned to just didn’t have the kind of standing in the organization needed to take on the bully manager.
The lack of power or influence is one of the challenges often cited by HR practitioners in explaining the difficulties HR departments sometimes experience in the face of a bad boss.
“In a lot of organizations HR doesn’t have a senior enough profile,” said David Crisp, a former vice-president of human resources at a department store chain. “And often it’s the senior managers who set the tone for how other people behave. If they’re not listening to HR, if they’re acting badly, then other managers tend to act the way the boss does. We all take our cues from how our senior executives handle things. And if they fire people on the spur of the moment, we’re tempted to do that too.”
An HR professional’s ability to address problem bosses is circumscribed by the fact that he is more effective by using his influence instead of direct action. “Even with bosses who are not at the top, but only moderately high enough in the organization, HR shouldn’t ever just walk in and fire somebody.”
When an allegation of sexual harassment was made, for example, Crisp would have to talk to the accused harasser to make sure the person stops the harassing conduct. If the employee complaint is about a bullying boss who has created a toxic work environment, Crisp would advise the complainant to take detailed notes and try to get colleagues to corroborate.
But Crisp said there were a few instances when he had to walk into a senior manager’s office with a termination letter for an individual reporting to that manager. “That was very rare. You would do it only when you caught somebody stealing or when the person has admitted to something so bad that they’re going to be fired. But even then, that person’s boss could say, ‘No. This guy’s too important. We really need him. He’s a super performer.’ And we might have an argument about it,” said Crisp.
“There certainly were cases where I would be saying to the line manager, ‘You should be putting your signature on the line right there.’ And the line manager would say, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’
“My answer would be, ‘Well, how many more chances are you going to give this person? One? Two? Three?’ Because at some point, I’m going to write a memo saying, ‘I recommend that you terminate this person and you told me to give this person X number of chances. If you’re ordering me not to fire this guy, you’re now on the hook when this thing blows up and everybody wants to know, why wasn’t this dealt with?’ I’m giving you the best HR advice that I can give you, but I can’t order you to fire this person.”
Ask Gary Namie about the effectiveness of HR in dealing with a bully boss, and he would start out with the “kind” answer. Namie, a former organizational development specialist and co-founder of the Bellingham, Wash.-based Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute, would agree much of the time HR does not have the organizational clout to dispatch bosses who bully.
As a consultant helping HR departments set up anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies, he knows only too well that those policies have little effect if the senior management endorses bullying behaviour.
Too often, the rule is, “a personal relationship with executives trumps accountability,” said Namie. “We were brought in to deal with a divisional manager at one point, and he had agreed to move. But literally, we were told by the senior executive, ‘He’s a great conversationalist and a lunch buddy, and I’m not going to enforce it.’”
That’s not an unusual response because, typically, a bully boss would have “spent years ingratiating himself up the ladder,” said Namie. “And that’s to cement the relationship so that in the unlikely event that they are ever exposed, the person telling the story will not be believed. ‘Oh it can’t be true. He washes my car on the weekends. He’s a great guy.’”
Proceeding to the “unkind” answer, however, Namie said much of the responsibility has to lie at HR’s door. When an HR practitioner encounters a bully boss who’s trying to malign and push an employee out the door, an HR manager might go along in labelling the situation a “personality conflict.”
By doing so, HR commits what Namie considers a “malicious omission.” What that HR manager should have done instead is to take out the employee file and say, “Look, these are the evaluations on the employee from the last 15 years. This is a credible worker, who not only has been a good worker but is wonderfully trained and well-liked.” said Namie.
“HR (people) are the keepers of the data. They know where the repeat offenders dwell. But they don’t tell the complaining worker, ‘Oh, that’s the 17th complaint against that person in two years. They don’t say, ‘Turnover is really high at that unit; it must be that person.’ And when that person is promoted, HR never goes to the senior person and says, ‘You should look at the number of complaints filed against this person.’… They act as if it’s a one-on-one personality conflict.” And though there are exceptions, “good people in a powerless role can’t do much,” he added.
Namie said he once did a presentation in Toronto along with a disability management company, and the presenter from that company pulled out data showing 18 per cent of the disability claims at one client company were bullying victims. One particular bully manager at that client company alone had caused three people to go on disability leave, he said.
“We know that in the long term, management by fear undermines productivity and fosters sabotage and talent flight. To me this issue is a litmus test of courage for HR.”
Sometimes, the bosses driving employees out the door are egregiously destructive — to the individuals around them, the work environment and, when they trigger lawsuits or cause people to take stress leave, even the organization’s bottom line. So how effective is HR in dealing with these problem bosses? It depends on whom one asks.
Ask Normand Côté, director of corporate employee relations at BMO Financial, and the answer is, “we’re pretty satisfied that we do a good job.” Côté said at BMO, the employee relations group has the needed tools and the necessary organizational culture to address problem managers. One such tool is the employee opinion survey, with its specific questions on managers. The other is the employee call centre, which allows people to bring up issues anonymously. A few times a year, someone from Côté’s group may have to make what’s called an “employee relations visit” to investigate a potential problem.
Over the last five or six years, through the introduction of such programs as anti-harassment training for managers, “our employees have become more vocal. They are less afraid to come forward and raise issues. The biggest concern they have is retaliation, but we have prided ourselves that this doesn’t happen. If a manager retaliates against an employee and it’s brought up to our attention, I can tell you that manager will regret having done that.”
Ask a victim of a bully boss and one gets a different picture of HR’s effectiveness. One such victim, a lawyer with about 20 years of experience, said HR wasn’t there for her when she found herself targeted by her boss at the Toronto firm she had joined.
“My boss was threatened by me. I had been longer at the bar,” said the lawyer who had asked to be identified only as Linda. “She was giving me demeaning work, work that a law clerk would get. She criticized me for the way I approached or handled everything. If something I was working on grew into something interesting or challenging, she would take it away from me.” Her boss would yell at her behind closed doors. But things came to a head, said Linda, when her boss verbally attacked her in front of a client.
Linda sought help from the human resources department, but found the HR manager of little help.
“She was very kind and very morally supportive. She called me at home. But she was just ill-equipped,” said Linda. What she did offer was advice that went along the line, “You can confront her, but with this type of personality, you have to be prepared that if you confront her, you might be fired. That’s just the kind of person that she is.”
Although various people throughout the organization had heard of this boss’ reputation as a difficult and dismissive manager, the problem was she was highly placed, said Linda. The HR manager that Linda had turned to just didn’t have the kind of standing in the organization needed to take on the bully manager.
The lack of power or influence is one of the challenges often cited by HR practitioners in explaining the difficulties HR departments sometimes experience in the face of a bad boss.
“In a lot of organizations HR doesn’t have a senior enough profile,” said David Crisp, a former vice-president of human resources at a department store chain. “And often it’s the senior managers who set the tone for how other people behave. If they’re not listening to HR, if they’re acting badly, then other managers tend to act the way the boss does. We all take our cues from how our senior executives handle things. And if they fire people on the spur of the moment, we’re tempted to do that too.”
An HR professional’s ability to address problem bosses is circumscribed by the fact that he is more effective by using his influence instead of direct action. “Even with bosses who are not at the top, but only moderately high enough in the organization, HR shouldn’t ever just walk in and fire somebody.”
When an allegation of sexual harassment was made, for example, Crisp would have to talk to the accused harasser to make sure the person stops the harassing conduct. If the employee complaint is about a bullying boss who has created a toxic work environment, Crisp would advise the complainant to take detailed notes and try to get colleagues to corroborate.
But Crisp said there were a few instances when he had to walk into a senior manager’s office with a termination letter for an individual reporting to that manager. “That was very rare. You would do it only when you caught somebody stealing or when the person has admitted to something so bad that they’re going to be fired. But even then, that person’s boss could say, ‘No. This guy’s too important. We really need him. He’s a super performer.’ And we might have an argument about it,” said Crisp.
“There certainly were cases where I would be saying to the line manager, ‘You should be putting your signature on the line right there.’ And the line manager would say, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’
“My answer would be, ‘Well, how many more chances are you going to give this person? One? Two? Three?’ Because at some point, I’m going to write a memo saying, ‘I recommend that you terminate this person and you told me to give this person X number of chances. If you’re ordering me not to fire this guy, you’re now on the hook when this thing blows up and everybody wants to know, why wasn’t this dealt with?’ I’m giving you the best HR advice that I can give you, but I can’t order you to fire this person.”
Ask Gary Namie about the effectiveness of HR in dealing with a bully boss, and he would start out with the “kind” answer. Namie, a former organizational development specialist and co-founder of the Bellingham, Wash.-based Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute, would agree much of the time HR does not have the organizational clout to dispatch bosses who bully.
As a consultant helping HR departments set up anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies, he knows only too well that those policies have little effect if the senior management endorses bullying behaviour.
Too often, the rule is, “a personal relationship with executives trumps accountability,” said Namie. “We were brought in to deal with a divisional manager at one point, and he had agreed to move. But literally, we were told by the senior executive, ‘He’s a great conversationalist and a lunch buddy, and I’m not going to enforce it.’”
That’s not an unusual response because, typically, a bully boss would have “spent years ingratiating himself up the ladder,” said Namie. “And that’s to cement the relationship so that in the unlikely event that they are ever exposed, the person telling the story will not be believed. ‘Oh it can’t be true. He washes my car on the weekends. He’s a great guy.’”
Proceeding to the “unkind” answer, however, Namie said much of the responsibility has to lie at HR’s door. When an HR practitioner encounters a bully boss who’s trying to malign and push an employee out the door, an HR manager might go along in labelling the situation a “personality conflict.”
By doing so, HR commits what Namie considers a “malicious omission.” What that HR manager should have done instead is to take out the employee file and say, “Look, these are the evaluations on the employee from the last 15 years. This is a credible worker, who not only has been a good worker but is wonderfully trained and well-liked.” said Namie.
“HR (people) are the keepers of the data. They know where the repeat offenders dwell. But they don’t tell the complaining worker, ‘Oh, that’s the 17th complaint against that person in two years. They don’t say, ‘Turnover is really high at that unit; it must be that person.’ And when that person is promoted, HR never goes to the senior person and says, ‘You should look at the number of complaints filed against this person.’… They act as if it’s a one-on-one personality conflict.” And though there are exceptions, “good people in a powerless role can’t do much,” he added.
Namie said he once did a presentation in Toronto along with a disability management company, and the presenter from that company pulled out data showing 18 per cent of the disability claims at one client company were bullying victims. One particular bully manager at that client company alone had caused three people to go on disability leave, he said.
“We know that in the long term, management by fear undermines productivity and fosters sabotage and talent flight. To me this issue is a litmus test of courage for HR.”
