Politeness at work pays dividends

According to the co authors of a new book from the US, bad behaviour and rudeness in the workplace could be costing companies billions in lost productivity.

Professor Christine Porath of the USC Marshall School of Business and her co-author Christine Pearson, a professor of management at Thunderbird School of Global Management, discovered just how much poor manners at work can impact a company’s bottom line while researching "The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It”.

Behaviour like texting in meetings, spreading malicious rumours, taking credit for other people’s work, ignoring emails and even refusing to say a simple "please" and "thank you" are much more than just annoyances, say the authors, who claim that stress caused by bad behaviour could be costing businesses a staggering $300 billion by affecting the performance of those on the receiving end.

The Authors’ research suggests that eight out of 10 employees who are victims of insults or bullying in the workplace lose work time worrying about it, while a similar proportion feel that their commitment to work declines as a direct result. Civility costs nothing, but implementing a culture of civility in the workplace could have real payback in terms of productivity and bottom line profits. "It starts with the top," Porath insists. "There should be a thread of civility through everything a company does." When these threads start to break down, she warns, companies are in danger of losing their best employees, to the long-term detriment of the business. Even with currently high levels of unemployment she points out that there’s still "huge concern with Human Resource executives that there’s a shortage of talent. Businesses are fighting for talent."

As an employee being polite to your co-workers isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also in the best interests of your career. By promoting civility throughout your workplace you help make your working environment that much more pleasant, boost your own performance, improve general productivity, reduce staff turnover and help the company you work for to compete effectively. Ultimately that secures jobs.

You could start by going through Porath and Pearson’s list of top workplace gripes. Are you guilty of any of them? What could you do to improve your civility at work?

• Taking credit for others’ efforts
• Passing blame for your own mistakes
• Checking e-mail or texting during a meeting
• Sending bad news through e-mail so you don’t have to face the recipient
• Talking down to others
• Not listening
• Spreading rumours
• Setting others up for failure
• Not saying "please" or "thank you"
• Showing up late or leaving a meeting early with no explanation
• Belittling others’ efforts
• Leaving snippy voice mail or e-mail messages
• Forwarding others’ e-mail to make them look bad
• Making demeaning or derogatory remarks
• Withholding information
• Failing to return phone calls or respond to e-mail
• Leaving a mess for others to clean up
• Consistently grabbing easy tasks while leaving difficult ones for others
• Shutting someone out of a network or team
• Paying little attention or showing little interest in others’ opinions

"The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It" is published by Portfolio, and is available from Amazon.co.uk and other book retailers.