Dive Brief:
- Mean people in the workplace are not just bad for morale. They are bad for business, too, according to an article at Forbes.
- Author David Williams, an entrepreneur and Forbes contributor, defines mean people as those who engage in "physical, mental, or emotional abuse, bullying or threatening behavior." Yet, he adds, it's not always clear-cut. Some mean employees only use those negative traits when it benefits them personally, and otherwise can hide their meanness.
- Workplace violence, of which meanness is a smaller component, can have a catastrophic effect on the bottom line, as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates that it costs U.S. employers $120 billion annually. And while being mean doesn't always translate to violence, it's all connected, writes Williams.
Dive Insight:
Williams offered a few ways in which mean people hurt company, culture and business objectives. He cites their use of malicious gossip, which damages reputations, hurts feelings, and drives a "culture of mistrust and uncertainty."
He also writes that mean employees can literally make people sick, citing a a 2012 UCLA study that found that negative social experiences might be partially responsible for increased heart disease, depression and even cancer.
Finally, Williams writes that mean people simply lower morale because they promote themselves at the expense of others, which can cause others to disengage.
Williams suggests that HR and managers who tolerate mean people are obviously making a major mistake, and should build some "anti-mean" strategies into their hiring process. For example, be more careful in interviews, double check references, and most of all build a culture that exposes mean employees easily so they can be given a chance to change – or else. "Your employees will thank you," Williams writes.
