Typically in the corporate world, managers become managers because of reasons such as, “You’re an incredible accountant; now here’s your team of 50 people.” Management, in other words, is the thing that’s jammed onto a promotion with an underlying presumption that basically anyone can do it.
Among the many problems created by promoting someone to management who lacks management skills, the worst is the creation of the Workplace Bully, as the Workplace Bully can eat your company from the inside out without your even realizing it’s happening. The reason is simple: when you promote a Workplace Bully to management, you have, at the snap of a finger, created an entire department of people who now loathe their jobs, are demotivated, are spending hours of work time complaining to each other, and who may very well serve you with a harassment lawsuit on their way out the door to a less better work environment.
Workplace Bullying isn’t just some soft cost problem. It’s real money, and, if you’re a company with a lot of Millenials on staff, the problems can get compounded exponentially due to the way Millenials approach work. Consider this from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
- two-thirds of the workers who take time off due to stress are white collar;
- those workers miss, on average, 23 days per year;
- when a worker complains to another worker about stress, the aggregate productivity loss is 80 hours per employee;
- estimates of the total cost of workplace stress are between $100-$300 billion annually.
And while firing your Bully – assuming you’re even made aware that one exists – may seem like an obvious solution, it’s usually not that easy. What if your Bully’s a big earner? Or a family member? Or in a position that’s too complicated to easily replace?
This is where SLI Advisors, in partnership with CANDOR Consulting, can help. Our combined expertise in identifying costly interpersonal problems in the workplace and rooting out Workplace Bullies and other productivity-lowering managers means less risk, less cost, less turnover, and less stress, resulting in a staff with renewed time and energy to focus on their jobs and a management team that’s effective without being destructive.
Workplace Bullying is a problem that can – and must – be solved, because with Workplace Bullying, the real victim… is your bottom line.