Successfully Attract New Employees, Shareholders and Customers as an Employer Of Choice
Eliminating workplace bullying can reduce compliance costs, increase productivity and improve the organisational reputation as an employer of choice. A good reputation will attract conscientious investors, encourage the best recruits and grow your customer base to increase profitability. A good reputation is how you will achieve a return on investment for encouraging positive behaviour to eliminate destructive workplace bullying. Eliminating bullying will create a psychological safety culture by removing a majority of behaviour before it causes workplace bullying complaints and workers’ compensation mental stress claims.
Mental stress injury recovery can cost about $33,000.00 on average. While workers’ compensation covers the initial cost of treatment and recovery, any claim will increase an organisation’s annual workers’ compensation premiums. The additional costs can include recruiting replacement staff with the best staff uninterested in working in a possible bullying-tolerant environment. The damage to your reputation can also extend to your potential customers and investors. The disruption may be a sign of deeper problems within the organisation, affecting overall productivity and profitability.
The best way to eliminate workplace bullying is through positive behaviour policy and training reinforced with employment contracts that address the problem and protect the organisation. One of the most recognised bullying concerns is the uncontrolled escalation of interpersonal conflict until the victim fights back. However, discrimination or predatory bullying, where a group singles out a vulnerable outsider, is also workplace bullying. While some management action is exempt from worker’s compensation, hostile work environments can cause bullying. These work environments include unreasonable goal-setting and performance management procedures. An oppressive or lazy management style can lead to role or task ambiguity, creating conflict where roles and tasks overlap or do not meet.
Eighty percent of the population responds to Positive Behaviour programs to create Psychological Safety Cultures. The remaining twenty percent may respond to advanced positive behaviour training or individual counselling. Successful recruitment strategies rely on a reputation as an employer of choice to attract employees with personal values that match your organisational culture. Empathyse provides an online complete workplace bullying solution to target eighty percent of the population through policy, training and contracts. Existing high-value key personnel and management may need that advanced training or individual counselling to develop the values to match the organisational culture before considering termination.
The solution to interpersonal conflict is personal conflict resolution skills. Discrimination can be prevented with positive behaviour and equal opportunity policies. Work environments can be improved with strategic human resource management. A successful bullying elimination strategy uses a coordinated approach to create a psychological safety culture. Once this process is complete, the success needs to be advertised to your customers, investors and potential employees that your organisation is an employer of choice who cares about the wellbeing of their employees as their most valuable resource worth protecting.
Kevin Gilmore-Burrell LLB MBA
© Empathyse ® Anti-bullying Consulting 2023
Creating Positive Workplaces