Rudeness affects everyone’s productivity
September 8, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: In This Week's E-Newsletter, Latest News & Views, Retention
HR pros know dealing with an office jerk makes it harder to get work done. But a new study suggests that even witnessing rude behavior toward someone else can hurt workers’ productivity.
The study, conducted by professors from the University of Southern California and the University of Florida, was published in the May edition of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Students were put into two groups and given problem solving activities. In the first group, a student arrived late and was hit with a barrage of criticism from the team leader before being kicked out.
The student arrived late to the second group’s meeting, too, but was simply dismissed without being insulted.
The results: The second group was much more productive, creative and better at solving the problems.
“Here we see that just one incident affects productivity,” said the study’s researchers.
Sounds like another reason for HR to take a stand against workplace jerks.
Tags: office jerks, productivity
September 11th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I agree! Just recently, we let a rude employee go and you wouldn’t believe the changes. We are already weeks ahead of schedule on most projects. Also, some things were had wnated to do but had been labeled “too difficult” or “impossible” are actually getting done (and quickly!)
September 11th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
some things we had wanted to do…
sorry for the poor typing job there
September 11th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Hi,
That might be a reason that because the person in group 1 was insulted and dismissed; the productivity went low, but that cannot be the only reason for the group 1 being non-productive.
Obviously rude behavior harms but cannot affect to the productivity (that too when it was mentioned with an example above) of the whole team when the team members are from different group.
Being within the team is necessary rather than commanding the team; if you are in team you get more opportunities to understand about the team views and opinions.
September 14th, 2009 at 10:27 am
What do you do when the office jerk is a senior level manager????
September 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Suman – I have to disagree with you.
When one person in a group is rude or treated rudely, as in the examples above, it does affect everyone who was there to experience or hear about the rudeness. As much as humans want to think that things just roll off of them and they are okay, subtle feelings of fear and anxiety tend to show up. These feelings cause caution and often times errors in one’s work. In my own observance of rudeness I see how others become fearfull and worried. Instead of feeling confident and valued, they feel worried they will be next to receive criticism. The more worried they become, the more mistakes they make. There is also a lot of chatter about the rudeness and what it means. This chatter disrupts the work flow and less gets done.