Class Assignment

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Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

Explain how the American family is evolving in terms of parental involvement, the impact of stress on parents, the experience of same-sex parents, and the challenges facing individuals and families that are simultaneously caring for children and elders.

Describe the factors that affect employee satisfaction on the job and how these factors affect work–life balance.

Identify the �lexible work options available to some employees and outline how making these options available to more workers can close the wage gap between men and women.

Identify and critique employee incentives and protections by demonstrating how certain segments of society bene�it from them more than others.

7Balancing Work and Personal Life

Ariel Skelly/Blend Images/Getty Images

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Introduction

Consider all the roles we play in our lives: son, daughter, parent, student, worker, brother, sister, friend—the list is long. As parents, we care for children and our home. As friends, we engage in social and leisure activities. As workers, we need to maintain our professional skills and sometimes learn new ones. As community members, we participate in civic and religious activities. As individuals, we try to stay healthy and manage our personal affairs. How can we maintain a balance when so many relationships demand our attention?

Often the multitude of choices between work and personal life create a perplexing dilemma. Failing to satisfy competing demands in life can cause stress, illness, and exhaustion. Workers may �ind themselves unable to perform well at work or to care adequately for their loved ones. Although some have the resources to hire help (tutors, nannies, cleaners), others must rely on family members or bear the burden themselves, giving up on sleep, exercise, and other healthy and critical activities. These issues are further complicated by the fact that family dynamics are evolving at the same time as relationships between employees and employers.

In this chapter, we examine the often strained relationship between work and personal life in the face of changing family roles. We also consider how engaged workers are more productive on the job and more satis�ied in their personal lives. This will include an assessment of the level of engagement of the U.S. workforce. We will conclude by analyzing methods for increasing employee engagement, with a focus on improving individual lives, the productivity of companies, and the overall economy.

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7.1 Changing Family Roles

Our exploration of how issues related to work–life balance impact individuals begins by examining changing family roles. Gender roles in the family continue to evolve as men and women’s work roles change to keep pace with economic pressures and higher levels of gender equality. The family itself is also changing, as single women and same-sex partners head more and more families each year.

The Role of Women and Men in Today’s Family

Women’s roles as wives and mothers have changed dramatically in the United States in the past few decades. Marriage rates have declined (as indicated in Figure 7.1), and more people who do marry are waiting longer to do so. For example, in 1970 just 12% of women between the ages of 25 and 29 had never married (Jacobsen & Mather, 2010), whereas by 2014 the proportion had risen to 53.8% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014c). The marriage rate has declined most precipitously among the less educated. A majority of college-educated men and women still tend to marry (as seen in Figure 7.2).

Figure 7.1: Marriage trends in United States, 1920–2012

For a range of reasons, there has been a steady decline in the percentage of adults who are married. The steepest decline occurred between 1960 and 2006.

Source: Fry, R. (2014). New census data show more Americans are tying the knot, but mostly it’s the college-educated. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/06/new-census-data-show- more-americans-are-tying-the-knot-but-mostly-its-the-college-educated/ (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2014/02/06/new-census-data-show-more-americans-are-tying-the-knot-but-mostly-its-the-college-educated/)

The fact that for growing numbers of Americans parenthood has become disconnected from marriage is also dramatically impacting the family. In 1970, the overwhelming majority of women giving birth were married. The social stigma attached to an out-of-wedlock, unplanned pregnancy was often enough to motivate a woman to marry. Today it is more socially acceptable for single women to become mothers, and 41% of births are to unmarried women (CDC, 2014b).

Women who give birth outside of marriage are disproportionately poor and have relatively low levels of education. Whereas the vast majority (94%) of college-educated women give birth within marriage, most (57%) of those with a high school education or less give birth outside marriage (Edin & Nelson, 2013). One reason is because it is harder for less educated women to �ind “marriageable” men (that is, those who are employed, make a good salary, are not in prison, are interested in monogamy, and so on) (Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Edin & Nelson, 2013).

Figure 7.2: Rate of new marriages, by level of education

Adults with 4-year degrees tend to marry at higher rates than those who achieve lower levels of education.

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Source: Fry, R. (2014). New census data show more Americans are tying the knot, but mostly it’s the college-educated. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/06/new-census-data-show- more-americans-are-tying-the-knot-but-mostly-its-the-college-educated/ (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2014/02/06/new-census-data-show-more-americans-are-tying-the-knot-but-mostly-its-the-college-educated/)

More mothers than ever work outside the home. In 2012, 70.5% of mothers with children under age 18 were employed (BLS, 2013d). In 2012, among married couples in which both the husband and wife brought home incomes, 29% of wives earned more than their husbands, compared to just 17.8% in 1987 (BLS, 2014m).

Despite these shifts in work and pay, however, women continue to do the majority of domestic chores in dual-earner households, performing what Arlie Hochschild (2003) has referred to as the “second shift.” When they get home from work, most women are still primarily responsible for cooking, cleaning, and otherwise maintaining the household. For example, on a typical day, 1 out of 2 women but only 1 out of 5 men do household chores such as laundry and cleaning. Just 42% of men, compared to 68% of women, cook or clean up after meals (BLS, 2013a).

In general, mothers are stressed regardless of whether or not they work in the paid labor market. According to a survey conducted in 2008 by the Pew Research Center, 86% of working mothers reported feeling stressed, whereas 82% of stay- at-home mothers said they were stressed (Pew Research Center, 2009).

Overall, though, a shift has slowly begun to occur. As more women work and earn more income, more men feel obligated to do more with their families and in the home. Men are doing more housework than in past decades, and in wealthier households, some of the household work, such as child care and housekeeping, has transitioned to outside providers (Parker & Wang, 2013). This too, though, can cause additional tension: �inancial stress.

In most areas the costs of day care rival those of a public university education. In 2011, for example, the average family that paid for child care for children under age 5 spent more than $9,300 a year for child care (Laughlin, 2013). The costs go up for younger children and in some geographic regions. Today, “day care costs for middle-class New Yorkers can easily equal $25,000 to $30,000 annually per child. In New York City, child care is the single greatest expense among low-income families in the city, surpassing both food and housing” (Quart, 2013, para. 3).

Like women, men feel stressed by the often con�licting roles of parenthood, particularly the task of being a good provider while still parenting and being present at home. In fact, today there is no signi�icant difference in the number of men and women who say juggling work and family life is dif�icult. Just over half of all mothers and fathers report that trying to do both is vexing (Parker & Wang, 2013).

On average, fathers of children under 18 today spend 7 hours a week in child care activities, compared to just 2.5 hours in 1965 (Parker & Wang, 2013). Although couples with stay-at-home fathers still represent just 3.5% of married couples

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All families seek a balance between family and work, but those caught in the sandwich generation face the triple challenge of balancing work, child care, and elder care.

with children who have one employed spouse, their numbers continue to grow (Morin, 2013). There are also more single fathers who act as primary caregivers, and these men now represent about 24% of single-parent families (Livingston, 2013a).

Higher divorce rates and the growing number of unmarried parents who have never lived together, however, have led to an increase in the number of fathers who live in different households from their children. In the 1960s, for example, 11% of fathers did not live with their children. By 2010 the number more than doubled to 27% (Livingston & Parker, 2011). The likelihood of fathers living with their children correlates to their race and education level. Black fathers are twice as likely, and Hispanic fathers a third more likely, to live apart from their children as White fathers. College-educated fathers are 5 times more likely to live with their children than fathers who have not completed high school (Livingston & Parker, 2011).

Same-Sex Couples and Parenthood

Same-sex couples now head increasing numbers of families. Some same-sex couples are biological parents, whereas others have adopted their children. Between 2000 and 2009, the percentage of same-sex couples with adopted children almost doubled, moving from 10% to 19% (Renna & Gates, 2012). In 2011, 10% of male and 22% of female same-sex couples had children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013a).

Despite arguments posed by some opponents of same-sex couples, “the social science consensus is clear: children raised by same-sex parents fare just as well as children raised by opposite-sex parents” (American Sociological Association, 2013, p. 6). As of 2014, however, only 19 states allowed same sex couples to jointly adopt children (Family Equality Council, 2014). This is expected to change soon, however. Same sex couples have gained legitimacy throughout the United States with the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that the constitution guarantees the right to same-sex marriage.

Balancing Family and Work

All types of families—same sex, blended, single parent, dual parent—must deal with work and family issues. With widespread access to e-mail, texts, and electronic documents, technology has blurred the boundaries between work and home. The intrusion of work into family life affects both men and women in different emotional and professional ways. Gender socialization—which has conditioned many men to identify strongly with success at work and women to feel primarily responsible for child rearing—in�luences these reactions. Men tend to be more apt to work after regular business hours and during family time, whereas women often experience guilt and distress when work impedes or interrupts family time (Glavin, Schieman, & Reid, 2011).

Employers perceive women as being more likely to allow family demands to interrupt work, and they therefore treat the time that male and female employees spend with their families unequally. For example, when women take time off for family needs, their absence is more likely to be recorded as “without pay.” However, when men take time off for family, it is more likely to be viewed positively by employers and coworkers and compensated as “�lexible time” (Dodd & Palagano, 2011).

For those in the sandwich generation, who have both dependent children and elderly parents who require attention, life can be even more demanding. Grandparents can be a source of great support for working parents. On the other hand, they can also be a source of stress, should their health fail and they, too, need care. Almost half (47%) of people with parents 65 or older have dependent children, and 15% of these middle-aged parents provide �inancial assistance to their parents as well as their children (Parker & Patten, 2013).

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According to dispositional theory, a worker’s personality has a major impact on job satisfaction.

7.2 Factors That Affect Job Satisfaction

A satisfying work life can help people achieve a better life balance by preventing stress caused by unhappiness at work. Workers need ful�illment in and outside the workplace, and a job that feels rewarding and worthwhile can make employees both more productive and happier. In Chapter 6 we discussed Marx’s idea of alienated labor; when employees experience work environments that rob them of control over what they produce and offer them little input over how they carry out their work. Marx pointed out that this causes great dissatisfaction for workers both on and off the job, since work is so central to our lives (Marx, 1844/1964). Technological advances have furthered the trend to disassociate employees from their work life, and sociological theorists have continued to examine job satisfaction and its relationship to individual attitudes and workplace environments. We turn now to two such theories.

Micro Sociological Theories on Job Satisfaction

Researchers have studied job satisfaction and its relationship to motivation for several decades. In his range of affect theory, Edwin Locke proposed that satisfaction could be measured by comparing what employees want from their jobs to what they feel they get. For example, if having �lexible hours is very important to an employee, a job that offers �lexible hours will bring higher job satisfaction. However, �lexible hours will not increase job satisfaction for those who do not value that job perk. The factors that lead to job satisfaction, according to this theory, are individualized (Locke & Latham, 2002).

Dispositional theory proposes that people have certain tendencies, or dispositions, regarding job satisfaction. These tendencies apply to all aspects of their lives and can lead people to feel either positively or negatively (Perkins, Jay, & Tishman, 1993). For example, some people tend to enjoy their work and report high levels of job satisfaction, regardless of the environment. Others, however, are predisposed to low levels of job satisfaction that would not be affected by changes in the workplace (Judge & Larsen, 2001). The impact of personalities on job satisfaction suggests that, for some workers, their level of job satisfaction has more to do with their individual perspectives on life, their ability to manage their moods and interactions with others, and their overall emotional intelligence than the qualities of a particular workplace. Employers would be wise to keep such �indings in mind when hiring, since positive outlooks tend to make for more positive workers.

As we discussed in Chapter 6, different generations of workers bring various life experiences to work, and these impact their level of job satisfaction. Dispositional theorists might �ind that millennial workers are less apt to make work the focal point of their lives and less likely to work as hard as employees from earlier generations (Twenge, 2014). As studies examine factors that motivate individuals and promote higher levels of job satisfaction, it remains clear that social trends for individual and group behavior need to be considered when studying workplace satisfaction.

What Would You Do? Can You Please Everybody?

Imagine you have just been promoted to the position of manager. Your employees range in age from millennials to baby boomers. Upper level management has asked you to improve morale and the level of engagement among your workforce. Describe �ive key actions you would take to foster engagement among your employees. Be sure to keep in mind generational differences. Is it feasible to please everybody?

Workplace Environment

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Workplace environments can have a tremendous impact on workers’ attitudes and behaviors. Both the physical and emotional climates of work environments impact worker satisfaction and productivity.

In terms of the physical environment, open-space workplaces—those that lack of�ices or have no private places for workers—can lead to dissatisfaction. Compared to workers in traditional of�ices, those in open-space of�ices are interrupted more, are less productive, and have higher levels of stress (Davis, Leach, & Clegg, 2011). Many contemporary workplace designers advocate for more �lexible work spaces that provide both open spaces for ease of interaction and feedback and also private places that allow workers to concentrate on speci�ic tasks when they need to do so (Laing, Craig, & White, 2011). Of course, proper ventilation, access to sunlight, and adequate heating and cooling systems also play major roles in workplace satisfaction.

Most importantly, workers need to feel as though they have some control over their work space environment. As industrial designer Jacqueline C. Vischer (2007) describes,

a workspace cannot be designed to be a one-time, �inal and permanent ergonomic support for all of�ice tasks, but rather needs to be adaptable and “negotiable” to be most supportive to users.… [Employees need] opportunities to engage with and adjust their environment successfully, over time and with changing task requirements, in order to optimize comfort and manage workspace stress successfully. (p. 182)

For example, workers need to have access to conference rooms for meetings and projectors for presentation. They also need to be able to turn the heat up when they are cold and reduce the lighting when a room is too bright.

The emotional climate of a workplace can also play a major role in employee satisfaction. Even a worker with a very positive outlook can become disengaged in a dismal and unrewarding work atmosphere. It is the responsibility of employers and managers to create a healthy and productive workplace that keeps the interests of both employees and employers in mind. A win–win scenario tends to emerge, because happy workers are much more likely to be productive workers (Gallup, 2013; Schwartz & Porath, 2014).

Level of Engagement

Business management researchers have studied workplace engagement levels and found it is possible both to determine measures of engagement and to indicate how engagement relates to worker satisfaction and productivity. Managers can put their �indings, in conjunction with the sociological theories described above, to good use.

Engaged workers are involved, committed, passionate, and enthusiastic, and they have focused effort and energy for their work (Schwartz & Porath, 2014). According to a poll of human resources professionals, engaged employees display the following behaviors:

belief in the organisation desire to work to make things better understanding of business context and the ‘bigger picture’ respectful of, and helpful to, colleagues willingness to “go the extra mile” keeping up to date with developments in the �ield. (Robinson, Perryman, & Hayday, 2004, para. 2)

However, the majority of workers are not fully engaged. Companies with fewer than 10 employees tend to have the highest level of engagement (41%), but only 9% of workers in the United States work for such companies (Gallup, 2013). Even in these companies, less than half of workers are engaged. Among the 1,500 employees surveyed in one recent study, just 29% were fully engaged. Less than half (45%) were partially engaged, and 26% were disengaged (Dale Carnegie & Associates, 2012).

Gallup (2013) measures engagement by asking employees to rate, on a 5-point scale, their work experience in relation to the following statements:

1. I know what is expected of me at work. 2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right. 3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

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Figure 7.3: Workplace engagement for organizations in the top quartile

According to Gallup, organizations in the top quartile of workplace engagement performed signi�icantly better in key areas, compared to organizations in the bottom quartile of workplace engagement.

4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work. 5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person. 6. There is someone at work who encourages my development. 7. At work, my opinions seem to count. 8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important. 9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work. 10. I have a best friend at work. 11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress. 12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow. (p. 19)

In turn, employees’ level of engagement relates to the following organizational performance outcomes:

customer ratings pro�itability productivity turnover (for high- and low-turnover organizations) safety incidents shrinkage (theft) absenteeism patient safety incidences quality (defects) (Gallup, 2013, p. 25)

Organizations with highly engaged employees tend to perform better (Robinson et al., 2004; Gallup, 2013; Wellins, Bernthal, & Phelps, 2005). For example, those ranked high on the engagement scale have higher customer ratings, lower employee turnover, higher pro�itability, and lower rates of worker absenteeism (Gallup, 2013; Wellins et al., 2005). Figure 7.3 shows Gallup’s key �indings related to employee engagement for workplaces in the top quartile when compared to workplaces in the bottom quartile.

Levels of engagement tend to differ across generations (see Chapter 6). A worker’s level of engagement tends to move upward by age. Traditionalists, who make up just 4% of the workforce, are the most engaged (42%). Baby boomers are the next most engaged (32%), with 30% of gen Xers and just 28% of millennials engaged at the workplace (Gallup, 2013).

Each generation also responds somewhat differently to the various measures of engagement. Members of all generations say that their decision to remain in their position was most closely tied to believing in their organization’s mission and purpose and to the opportunities they have to do their best work. However, “opportunities to learn and grow” are also very important for millennials and gen Xers, while baby boomers respond strongly to the measure corresponding to “my supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person” (Gallup, 2013, p. 37). The lesson for managers is to consider an employee’s generation when developing a supervision style.

Engagement levels drop somewhat with increased education levels. Surprisingly, people who occupy what most would consider “good jobs”—those that require a college degree and pay higher salaries— are actually less likely (28%) to report being engaged at work than those without a high school diploma (34%). Gallup (2013) offers the following explanation for this:

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Source: Based on data from Gallup, 2013.

It could be that high unemployment rates have led those without a high school degree to count themselves lucky to have a job at all. Alternatively, it could be that those who invested time and money into earning a college degree have higher expectations for their managers and workplaces that often go unmet. (p. 38)

Despite gender discrimination in the workplace, women tend to be a bit more engaged at work than men.

The research from Gallup Daily tracking in 2012 showed that 33 percent of women were engaged, 50 percent were not engaged, and 17 percent were actively disengaged. This compares with 28 percent engaged, 53 percent not engaged, and 19 percent actively disengaged among men. (Gallup, 2013, p. 39)

The Importance of Having a Good Manager

Managers and supervisors are the most important factor in determining the job satisfaction and retention of workers. As Wellins et al. (2005) put it, “most people do not leave their jobs; they leave their bosses” (p. 7). It is these bosses who determine not just whether employees stay or leave their position, but also what they do while they are in it and how they, in turn, impact the organization. Jim Clifton (2013), the chair of Gallup, describes bosses’ impact in the following way:

Of the approximately 100 million people in America who hold full-time jobs, 30 million (30 percent) are engaged and inspired at work, so we can assume they have a great boss. At the other end of the spectrum are roughly 20 million (20 percent) employees who are actively disengaged. These employees, who have “bosses from hell” that make them miserable, roam the halls spreading discontent. The other 50 million (50 percent) American workers are not engaged. They’re just kind of present, but not inspired by their work or their managers.

Poor managers tend to show one or more of the following traits:

Not communicating clearly Publicly berating workers Showing a lack of concern for workers’ well-being Providing more negative than positive feedback Not asking for input from employees Not following their own guidelines for behavior Showing favoritism Refusing to give workers the tools they need to do their jobs (Dale Carnegie & Associates, 2012; Gallup, 2013; Schleicher, 2013)

The best managers focus on identifying and developing employees’ strengths. They also create working conditions that empower workers and meet their needs. According to Dale Carnegie researchers, managers also need to show that they care about their workers: “Employees want their managers to care about their personal lives, to take an interest in them as people, to care about how they feel and support their health and well-being (Dale Carnegie & Associates, 2012, p. 5).

Research has shown that worker satisfaction and productivity increase when the following core needs are met at work:

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AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Costco’s management is known for recognizing the importance of employee engagement. Among other incentives, the company pays its employees a higher wage than its competitors, which translates to lower turnover and stronger sales.

physical, through opportunities to regularly renew and recharge at work; emotional, by feeling valued and appreciated for their contributions; mental, when they have the opportunity to focus in an absorbed way on their most important tasks and de�ine when and where they get their work done; and spiritual, by doing more of what they do best and enjoy most, and by feeling connected to a higher purpose at work. (Schwartz & Porath, 2014, paras. 6–7)

When their needs are met, workers are more engaged and less stressed (Schwartz & Porath, 2014).

Employees must also do their part to create an engaged workforce. Although company leaders and managers can establish the necessary structure for an engaged workplace, workers also need to:

Recognize their role in the organization and how it contributes to the bigger picture. Capitalize on advancement and development opportunities. Support a mutual exchange of ideas among colleagues, managers, and senior leaders. (Human Capital Institute, 2013, p. 19)

An engaged workplace can only come to fruition if a trio of forces works together to make it a reality. These include senior leadership, management, and employees (Human Capital Institute, 2013).

Costco is an example of a company whose workers have responded positively to its attempt to create an engaged workplace. Costco shows its employees they are valued by paying them relatively well, treating them with respect, and offering them promotional opportunities. Seventy percent of its warehouse managers have risen from working as cashiers or on the �loor in stores (Stone, 2013). In 2013, Costco paid its average worker $20.89 an hour, approximately 65% more than its main competitor, Sam’s Club (owned by Walmart). During the Great Recession (2007–2009), a period of heavy layoffs in the retail industry, not only did Costco refrain from �iring workers, it raised their hourly rate by $1.50 over the course of those 3 years. Costco stores remain closed on Thanksgiving Day when most other retailers expect employees to work. The company also offers bene�its to its part-time workers, an unusual bene�it in retail.

As a result of these measures, Costco’s employees produce almost twice the sales of those at Sam’s Club, with a far lower turnover rate. The reduced turnover saves Costco hundreds of millions of dollars annually. In addition, between 2003 and 2013, Costco’s stock price

rose 4 times as much as that of Sam’s Club (200% versus 50%) (Schwartz & Porath, 2014; Ungar, 2013).

IBM is another example of a company that has successfully bolstered worker engagement. In 2008 the company launched its Let’s Build a Smarter Planet campaign to “create a safer and healthier society” (Boches, 2013, para. 1). Smarter Planet is:

a tagline, an ad campaign, a social media program, an attempt to educate customers and in�luencers, a library of thought leadership, an employee motivational program, and a clearly de�ined corporate mission. Most importantly it is a way to sell IBM and its services by framing the importance of, and the need to, harness the intelligence in the world’s and a company’s connected data. (Boches, 2013, para. 1)

The multimedia campaign effectively communicates IBMs goals and abilities to help leaders in all sectors of society harness information to build a smarter (and better) planet. In the process it showed “IBM’s determination to share knowledge, start a dialog with customers, and inspire a 400,000 plus workforce to see value in their research and thinking” (Boches, 2013, para. 14). It also ensured that every worker at IBM could understand and feel good about the company’s core mission.

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In this video, a reporter interviews the chief diversity of�icer at the multinational accounting �irm PricewaterhouseCoopers about the company's �lex-time policy.

Flex-Time Options

Flex-Time Options

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Critical Thinking Question

7.3 Flexible Work Arrangements

While workers have long had to organize their lives around their work schedules, employers have increasingly had to be creative to attract, retain, and motivate employees. To this end, companies must develop a �lexible and customized work culture that responds well both to employee and to business needs.

Flextime and Teleworking

Flextime is a popular perk because it allows individuals to have better control over their schedule and thus achieve better work–life balance. Typical �lextime arrangements include allowing workers to set their own times for starting and ending work each day or establishing block scheduling, which allows employees to complete their 40 hour week in fewer than 5 days. Some hospitals, oil companies, �ire�ighting companies, and factories offer block scheduling as part of their personalized incentive package for workers.

Anther �lextime arrangement involves two employees sharing one job. Two people who embark on job sharing split a full-time position. This arrangement requires strong communication skills and the ability to work well with a partner, but it can provide both employees with very �lexible schedules and time for commitments outside of work. It can also be of bene�it to employers, who gain the input of two people for the price of one. Women, particularly mothers, are those most likely to share jobs. This can be seen in the examples offered by the executive search �irm the Weinreb Group (2011):

Analysts at Hewlett-Packard (HP) on the team responsible for HP’s carbon footprint calculator Two women who share the position of senior associate director for the MBA Program at the Kenan–Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina– Chapel Hill Two women who together are the vice president of community development lending at the Wainwright Bank and Trust Company in Boston

Working from a location other than a centralized of�ice and communicating with coworkers through technology instead of in person is known as teleworking or telecommuting. The variety and quality of today’s smartphones, tablets, and laptops make teleworking a way to maintain productivity while allowing �lexibility. Allowing individual employees to control their work environment is another way for them to balance work and family life. Reduced commuting also helps workers save time and money, and it positively impacts the environment.

Teleworking has many bene�its for employers, too. In the early years of the 21st century, Sun Microsystems, for example, implemented a system for supplying mobile technology to employees, who could choose to work from home or in shared work spaces provided by the company. More than 56% of employees chose to work from home,

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Although telecommuting can provide �lexibility for working parents, telecommuters tend to work longer hours than on-site employees, which can negatively affect family life.

saving Sun Microsystems almost $4 million in real estate, utilities, technical support, and of�ice equipment costs (Tahmincioglu, 2007). Teleworking options also reduce absenteeism by allowing parents to work at home when their children are sick or during school breaks. Furthermore, studies have shown that employees who spend part of their time working remotely actually spend more hours per week working and have higher levels of engagement than those who only work on-site (Gallup, 2013).

The fact that workers who telecommute tend to work longer hours is one of the drawbacks of working from home. When one works from home, there is little escape from the of�ice. Indeed, family life can actually worsen should a telecommuter spend too much time working from home. Other possible drawbacks to teleworking include feeling isolated from coworkers, lacking one-on-one direction from supervisors, having a poorer chance of being promoted (particularly for positions that require direct supervision of other employees), and lacking access to sensitive data that cannot be removed from a

designated work site.

In addition, telecommuting can be disastrous for workers who are not extremely self- motivated. The work must be done, even when no one is there to oversee it. For those who are self-disciplined and in positions that do not require on-site work, however, telecommuting can dramatically improve their quality of life.

Trends in Flexible Work Arrangements and the Key to Their Success

Despite the bene�its of �lexible work arrangements, only a minority of companies have �irmly embraced such programs. Just 20% of companies offer most of their workers �lexible work options (Sweet, Pitt-Catsouphes, Besen, & Golden, 2014). Although more companies and organizations allow at least some of their employees to regularly work some of their hours at home (38% in 2014 compared to 23% in 2008), there has actually been a decline in recent years in those that allow workers to share jobs, from 29% in 2008 to 18% in 2014 (Matos & Galinsky, 2014).

In 2013, Best Buy and Yahoo removed their �lexible work programs for workers, saying they needed to provide more opportunities for team members to communicate. Flexible work arrangements, however, can improve worker productivity and engagement if managed correctly. Appropriate training for managers is key for such programs’ success. To this end, the 2014 National Workplace Flexibility Study provided training and a new strategic planning tool on this topic for middle managers in three different companies. Two were for-pro�it, one was a state governmental organization, and all employed 1,600 to 2,500 people. Major �indings included the following:

1. Workplace �lexibility does not have a negative impact on business. Ninety-eight percent of managers . . . identi�ied no negative impact of workplace �lexibility on their business. In fact, many managers reported improved team communication, team interaction, and even productivity and customer service as a result of participation in the study.

2. Engaging managers is critical to the successful implementation of workplace �lexibility. Issuing a policy is only the beginning. Managers need to be trained in evaluating requests when given a planning tool to manage the dynamics of a �lexible team, and encouraged to share best practices with peers.

3. Developing a �lex team blueprint prompts important discussions between managers and their teams. After working together as a team to plan how they would communicate, stay connected, ensure performance, and embrace technology while working �lexibly, managers reported improvements in team functioning and performance. They also reported feeling more comfortable with �lexible working arrangements and felt more capable of effectively managing the �lexible nature of their team. (Cavanaugh, Fraone, & Kacher, 2014, p. 3)

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In certain sectors of the economy, such as health, technology, and science, �lexible work has become very feasible and commonplace (Goldin, 2014; Bernard, 2014). For example, many doctors regularly �ill in for one another, so they are not constantly called into work. Pharmacists and veterinarians routinely cover for one another as needed. Some companies give workers time off for personal and family needs. For example, Cisco Systems allows workers to take 1 to 2 years of unpaid leave, with bene�its for the �irst year, to allow employees “to pursue a graduate degree, to care for an ill parent or just to recharge their batteries” (Bernard, 2014, para. 15).

Flexible work options have lagged in other areas of the economy, however, such as the �inancial, legal, manufacturing, and corporate sectors. These areas have not adapted their work cultures to effectively accommodate �lexible work schedules (Goldin, 2014; Sweet et al., 2014). To be sure, �lexible working hours are not appropriate for all positions. Some positions require workers to be on call at all times and others at unpopular times (such as presidents, CEOs, trial lawyers, police of�icers, janitors, security guards, nurses, and similar positions). For many others, however, certain changes can ensure that all workers are not constantly tied to work and facing the stress that such schedules often entail (Goldin, 2014).

For example, the accounting �irm Ernst & Young has a �lexible work program that has been in place for about 2 decades. The company �irst initiated the program in an effort to retain female employees, who tended to leave when they started families (female employees left at a rate 10% to 15% higher than male employees). The time of their departure tended to coincide with their eligibility for major promotions. Despite the opportunity to rise up the corporate ladder, many women left because they could not ful�ill their family obligations while handling a job with in�lexible hours.

Ernst & Young took action. “‘It’s an intensive career choice, so we had to offer �lexibility to make it an attractive career choice,’ said Karyn Twaronite, a partner at Ernst & Young who oversees diversity and inclusiveness. ‘We were trying to solve a problem’” (Bernard, 2014, para. 20). Today, Ernst & Young executives say �lexible working options are so standard that many take advantage of these options without setting up a formal plan with their managers. While the majority of those who use such programs are women, they are available to all employees, and 20% of those who have set up formal �lextime plans are men. As a result of the programs, women now leave the �irm at a rate just 2% higher than that of men (Bernard, 2014), with no measurable loss in productivity.

With such bene�its in mind, some cities and states are beginning to push organizations to make �lextime more available for workers. San Francisco and Vermont have passed right to request legislation, which permits an employee to “request a new schedule to help care for a child, a parent age 65 or older, or any family member with a serious health condition” (Vranjes, 2014, para. 5) without fear of retaliation. Once a request has been made, employers have 21 days to meet with the employer and 21 days following that to respond to the request in writing.

An employer that denies a request must provide a “bona �ide business reason” in the written response. Valid reasons could include the cost of lost productivity or the cost of retraining, hiring or transferring workers. Other permissible reasons include a detrimental effect on the ability to meet customer demand, an inability to organize work among other employees or an insuf�icient amount of work to be done during the proposed new work hours. (Vranjes, 2014, para. 9)

What Would You Do? Your Work–Life Balance and Gender Socialization

Think about the career you envision for yourself (or that you already have). Do you think it is or will be possible to balance your family and work life well? Why or why not? Now think about how you have been socialized with regard to your gender. How do you think it impacted your answers to these questions?

The Gender Wage Gap

In addition to the bene�its for employees and employers, truly �lexible workplaces have the potential to reduce inequality in pay among men and women. This gender wage gap, seen in Figure 7.4, affects women of all ages but increases with time. Women tend to make 90% of what men make until age 35, and then, after many become mothers, the proportion

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falls to 75% to 80% (American Association of University Women, 2014). If �lex schedules were seen as normative ways of working and used by a wide variety of workers, rather than available only as special perks for mothers, more working women might keep better pace with the men in their �ields. Today, however, for women, “in many workplaces, a �lexible schedule often comes at a high price, particularly in the corporate, �inancial, and legal worlds” (Goldin, 2014, p. 1117). According to a recent study by the Working Mother Research Institute (2013), among mothers who use �lextime, 44% “say their commitment to work is challenged” (p. 9) by others at work because they do so.

Figure 7.4: The gender wage gap

Among full-time workers, men still earn more than women. In 2012, women earned just 77% of what men earned for equal work; this represents only a 16% improvement in the wage gap since 1960.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 1961 to 2013 Annual Social and Economic Supplements.

Men are sometimes paid more because some businesses reward those who can work whenever the organization asks them to do so. Many mothers cannot stay late to take a client out to dinner, for example, when they must be home making dinner for their children. Men, who are still more likely to have wives who take care of matters at home while they are at work, have more �lexibility to work longer and at a greater variety of times than women. More �lexible hours for all would do much to erase the gender inequality in pay that results from this disparity. In fact, the wage gap “would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether if �irms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long hours and worked particular hours” (Goldin, 2014, p. 1117).

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Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Google is well known for the perks (such as a gym, free healthy meals, and even haircuts) it offers its workers while they are at the of�ice.

7.4 Employee Incentives and Protections

Many employers offer additional incentives to assist employees with work–life balance. This makes their company more appealing and helps workers stay focused. Child care and exercise facilities are becoming common in large organizations, while some companies offer free healthy lunches and concierge services that take care of the employees’ daily personal chores, such as oil changes and dry cleaning. Such perks can help make employee time away from work more ful�illing and enjoyable. Employers attach these perks to positions that tend to pay high salaries and require at least a college degree. Low-wage workers tend to have very different work lives, without bene�its or even a set schedule of hours from week to week.

Increasingly popular, merit pay is a reward system based entirely on performance goals set by employers and employees. If employees exceed their performance goals, they receive an increase in pay. Merit pay assumes that employees will be motivated by monetary rewards

for working hard and making exceptional contributions to the organization.

Many companies also offer educational incentives. These include increased pay for additional credentials as well as partial or full tuition reimbursement should employees get degrees or certi�ication related to their job. Other employers offer ongoing training in cultural competency and skill building that is speci�ic to the workplace. In a new trend known as bidirectional mentoring, experienced workers act as career mentors to inexperienced and often younger workers, who in turn share their technological expertise with their mentors.

Most of these incentives are part of a work culture that acknowledges and supports workers as individuals with diverse needs. Rewarding employees for speci�ic contributions, rather than the number of hours they work, shifts the focus to teamwork, mutual responsibility, and a shared investment in outcomes. Companies and nonpro�it organizations that implement such incentives recognize that they can in�luence employee engagement and that making their work culture more inclusive and life friendly can make the organization more successful.

Retirement Plans

Retirement plans are major bene�its, and ones that salaried employees have come to expect. Plans are de�ined either by the amount distributed at retirement or the amount employers contribute with each paycheck. Pensions are retirement plans with a de�ined bene�it based on funds allotted at retirement. The amounts received are based on employee salary and employment history, calculated as an annual amount that employees receive from employers once they have retired. These plans allow employees to know exactly how much they will receive when they stop working. Nowadays, as more companies are seeking to cut expenses and shift the cost burden to employees, fewer employers offer pensions. The percentage of employers that offered de�ined bene�it pension plans declined from 26% in 2008 to 21% in 2014 (Matos & Galinsky, 2014) and is expected to drop further in the coming decades.

In a contribution plan, an employer makes a de�ined contribution to an employee’s account during his or her employment; the contribution often matches a percentage of the funds the employee contributes. Known as 401(k)s in for-pro�it companies and 403(b)s in nonpro�it organizations, these contributions are made before taxes are taken out and are therefore tax-exempt until withdrawn. Unlike pension funds, which the employer controls, employees designate how 401(k)s and 403(b)s are invested in the stocks, mutual funds, and bonds open to them in their employer’s plan. The value of 401(k)s �luctuate with the stock market, and thus their use makes long-term �inancial planning much more dif�icult.

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

Enacted in 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) enables eligible employees to take unpaid leave from work for up to 12 weeks per year to provide care for members of their immediate family or themselves in case of illness. The

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FMLA applies to employers of 50 or more individuals, and employees must have held their positions for at least 1,250 hours within the 12 months before their leave request. Eligible employees can take FMLA leave for any of the following scenarios:

the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth; the placement of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement; to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition; a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job; any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty” (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.a, para. 1).

If workers do not take off work for one of the above reasons, they are eligible to use up to 26 weeks of leave to care for an injured or sick member of the armed forces. Speci�ically, they can take

twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the service member’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave). (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.a, para. 1)

The FMLA stipulates that an employee’s job must remain secure and that he or she must retain existing health insurance bene�its during the absence from work (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.a). Prior to the FMLA, there were no federal regulations to ensure that employees would be able to keep their jobs if they had to leave work to address any of the emergency situations covered by the FMLA, with the exception of maternity leave, which was protected under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) of 1978.

Overall, the FMLA’s effectiveness has been positive but limited. For one, few workers can afford to take unpaid leave, and thus most are unable to take advantage of the FMLA. In addition, as of 2014, 1 out of 5 companies covered by the FMLA (those with 50 or more employees) did not grant leaves to quali�ied workers (Matos & Galinsky, 2014). Workers who are not allowed to take advantage of the FMLA “can �ile a grievance (if . . . represented by a union)”; they can also “�ile a complaint either with a federal administrative agency (the Department of Labor, or DOL) or in court” (Workplacefairness, 2014, “How Can I File a Complaint?,” para. 1). The possible consequences for employers that refuse to grant a quali�ied employee an FMLA leave include rehiring (and perhaps promoting) the employee and paying back wages (and, if the employer is unable to show that it denied the leave in good faith, an additional amount, equal to the back wages, for damages incurred) and legal fees (Workplacefairness, 2014).

Four states—California, Rhode Island, Washington, and New Jersey—and the District of Columbia have laws that provide paid family leave for employees who need time off to care for sick or disabled family members or for a new child. The amount of paid time varies depending on the state or district. California’s paid family leave is the oldest (established in 2004) and the most generous; it draws from a state insurance fund to pay about 55% of the employee’s usual salary for 6 weeks in a 12-month period (Nolo, 2014).

The California Paid Family Leave program has received positive reviews from both employees and employers. Ninety percent of employers report that the act has had either no effect or a positive impact on their organization’s productivity and effectiveness (Milkman & Applebaum, 2014). The law, paid for by a 1% tax on employee wages up to $101,636 (in 2014), has raised employee morale and reduced turnover for those impacted by it. Low-wage workers tend not to make use of it, however, because they are unaware of the law, fear they will face repercussions from their employer if they ask to take advantage of it, or cannot afford to lose almost half their wages by taking it (Milkman & Applebaum, 2014). A federal paid family leave act has been proposed but has not yet passed Congress.

Parental Leave

Parental leave provides job protection for employed women and men for instances of birth, adoption, or foster care placements. In most countries parental leave consists of taking time off before and after birth or arrival time. In the United States the PDA and the FMLA protect workers’ rights to unpaid parental leave. As of 2013, however, only 16% of companies offered paid maternity leave, and just 15% offered paid paternity leave (Society for Human Resource Management, 2013).

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The 1978 PDA was the �irst law to prohibit discrimination against pregnant women both on the job and in the hiring process. The PDA makes it illegal for employers to �ire, refuse to hire, deny promotion, or demote on the basis of pregnancy. The law also mandates that a pregnant woman be treated equal to any other employee who becomes sick or temporarily disabled. For example, if the employer allows temporarily disabled employees to modify tasks, perform alternative assignments, or take disability leave or unpaid leave, the employer must also allow an employee who is temporarily disabled due to pregnancy to do the same. The PDA also stipulates that pregnancy-related bene�its cannot be limited to married employees (EEOC, 2014e).

Despite the PDA, pregnancy-related dismissals generate claims with the EEOC every year. In 2013, women �iled 5,342 charges alleging pregnancy discrimination (EEOC, 2014d). This phenomenon indicates that many employers still feel reluctant to hire, retain, or promote pregnant women, providing further evidence of the need for greater �lexibility and worker protection in workplaces.

Sick Leave and Vacation Time

Unlike other developed countries, the United States has no federal regulation mandating paid vacation time or sick leave. Of the 34 countries in the OECD, an organization of primarily Western nations committed to fostering bene�icial social and economic policies, the United States is the only member that requires no paid vacation days or holidays for workers (see Figure 7.5). Japan requires the next lowest amount; it mandates 10 days of paid leave. Most of the other (typically European) country members require 20 days of paid leave and another 6 to 13 holidays (Ray, Sanes, & Schmitt, 2013). Note that the nations with the most bene�its for workers also tend to have strong unions.

Figure 7.5: Legal right to paid vacation days and paid holidays among 21 OECD nations

The United States is the only OECD nation that does not require that workers be given paid vacation days or paid holidays.

Source: Adapted from Ray, Sanes, & Schmitt, 2013.

Although there is no law mandating paid vacation time, many individual employers offer paid time off programs whereby employees earn paid time off for illness or vacation. Accrual for paid time off often depends on years of service and is at the discretion of individual companies. Workers in businesses with 100 or more workers are more likely to receive paid - vacations than those employed in smaller companies (86% to 69%). Part-time and low-wage workers are the least likely to receive paid vacation time. Whereas 90% of those in the top quartile of wages earned have paid vacations, only 49% of

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those in the lowest quartile of wage earners receive them. At the same time, only 35% of part-time workers compared to 91% of full-time workers have paid vacations (Ray et al., 2013).

Just as low-wage workers are less likely to receive vacation time or paid time off, many low-wage workers do not have sick days, or paid time off when they are ill. A growing movement to overcome this gap scored a major victory in 2013, when the New York City Council voted (overriding Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s veto) to require businesses that employ 15 people or more to provide their employees 5 sick days per year (Barbaro & Grynbaum, 2013). New York joined Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; and the state of Connecticut in requiring employers to offer a minimum number of sick days (Associated Press, 2013). These measures have passed due to support not only from workers’ rights advocates but also public health advocates.

Health Care

Prior to World War II, most Americans did not have health insurance, and those who did had policies that covered only hospital room stays and related services. In 1943, the National War Labor Board froze wages to control in�lation due to a restricted worker supply. The board feared that if wages were raised to attract workers, prices for goods would go up and in�lation would result. To compensate for the stagnating wages, employers offered additional bene�its to attract workers, including pensions and health insurance. After the war employer- sponsored health care plans grew substantially, and the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 included tax incentives for employers that provided health insurance plans for employees (Scofea, 1994; Helms, 2008). Two government-run medical insurance programs—Medicaid, an insurance program for very poor Americans, and Medicare, a program that provides medical insurance for those 65 and older—were established in 1965.

Currently, 57% of companies offer health bene�its to at least some of their employees (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2013). The Affordable Care Act (ACA), the most comprehensive health care bill passed in the United States to date, has produced an increase in the number of working Americans with health insurance (Caressi, 2014). It requires all Americans not otherwise covered by Medicaid, Medicare, or employer-based insurance programs to buy (with government subsidies for those eligible) insurance or pay a �ine. Thanks to the ACA, the percentage of Americans without health insurance dropped from 21% in September 2013 (right before the open enrollment period for the ACA) to 13.2%% in March 2015 (Sommers et al., 2014, Diamond, 2015).

The cost of insuring employees has increased steadily over the years. In 2003, the average annual health insurance premium for family coverage was $9,068, with $6,657 coming from the employer and $2,412 being paid by the employee. In 2013, the total cost for family coverage was $16,351, with the employer paying an average of $11,782 and the employee $4,565 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2013). The average annual health insurance premium for a single person was $5,884 in 2013. Figure 7.6 shows how the rate of both single and family coverage has increased over the years.

Figure 7.6: Average annual health care premiums for individuals and families, 1999–2013

The average cost of health care coverage for individuals nearly tripled from 1999 to 2013, and more than tripled for families during the same period.

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Source: Average Annual Premiums for Single and Family Coverage, 1999–2013. Employer Health Bene�its 2013: Annual Survey (P. 31). The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Despite the cost, health insurance bene�its provide rewards for both workers and employers. Advantages for employers are tax incentives and the ability to attract quali�ied workers. In turn, subsidized insurance premiums allow many employees to be covered at a cost they can afford. Generally, workers pay slightly more than a third of the total premium (though the employees’ share of the contributions continues to rise in most organizations). It remains to be seen whether many companies and nonpro�its will choose to drop health insurance bene�its because of the availability of other sources of health insurance through the ACA, but it appears that most larger employers will continue to offer health care bene�its to their employees (Buchmueller, Carey, & Levy, 2013).

Thanks to the ACA, health care bene�its for workers are not necessarily tied to employment; workers are less likely to feel trapped in their job by their dependence on health insurance. The ACA also prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions, which kept many people in jobs they wished to leave. However, even with the subsidies provided by the ACA, health care insurance can be a major burden on many self-employed workers and others not covered under employer-based plans.

Worker health is essential to performance. In Chapter 8 we will explore additional health issues, particularly those related to stress, found inside the workplace. In particular, we will examine ways to prevent and respond to con�lict, mental illness, violence, and substance abuse, all issues that workers are likely to encounter in the workplace at some point.

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Courtesy of Kathleen Gerson, Ph.D.

Spotlight on Workplace Research: Kathleen Gerson

Kathleen Gerson, a professor of sociology at New York University, has researched and written extensively on family efforts to achieve work–family balance. Her �indings illustrate how families adjust to new social and economic norms, and re�lect that many mothers work outside the home and there exists a challenging marketplace that provides little job security. Gerson’s research shows that the most successful, stable families are those able to adapt to change.

Gerson notes that although both men and women view �lexible gender roles—where each partner contributes equally and does what is needed without regard to gender norms—as ideal, most couples do not carry out �lexible gender roles in practice. Pressures from in�lexible jobs, gender socialization, and the demands of child rearing lead most to fall away from gender-�lexible, equal roles. In reality, men—still under the sway of gender norms that encourage them to be breadwinners—tend to re�lexively move toward more traditional arrangements in which they focus primarily on their careers and making money. Women, on the other hand, tend to move toward self-reliance, with increasing numbers opting to raise children on their own, without a committed partner, rather than live in a family in which the man controls the purse strings.

Gerson (2009) advocates for social “policies fostering gender justice, work–family integration, and community support for children” (p. 224). She points out that stable, two-parent families, with a commitment to equality between the parental partners “can only be achieved by creating responsive workplaces that support parental involvement and ensure equal opportunity … and building child friendly communities” (Gerson, 2009, p. 225). Gerson also notes that “without social supports for more versatile ways of caretaking and breadwinning, [families] will have to cope as best they can, searching for private solutions to public problems” (p. 225).

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Summary and Resources

Summary The changing character of the American family includes more involved fathers (even when parents live apart), highly stressed dads and moms (whether they remain in the workplace or stay home with children), same-sex couples with children, and parents that simultaneously care for children and elders, known as the sandwich generation. High levels of engagement and job satisfaction motivate workers to do their best work, resulting in greater productivity and improved work–life balance. Some employers have implemented �lexible work arrangements, including �lextime and teleworking options, to attract, retain, and motivate employees. These have had positive impacts on both work–life balance and on the wage gap between men and women. Other incentives employers use to promote employee engagement (though often limited to professional, white- collar positions) include health insurance, on-site child care, merit pay, educational bene�its, retirement plans, paid parental and medical leave, and vacation and sick time. Pressures from in�lexible jobs, gender socialization, and the demands of child rearing lead most couples—even those who would like to have gender-�lexible roles—to fall into traditional ones in which men focus more on work and women more on family.

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Case Study: In Sickness and in Wealth

In the United States good health, wealth, and low levels of stress are positively related to one another. Stress threatens health and relates to both wealth and employment (and type of employment). People who tend to have better health and longer life expectancy also have the greatest access to healthy lifestyles (good food, opportunities to exercise, and so on), more control over their daily lives, and a good, engaging job. Society’s growing economic inequality has led to dramatic differences in health and lifestyle among Americans.

Most people can quite readily appreciate the fact that if you have more money you’re going to be healthier. But it also turns out that that observation holds not just at the extremes. So, for example, let’s say that there’s a ladder. It’s not just that the rich differ in some way from the poor in some kind of black-white or yes-no or zero-one kind of way. There’s a �ine gradation all the way along this ladder, both in wealth and in health.…

In America, the wealth health gradient looks like this: Over 70 percent of af�luent American report very good to excellent health—almost twice as many as poor Americans. No surprise. But in the middle levels, good health decreases signi�icantly. This translates into a reverse slope for chronic disease. Diabetes: Low- income Americans have twice the rate of disease as the af�luent. And for those in the middle, it’s still almost twice the rate. A similar pattern holds for stroke, heart disease, eventually contributing to excess death, especially for middle and low income Americans.

Jim Taylor, CEO of hospital in Louisville, KY

JIM TAYLOR: I’m well paid for what I do. I’m fortunate enough to be able to have a choice of where we live. More than half the mornings when I come to work, I have to stop for deer to go by, and that kind of thing is just what happens in this neighborhood. We have the time to exercise, because the lives we live don’t require us to try to �ind a bus that we have to ride for two hours to get to our job.

And on the other end, we don’t have huge demands on us when we’re not working. Jackie [my wife] and I talked a lot about healthy choices of eating. Well, that doesn’t come for free. We have the ability to get to places where one can make those choices. We have the time to prepare the meal that we had the money to buy.

NARRATOR: So a certain economic status brings you control over other parts of your life … the kinds of places you can live, the kinds of vacations you can take, or if you can take a vacation.

Being a CEO is a high demand job, but Taylor usually has the power, resources and control to manage that pressure.

Tondra Young has a high demand job, but less power and control.

Tondra Young, lab supervisor in hospital in Louisville, KY

TONDRA YOUNG: Sometimes it can get a little stressful, because I have 50-something employees running around on three different shifts in different buildings. Sometimes it can be tough for me, ’cause they might not like the decisions that I’ve made for the department, but I’m making the best decisions for the department and for patient care.

Tondra’s degree has left her $20,000 in debt, on top of her mortgage. In the last �ive years, the cost of college has increased 35 percent. Only 15 percent of adults in Tondra’s council district have a college education, compared with over 63 percent in Jim Taylor’s district. Life expectancy here is 75 years, four years less than in Jim Taylor’s.

Corey Anderson, custodian at hospital

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[Corey’s job requires him to constantly respond to calls to clean or take care of a variety of custodial problems. Often, he has just started to respond to one request when he is called to respond to another right away.]

At 37, Corey has already been diagnosed with hypertension, joining one third of the residents in Council District 21. Average life expectancy [in his part of Louisville] is two years shorter than in Tondra’s council district—six years less than in Jim Taylor’s.

Like Corey, one in every �ive American men works in a high demand/ low control job. They’re more likely to experience high blood pressure at work. And, their blood pressure doesn’t fall as much as men with more control—even when they sleep.

Think About It:

1. How do these people’s work lives in�luence their health? How do their stress levels relate to how much control they have over their lives? What structural forces impact their levels of stress?

2. Which of the people described is most similar to you or your parents? Why? Have you given much thought to how social forces can in�luence health? Why or why not?

3. Now that you are aware of how work, education, stress, income, and healthy habits are interrelated, how might you put this information to use in your own life? What actions can business leaders take to alleviate the health inequality described above?

Source: California Newsreel. (2008). In sickness and in wealth. From the video series Unnatural causes … is inequality making us sick? [Transcript]. Retrieved from PBS website: http://www-tc.pbs.org/unnaturalcauses/assets/resources/in_sickness_and_wealth_transcript.pdf (http://www- tc.pbs.org/unnaturalcauses/assets/resources/in_sickness_and_wealth_transcript.pdf) . Produced by California Newsreel with Vital Pictures. Presented by the National Minority Consortia. Public Engagement Campaign in Association with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute. Copyright © California Newsreel 2008.

Discussion Questions 1. How did the people who raised you handle family and work responsibilities? How did their work experiences

impact your family life? Have you or will you continue this pattern if or when you have a family? Why or why not? 2. Describe the range of affect and the dispositional theory’s perspective on job satisfaction. To what extent do you

agree with each perspective? Why? 3. What was your reaction to reading about the connection between �lexible work schedules (or lack thereof) and

the gender wage gap? Imagine a law �irm that specializes in corporate law cases that currently has in�lexible work schedules. How might they change to make employees’ work hours more �lexible?

4. Think about all of the employee incentives described in this chapter. How does the fact that the overwhelming majority of them apply only to salaried positions impact inequality in the United States? Do you think federal or state governments should take steps to mitigate these sources of inequality? Why or why not?

Additional Resources The Sandwich Generation (movie) http://talkingeyesmedia.org/sandwich-generation/ (http://talkingeyesmedia.org/sandwich-generation/)

Indicators of a bad boss http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/slideshows/10-things-only-bad-bosses-say/1 (http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/slideshows/10-things-only-bad-bosses-say/1)

“Right to request” legislation recently passed in San Francisco and Vermont http://www.npr.org/2014/04/29/307956811/if-you-want-�lextime-but-are-afraid-to-ask -head-to-vermont (http://www.npr.org/2014/04/29/307956811/if-you-want-�lextime-but-are-afraid-to-ask-head-to-vermont)

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Video clips and more information about In Sickness and in Wealth http://www.pbs.org/unnaturalcauses/hour_01.htm (http://www.pbs.org/unnaturalcauses/hour_01.htm)

Key Terms

Affordable Care Act (ACA)

dispositional theory

engaged workers

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

�lextime

401(k) and 403(b)

merit pay

pensions

range of affect theory

right to request legislation

sandwich generation

teleworking

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Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

Outline potential sources of workplace stress and explain what kinds of workers are affected.

Show how bullying is different from acceptable forms of workplace con�lict.

Identify some of the tools now being used to respond to workplace bullying and toxic leadership.

Explain the impact of substance abuse on the workplace in terms of both economic and human costs.

Discuss how a person with a mental illness might impact the workplace and what kinds of reasonable accommodations might be offered to mentally ill employees.

Demonstrate how employee assistance programs help employees cope with social issues that impede their productivity at work.

8Workplace Stress, Social Con�lict, SubstanceAbuse, and Mental Health

Kieferpix/iStock/Thinkstock

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Introduction

Have you ever wondered why so many social problems surface at work? Stress, bullying, violence, alcoholism, other drug abuse, mental illness—work would be so much easier if employees could leave these problems at home. Yet human beings tend to bring their hurts, addictions, stresses, and coping mechanisms wherever they go. The workplace is one arena in which mental health and social con�lict play out. Intrapersonal issues manifest themselves in the individual worker; interpersonal issues result from the interaction of people in the workplace. In this chapter, we will examine both intrapersonal and interpersonal issues, consider how they impact the workplace, and discuss the most effective employer responses.

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8.1 Workplace Stress

Workers bring their share of social problems into the workplace, but many workplace issues result from the interaction of employees with each other or with their working conditions. Chief among these is workplace stress, a state of emotional or mental strain. Workplace stress takes on new forms as the workplace changes. For example, a factory worker might identify different sources of workplace stress than a white-collar of�ice worker; a man might offer different examples than a woman; a Latino worker might identify different sources than a White worker; and so on. Workers who have taken on more hours to offset sagging wages may also experience greater stress in the workplace.

In the years following the Great Recession, increasing numbers of workers self-reported workplace stress. The American Psychological Association’s 2012 Workplace Survey found that 41% of workers report being “stressed out” during the workday (up from 36% in 2011). Moreover, less than half say they are satis�ied with the recognition they receive, are happy with growth and development opportunities at their place of employment, or believe they are receiving adequate �inancial compensation (American Psychological Association, 2012). These are all indicators of signi�icant workplace stress.

In addition, the sheer number of hours Americans work produces stress. Most employees in the United States work well over 40 hours a week. The average workweek is 47 hours, with 1 in 5 employees working 60 or more hours per week (Saad, 2014).

Workplace stress has increased in part because workers feel their jobs have become more demanding—requiring more hours and, in some cases, new skills—while their workplace autonomy, or control over their jobs, has diminished (Braverman, 1974; Ritzer, 2008). Recall the example from Chapter 6 (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/AUSOC402.15.1/sections/navpoint-47#h2future) in which UPS incorporated technological advances to promote employee productivity. A UPS driver told NPR reporter Jacob Goldstein that although he was happy with the increased wages that accompanied his greater productivity, it irritated him to receive repeated e- mails telling him to avoid backing up the truck up so much. UPS analysis of accident data has shown that backing up a truck is associated with many accidents that damage both UPS vehicles and the parcels they carry, and thus drivers are required to avoid doing so unless absolutely necessary. UPS also has a policy of avoiding left turns, for the same reason. Therefore, drivers depend on GPS to �ind routes that guide them to their destination using only right turns. When actual road conditions require drivers to make left turns, they are faced with the inevitable and irritating e-mails reprimanding them for making left turns (J. Goldstein, 2014a).

Workplace stress can arise from a multitude of other factors. For example, an employee’s skills may not be a good match for the tasks of a given job. Support may not be available to workers who need it, and supervisory feedback may be in short supply. Management may ignore or even tolerate bullying, sexual harassment, and other abusive behaviors. Organizational leaders may not make clear the details of a worker’s role in the organization, which leads to tension and confusion. In addition, information about the timing and reasoning for organizational change may not be widely available (Health and Safety Executive, n.d.). Employees may fear losing their jobs during company-wide layoffs or as a result of productivity issues. Also, as companies strive to contain costs, employees may become responsible for extra work without access to additional resources or pay increases. Particularly in large organizations, workers may feel they have little or no power to affect decisions, while at the same time they are held accountable for realizing more productive outcomes.

In some occupations that require a public presence, employee manuals may create stress by regulating numerous details of workers’ lives. For example, NFL cheerleaders must adhere to team-produced manuals that include reasonable boundaries (including prohibitions against sleeping with players) but also guidelines like the following:

Stay away from frosted lipsticks and eye shadows. Management will determine your proper color analysis. No slouching breasts—support as needed.… Never apply makeup or fuss with hair in front of people. If it’s absolutely necessary you reapply, freshen up, go to the ladies room. And do not hang out and talk while there. Beware, other women will judge you in there too. (Joffe-Walt, 2014, “Act One,” paras. 9, 13)

The manuals are comprehensive and include rules for folding napkins, constraining speech in public, nail biting, and making “too many arm movements” (Joffe-Walt, 2014, “Act One,” para. 17).

The physical work environment can also impact an employee’s experiences, health, and, in turn, level of stress. Fluorescent lighting, for example, is used extensively in workplaces because it is less expensive to operate than other light

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Digital Vision/Thinkstock

Emotional labor is required by certain service sector jobs, such as �light attendant. The necessity of acting happy at all times can be a workplace stressor, however.

sources. However, it has been linked to several health issues, including headaches, depression, eye strain, and increased stress. These problems appear linked to the spectrum of light emitted by �luorescent bulbs, which varies considerably from natural light. In one controlled experiment, laboratory mice raised under �luorescent lighting became so stressed that their life span was cut short by more than 50% (h.e.s.e. Project, 2010).

The amount of interaction and shared space with others also affects stress levels. Whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert may exacerbate or mitigate the dif�iculties associated with working in crowded conditions or being isolated from other workers. The interpersonal relationships between coworkers, supervisors, and subordinates are primary factors in job satisfaction or stress. The trend to blur the lines between work and personal life has become more prevalent over the decades because many workers �ind they now spend more time in direct communication with coworkers than even family members.

Workplace stress is both treatable and, to some degree, preventable. The most effective intervention to relieve workplace stress is to address its causes. Increased communication and participation in decision making can reduce certain emotional stressors. Ergonomically planning workstations and becoming aware of how the work environment affects workers can reduce certain physical stressors. Interpersonal stressors can be reduced through team-building activities, personality tests, and reasonable expectations for performance and behavior. Sexual harassment, bullying, and toxic leaders (subjects of the sections that follow) must be uprooted. Employee assistance programs can help employees develop stronger coping skills. Managers and human resources directors will need to employ an extensive toolbox of responses if workplace stress is to be kept at manageable levels.

Emotional Labor

In decades past, manual labor positions such as farming and factory work dominated the economy. In contrast, today’s service economy requires greater emotional labor, which often produces stress. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1983) coined the term emotional labor to refer to the effort expended when workers alter their outward behavior (emotions, verbal cues, body language, and so on) in order to conform to an ideal speci�ied by their employer. Consider the smiling restaurant waiter who responds to your order of mozzarella sticks with a beaming smile and the af�irmation, “Excellent choice!” All people expend emotional labor in various aspects of their lives, but certain occupations require high levels, such as retail workers, �light attendants, and food service wait staff.

Hochschild explains that people exhibit two types of acting when expending emotional labor. One is surface acting, or expressing an emotion without necessarily feeling it. Have you ever been told to “have a good day” by a cashier and doubted the sincerity of the pleasantry or wondered if the manager required cashiers to offer such well wishes? Workers use surface acting most frequently to cover up negative emotions—anger with a supervisor, annoyance with a customer —any emotion that might hamper their effectiveness on the job.

Workers also use deep acting to more authentically express the emotion they want to feel in order to conform to employer expectations. Deep acting is sometimes called “method acting,” in which one elicits (typically from memories of past emotional experiences) the very emotion called for by the situation. Deep acting produces the most effective results but requires more emotional labor than surface acting (Hochschild, 1983). Most of the examples of surface acting we might think of can be transformed by deep acting—the customer service call center staff member who seems personally committed to resolving our concerns, the waitress who anticipates our every need with a smile, the “honest mechanic” who seems to care about our car as much as his own mother’s—these exemplary service sector workers are often masters of deep acting. They are not insincere sycophants, just workers adept at the emotional labor necessary to do their jobs well.

Emotional labor is highly valued by customer-focused industries like airlines. Based in Hong Kong, Cathay Paci�ic �light attendants were well aware of this fact

when they threatened a “smile strike” in 2012 in pursuit of a cost-of-living adjustment for all of the airline’s �light attendants. According to their plan, the unionized �light attendants would stay on the job but refuse to smile while

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Sexual harassment in the workplace was commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s. Barbara Burns, featured in this video, was an employee at Smoot Coal. She became one of the �irst women to win a sexual harassment suit against her employer.

Sexual Harassment Law

Sexual Harassment Law From Title: Charting a New Course: Makers: Women Who Make ...

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Critical Thinking Question

working. In addition to the smile strike, �light attendants proposed that they engage in a work slowdown in which they would provide only safety and health-related services—not food service. The union asked for a 5% raise to avoid the strike; the airline offered 2% in response. With the Christmas travel season approaching, Cathay Paci�ic ultimately broke the impasse by offering longer rest periods for �light attendants completing long-haul �lights, in addition to the 2% cost- of-living raise. It could be argued that the greater rest periods were offered in recognition of emotional labor, to ensure higher quality method acting among Cathay Paci�ic �light attendants (BBC News, 2012).

Sexual Harassment

Another source of stress in the workplace can be sexual harassment, de�ined by the EEOC as harassment “because of that person’s sex,” which

can include . . . unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment does not have to involve sexual advances. The term includes offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general. (EEOC, 2014f, paras. 1– 2)

Cates and Machin (2012) provide a thorough list of examples of sexual harassment in the workplace:

Verbal or written, such as comments about attire, personality, or physical appearance; sexual jokes; requests for sexual favors; persistently asking someone out; sexual insinuation; spreading rumors about personal aspects or sexuality; making or threatening to make sexual advances. Physical, such as sexual advances that are physical in nature, including assault, obstructing movement, improper and unsolicited touching, kissing, hugging, and so on. Nonverbal, such as staring at someone’s body, sexual hand gestures or facial expressions, and following or stalking someone. Visual, such as displaying sexually explicit content that depicts unwanted sexual �ixations. Nonsexual, or harassment that is nonsexual in nature but is still considered sexual harassment. This includes discrimination based on gender and can be committed against either men or women. For instance, a woman who is ridiculed by her coworkers for working in a stereotypically male �ield would be a victim of this form of sexual discrimination.

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To be considered sexual harassment, such behavior must be serious or pervasive. For a singular incident to be regarded as sexual harassment, it must be severe. An example of this includes a single occurrence of attempted rape. Conduct is considered persistent based on the frequency of the incidents and the length of time over which they have occurred.

After being virtually ignored for many decades (perhaps centuries), sexual harassment in the workplace is now taken seriously—by effective managers, the courts, and the EEOC. Most workplaces now routinely offer sexual harassment prevention training, which emphasizes empathy with victims and the importance of reporting (Hunt, Davidson, Fielden, & Hoel, 2010). The consequences of sexually harassing a coworker have been clearly demonstrated and doled out consistently in enough workplaces to impact the overall number of reported incidents. Table 8.1 shows EEOC data on sexual harassment reports and resolutions from 1997 to 2011.

Table 8.1: Reported sexual harassment incidents, 1997–2011

Source: EEOC, n.d.b.

Click here (https://ne.edgecastcdn.net/0004BA/constellation/PDFs/SOC402_2e/Table8.1.pdf) to download a copy of the table.

As indicated in Table 8.1, the number of incidents of sexual harassment reported to the EEOC and its sister bureau, the Fair Employment Practices Agency, has fallen since 1997. Given the fact that more victims have been encouraged to come forward during this period, it is reasonable to conclude that workplace training programs, as well as other societal interventions, are having a positive impact on this problem. Still, the true number of sexual harassment incidents remains uncertain, because so many go unreported. Some researchers estimate that the actual number is at least double what is documented (Hunt et al., 2010). In addition, one could argue that a 26% drop in accusations is not enough, and that although training combined with clear consequences is somewhat effective, it needs to be augmented by other forms of intervention that have yet to be implemented in the workplace. Finally, the increase in accusations with “no reasonable cause” (from just over 41% to a slim majority of cases) suggests that the reasons for unfounded sexual harassment accusations deserve attention as well.

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8.2 Con�lict in the Workplace

Sexual harassment accusations can escalate con�lict in the workplace, but con�lict among employees is generated from a number of other sources, including workers’ divergent philosophies, incompatible personalities, and/or cultural differences. Con�licts can lower productivity and morale, and in some cases may escalate from hurt feelings into aggression and even violence. Employers are obligated to respond when con�lict escalates to the point that the work environment is unstable or physically unsafe and workers are uncomfortable and less productive.

Con�lict can arise when workers have divergent worldviews due to generational, sex, race, or class differences. For example, a millennial may believe that a company should invest much of its marketing efforts in social media, whereas a baby boomer might recommend caution about using unproven marketing methods. Cultural differences around relationship management may cause con�lict; for example, when one employee �inds it necessary to meet with an important client face-to-face while another believes Skype or even e-mail would suf�ice.

Rules for processes and procedures, distribution of tasks, or styles of management and leadership may also provoke con�lict. Managers who employ a laissez-faire approach may have dif�iculty with employees who need structure and predictability. Workplace teams may clash when employees have trouble dividing tasks among themselves. Employees who depend on each other to meet project deadlines may be frustrated when a colleague’s failure to stay on track impacts another’s performance. Each of these situations requires a nuanced response from management, for often there are no unequivocally right answers. Bullying in the workplace, on the other hand, is always unacceptable and must be addressed unambiguously.

Bullying

A certain degree of con�lict in the workplace is to be expected and even desired, since new ideas for advancing an organization can emerge out of the crucible of con�lict. However, bullying behaviors rarely advance the mission of any organization, and they can have toxic effects. Clinical psychologist Ruth Namie and social psychologist Gary Namie (2011) assert that “bullies don’t have to throw a single punch to do lasting damage to another person’s health—or [a] business’s �iscal health” (front �lap). Workplace bullies typically rely on psychological violence to increase their own power and in�luence, with sometimes subtle tactics such as spreading malicious rumors, denying vacation requests, and invading others’ personal space. They often possess high levels of social skills and political know-how, charming bosses while strategically abusing coworkers. Regardless of the type of bullying, the damage to workplace culture is the same.

Bullying at work is a profound concern, with a 2010 Workplace Bullying Institute poll revealing that 35% of adult - employees have been victims of bullying during their careers (Drexler, 2014). Many of these attacks come from managers who yell or use profanity when speaking to subordinates, are overly critical, consistently demand an unreasonable amount of work, or even withhold work to make an employee feel useless and undervalued. Bullying at work is a complicated issue because, even though it taxes employees’ mental health, many attacks are not reported for fear of - retaliation—about 50%, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute. Workplace bullying is especially insidious because it has a somewhat “contagious” effect. If bullying behavior is overlooked or even rewarded, research indicates that nonbullies may adopt bullying behaviors in order to succeed (Drexler, 2014).

Bullied employees and those who witness workplace bullying have some resources at their disposal to stop the bullying. Helpful actions include writing down bullying incidents to enhance recollection of details, retaining bullying e-mails, reaching out to the target of bullying, supporting the target in group settings, and sharing knowledge of bullying with human resources of�icers (Reeder, 2014). These interventions can be effective even when the bully is a supervisor.

What Would You Do? Breaking the Silence on Bullying

Suppose you have witnessed a colleague being berated by her boss on several occasions. This colleague has told you that her boss sometimes refers to her as “useless” and has withheld permission to use vacation days when he is mad at her. You have told your colleague that her boss has no right to treat her in this way, but she is afraid to say

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anything because her boss is perceived to be very close with the CEO. One morning you �ind her alone crying in the company break room. You fear it is because of another bullying episode. What do you do?

Other Forms of Workplace Aggression and Violence

Con�lict in the workplace that goes beyond disagreement has the potential to escalate into outward aggression or even violence. Every year, approximately 2 million workers face workplace violence, which includes physical assault, threat of assault, harassment, and intimidation (OSHA, 2014e). Workplace violence falls into four categories:

Criminal violence occurs when the perpetrator has no relationship to the business or its employees and is usually committing a crime such as robbery in conjunction with the violent act. Customer violence involves a perpetrator who has a legitimate relationship with the business and becomes violent while being served. These include attacks by customers, clients, patients, students, and inmates (against prison employees). Coworker violence happens when the perpetrator is an employee, ex-employee, or contractor who attacks another member of the company.

NEXT

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Domestic violence in the workplace occurs when the perpetrator has no particular relationship to the business but has a personal relationship with the victim (such as a family member, spouse, or partner) and the act takes place at the victim’s place of employment (Society for Human Resource Management, 2012).

Although violence at work can affect anyone, the risk is higher in certain jobs. Positions at high risk of experiencing violence include those that involve exchanging money with the public, delivering products or passengers, or working in small groups or alone during off-hours or in high-crime areas. Occupations that have the highest incidence of violence include law enforcement and corrections of�icials, mental health counselors, sales associates, bartenders, and gas station attendants (Harrell, 2011). The majority of violent incidents experienced at work are assaults, domestic violence, stalking, threats, and sexual assault. However, many occurrences of workplace violence are not reported to company of�icials, police, or the media, making it dif�icult to calculate accurate �igures on the matter. For example, taxi drivers, who deal mainly in cash, are notoriously vulnerable to violent crime, but the rate of occupational violence against taxi drivers reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics is comparable to that faced by the average U.S. middle school teacher (Harrell, 2011).

U.S. teachers, however, are facing increased violence and threats of violence. In a 2011–2012 survey, 9% of teachers reported being threatened with violence by a student, the highest levels ever recorded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Institute of Education Sciences National Center for Education Statistics (Robers, Kemp, & Truman, 2013). A 2011 study by the American Psychological Association Task Force on Violence Directed Against Teachers also found that half of victimized teachers had experienced offenses committed by parents of students (Espelage & Anderman, 2013).

Generally, however, workplace violence has declined since the early 1990s. As Figure 8.1 shows, the rate of nonfatal violent crimes committed against both government and private sector employees fell dramatically from 1994 to 2011, with respective declines of 82 and 72 percent. The drop in violence was consistent with an overall drop in violent crime nationally but exceeded the general trend.

Criminologists offer several explanations for these declines. First, the drop that began in 1993 was preceded by a dramatic rise beginning in the late 1980s that was associated with the popularity of crack cocaine. When drug users changed their drug preferences, rates of violence went down. Another explanation is demographic. When the baby boomers grew out of the peak violent crime years of 18 to 24, crime dropped. The much smaller cohort of generation X simply did not match the raw numbers of violent crimes committed by young adult baby boomers. Other possible explanations include attributing the decline to mass incarceration following “tough on crime” legislation, changes in policing tactics that emphasized arrests for small offenses, and a decline in the availability of handguns in many urban areas during this period (Blumstein & Allman, 2006). One explanation that has recently gained currency is the impact of leaded gasoline on the nervous systems of toddlers who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. Exposure to lead is known to cause brain damage in humans. When lead was taken out of gasoline, violent crime rates declined (Drum, 2013). Most likely, the drop in violent crime since 1993 is attributable to a combination of these factors.

Figure 8.1: Nonfatal workplace violence for government and private sector, 1994–2011

Workplace violence against both government and private sector employees in the United States dramatically dropped between 1994 and 2011.

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Source: Harrell, E. (2013). Workplace violence against government employees, 1994–2011 (Special Report No. NCJ 241349). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Of�ice of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.bjs .gov/content/pub/pdf/wvage9411.pdf (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/wvage9411.pdf)

Although a majority (53%) of violent acts against male workers and 41% of violent acts against female workers are committed by strangers, a signi�icant percentage of violent acts in the workplace are perpetrated by assailants known to the victim through work relationships: 26% for men and 32% for women. Of the 521 workplace homicides in 2009, work associates committed about one �ifth. Statistics on violence in the workplace indicate that workers are more than 6 times more likely to assault a coworker at their own level in the organization than a superior, a phenomenon known as “horizontal violence.” The term refers to the reality that it is often easier to aim feelings of frustration and anger on one’s equals in the organizational structure than on one’s superiors (Harrell, 2011).

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Photononstop/SuperStock

Military of�icials are beginning to rethink leadership styles like the browbeating drill sergeant depicted in the movie Full Metal Jacket because of its toxic effects on morale and discipline.

8.3 Responding to Workplace Aggression and Violence

It is natural for employees to occasionally disagree or irritate one another when they work. However, when interpersonal con�lict, bullying, aggression, or violence is embedded in work culture, the workplace is considered an abusive work environment. Even if managers are not the cause of such con�lict, by allowing it to happen, they enable toxic behaviors to become part of workplace culture. Managers must not hesitate to terminate employees who pose a threat to others. When bullying and other negative behaviors occur, managers should be compelled to intervene, if for no other reason than to enhance employee productivity.

Given the detrimental effects of abusive work environments on both workers and employers, 15 states have recently initiated legislation that would protect workers caught in such environments. Currently, however, only those workers in legally protected categories within the demographics of race, age, sex, and disability are protected under the law against abusive work environments. In the absence of legal protection, some employers are taking matters into their own hands. Important initiatives have come from an institution infamous for its occasionally browbeating leaders—the U.S. Army.

The U.S. Army Responds to Toxic Leaders

When Brigadier General Peter Bayer invited anthropologist Dr. David Matsuda to help him understand a rash of 30 attempted or successful suicides by service members in Iraq within 1 year, it was not his typical assignment. Commanders usually brought Matsuda in to interpret Iraqi speech and behaviors. Furthermore, army of�icials who had investigated the problem had found the usual reasons for suicide: mental illness, a troubled childhood, a recent breakup, or problems with debt. Yet when Matsuda dug deeper through intensive interviews with 50 soldiers associated with eight cases, he found an interesting cofactor: each of the individuals who attempted or committed suicide was under the command of a leader who seemed committed to making the soldier’s life unbearable. Matsuda explained:

Oftentimes platoon leaders will take turns seeing who can smoke this guy the worst. Seeing who can dream up the worst torture,

seeing who can dream up the worst duties, seeing who can make this guy’s life the most miserable. (Zwerdling, 2014, para. 11)

The army calls these workplace bullies “toxic leaders,” and their impact ranges from the attempted and successful suicides that provoked the study to an undermining of “the followers’ will, initiative, and potential and [destruction of] unit morale” (Zwerdling, 2014, para. 31). In response, the army has begun to train top brass to identify toxic leaders and has expanded the use of comprehensive evaluation tools, which allow subordinates as well as supervisors to evaluate midlevel military personnel (Zwerdling, 2014).

The reality of workplace bullying and violence in nearly every sector of the economy requires all employers to take steps to monitor work culture. Employees may need training outside their job descriptions in order to deal with hostile behavior or threatening situations, even in jobs not traditionally associated with violence.

Responding to Violence Against Teachers and Other Violence in the Workplace

As noted earlier, teachers today deal with far more violent incidents than they did 50 years ago—even at the elementary level. Researchers point to several key risk factors, including a school’s size (if it houses 500 to 1,000 students); whether a teacher works in special education or social work; a school’s location (whether it is urban); and whether a school “frequently or always” lacks adequate resources for building safety or has a lack of accessible exits (Gerberich et al., 2014). Teacher trainings now routinely include learning how to secure classrooms when there is a perceived threat or police action on campus, which is known as a “lockdown.”

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Other occupations have added workplace violence training to employee job descriptions. Bank tellers and retail salespersons are trained in how to act during a robbery, for example. Especially following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, many companies added situational awareness skills, escape tactics, and de- escalation tactics to their safety procedure policies to prepare employees for terrorist violence. These trainings have had unintended positive consequences, in that employees trained in these skills can apply them in dangerous situations unrelated to terrorism and more common to workplace violence.

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Substance abuse interferes with employee attendance and productivity, which costs companies money.

8.4 Substance Abuse: Alcohol and Other Drugs

Some say the best type of business to own is a coin-operated laundromat. Why? There are no employees to deal with. No one will miss a shift due to substance abuse issues. No one will come in late because of a domestic violence incident. There is no tension over alleged sexual harassment, and there is no bickering. No employees means no hassles—just cash �low. But is this really the ideal—an economy without workers? Without employees there is no creativity in the workplace; there is no social satisfaction that comes when people work together to solve a problem or complete a task. Work is often where people �ind ful�illment, make friends, and in some cases meet their spouse or partner.

However, given that people often spend the majority of their day at work, it is inevitable that their �laws will emerge and potentially create or exacerbate stress in the workplace. For this reason, both employers and employees must understand the many ways intrapersonal social problems manifest themselves at work, particularly the most common vulnerability: alcohol and drug abuse.

Alcohol and Illegal Drugs

Substance abuse is the repeated use of alcohol or drugs to the point that users develop personal problems and distress related to use. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, alcohol and other drug abuse is a serious concern for employers for several reasons. Chief among them is that the after-effects of substance abuse, namely hangovers and withdrawal, affect job performance. In addition, a worker’s preoccupation with obtaining and using substances interferes with his or her ability to pay attention and concentrate at work. Addicted workers are also more likely to engage in illegal activities at work, including using drugs on the job: OSHA estimated in 2012 that 17.4 million people—7.1% of the working population—use drugs in the workplace (BLS, 2013c). Drug-using workers are also more likely to sell drugs to other employees. Finally, the psychological and stress-related effects of drug use and behavior of a family member, friend, or coworker will also affect job performance (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, 2014).

Not only are substance abusers less productive, they also use more sick days, cause more accidents, have a greater turnover rate, and contribute to increased health care costs due to their need for treatment and rehabilitation as well as medical care for associated maladies (CDC, 2014c). The National Drug Intelligence Center (2011) estimates that the U.S. economy loses more than $120 billion annually to the effects of substance abuse, which includes $49 billion in lost labor participation from women and men in the workforce and $48 billion in lost labor participation from men and women incarcerated for drug-related crimes. As a national health problem, the effects of substance abuse are on a par with other costly epidemics, like diabetes.

Contrary to public opinion, most drug users in the United States are employed. Among those working full- or part-time, research indicates that more than 14% report heavy drinking, which is de�ined as 5 or more drinks on 5 or more days in the past 30 days. Eighteen- to 25-year-olds show the highest consumption of alcohol, and about one third of this group also report illegal drug use (Larson, Eyerman, Foster, & Gfroerer, 2007).

The occupations reporting the highest levels of illegal drug use include construction workers (15.6%); sales personnel (11.4%); food preparation, wait staff, and bartenders (11.2%); handlers, helpers, and laborers (10.6%); and machine operators and inspectors (10.5%). Protective service workers (for example, police of�icers and �ire�ighters) report the lowest rate of drug use (3.2%) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2014a). Physicians in the United States are just as likely as the average American to be addicted to alcohol or other drugs, but they are 5

times as likely to abuse prescription drugs. Experts in addiction studies point to ready drug availability as the best explanation for the high occupational rate among physicians (Merlo, Singhakant, Cummings, & Cottler, 2013).

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According to a Department of Health and Human Services study, males are more likely than females to use illegal drugs, and employees with lower education levels are more likely to use drugs than those with college degrees (Larson et al., 2007). Men with lower levels of education are also more likely to work blue-collar jobs in industries such as construction or mining, which have higher-than-average incidences of injury and fatality. Substance abuse presents a particularly serious risk in these industries.

What Would You Do? The Party Animal

Supposed a colleague is fond of regaling you with stories of heavy drinking on the weekend. At �irst you humored his stories of drunken adventures—some of them were actually funny. But over time you have become concerned about your coworker. You believe he may have a drinking problem. One Monday morning he comes to work a bit disheveled—as if he never stopped partying. Saying hello, you smell alcohol on his breath. What do you do?

Prescription Drugs

The abuse of legally prescribed drugs can also be problematic—for the worker and the employer. Today the abuse of prescription painkillers among working adults has reached epidemic proportions. In 2010 nearly 1 in 20 Americans reported using prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin for nonmedical uses (CDC, 2011). In addition, each year nearly 15,000 people in the United States die from overdosing on prescription painkillers—more than the deaths attributed to heroin and cocaine overdoses combined (CDC, 2011).

The impact of widespread prescription drug abuse can be measured in the same way as alcohol and other drugs, but the therapeutic dimension of prescription drug use adds an additional element. For example, although workplace insurers spent $1.2 billion annually on prescription painkillers for workers injured on the job, research indicates that workers who use these drugs at high dosages to treat pain associated with workplace injuries stay out of work 3 times longer and at 9 times greater cost than workers with similar injuries who receive a low dose or take nonopioids like Tylenol or Advil. In California the New York Times reported that prescription painkillers now make up 30% of the costs borne by workplace insurers, twice the rate of a decade earlier (Meir, 2012).

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Depression is the most common mental illness affecting American workers.

8.5 Mental Illness

As prevalent as alcohol, prescription drug, and illegal drug abuse is in the workplace, mental illness is even more common and often proves more dif�icult to identify and treat. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) de�ines mental illnesses as “disorders generally characterized by dysregulation of mood, thought, and/or behavior, as recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV).” The CDC elaborates, noting that

mood disorders [are] among the most pervasive of all mental disorders and include major depression, in which the individual commonly reports feeling, for a time period of two weeks or more, sad or blue, uninterested in things previously of interest, psychomotor retardation or agitation, and increased or decreased appetite since the depressive episode ensued. (CDC, 2014a, para. 1)

Schizophrenia, depression, severe anxiety, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and PTSD are mental illnesses that have the greatest potential to cause disruption in the workplace, and they require psychiatric care via therapy and/or medication. In 2012, 18.6% (43.7 million) of the adults in the United States had such mental illnesses. Twenty-two percent of women and just under 15% of men have diagnosed mental illnesses. These statistics, which carry important implications for the workplace, do not include substance abuse data, though many people suffer from both addictions and mental illnesses (National Institute of Mental Health, 2014).

The effects of mental illness manifest differently in the workplace than at home. Workers experiencing depression may withdraw from colleagues or demonstrate fatigue resulting from lost sleep at night. An employee with bipolar disorder who is experiencing a manic episode might appear to be productive, but his or her �lurried activity might also be accompanied by “self-aggrandizing or disruptive” behavior. The individual may “�lout workplace rules, be overly aggressive, and make mistakes in judgment (such as overspending a budget)” (Harvard Medical School, 2010, para. 17). Workers with anxiety disorders may require constant reassurance about their performance and may at times become so overwhelmed by anxiety that they become nonproductive. Similarly, a colleague with attention- de�icit/hyperactivity disorder may appear disorganized, unable to meet deadlines or manage workloads or follow instructions from supervisors (Harvard Medical School, 2010).

Stigma Associated With Mental Illness

One of the major challenges for the mentally ill in the United States is the stigmatization, or labeling as deviant, of people with mental illness. People perceived as mentally ill can have “fewer opportunities for work, school or social activities or trouble �inding housing” (Mayo Clinic, 2014, para. 6). Also, people with mental illnesses can often be targets for bullying and consequently may suffer from a poor self-image and the sense that they will never be able to improve their condition or be fully accepted (Mayo Clinic, 2014). The most serious effects of stigmatization in the workplace can be seen in those employees who experience public stigmatization (that is, labeling by coworkers) and then move to self-stigmatization (or labeling oneself as a damaged person), obliterating self-esteem and therefore productivity and creativity in the workplace (Corrigan, Powell, & Rüsch, 2012).

Given the variety and types of psychological disorders, mental illness can interfere with work performance in a number of ways. Absenteeism is the most measurable impact—with clear consequences for productivity. In a 2009 study of almost 35,000 workers, researchers compared the workplace impact of 25 chronic health conditions, including the amount of money spent on medical costs (including prescription drugs), rates of absenteeism, and self-reported lost productivity. When this data was compared by medical condition, depression ranked �irst and anxiety �ifth—with three physical ailments in between. Other studies have produced similar results (Harvard Medical School, 2010).

Accommodations for Employees With Mental Illness

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In addition to medication and therapy, some accommodations at work can help employees with mental illnesses function well. These accommodations are required by Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act, but they are limited to diagnosed mental illnesses and do not include family problems, stress, or disagreeable personality traits (different from personality disorders). The EEOC and U.S. courts have made it clear that employers must provide reasonable accommodations when there is a medical record of an employee’s mental illness and the employee requests reasonable accommodations, even when the employee does not use the words “reasonable accommodation” in his or her request (Sahi & Kleiner, 2001).

These accommodations can help boost employee morale and productivity, but fear of stigmatization, and the social sanctions that come with it, prevent many workers from coming forward to request accommodation. Nevertheless, many companies and organizations have complied with the ADA in speci�ic ways that reasonably meet the needs of employees with mental illness. Reasonable accommodations shown to improve the workplace for such employees—and their colleagues—include the following:

1. Leaves of absence, ranging from a few hours at a time, to weeks, to part-time scheduling 2. Change in work hours, particularly to offset side-effects of psychiatric medication 3. Change in absence policies, to use vacation time as needed, without the usual approval process 4. Physical changes to work space, including installing dividers or soundproo�ing, to limit visual, aural, or olfactory

stimulation 5. Access to equipment such as recorders, which can help employees with concentration-related disorders manage

more information 6. Modifying workplace policies, such as those regulating water breaks, for employees who experience dry mouth as

a result of taking certain psychiatric medications, or those regulating the taking of notes at meetings, for employees with concentration disorders

7. Adjusting supervisory policies; for example, changing methods of supervisory communication from e-mail to face-to-face, or the reverse, and providing alternate modes of training if needed

8. Providing a job coach, temporarily, to help an employee overcome a challenge related to her or his disability 9. Job reassignment, if needed to accommodate the disability, if positions at an equal level or lower are available

(Sahi & Kleiner, 2001)

Helping employees faithfully take psychiatric medication is not included among the common reasonable accommodations, because taking or not taking one’s meds affects every minute of one’s life—not just those spent on the job. In addition, mental illness does not exempt an employee from disciplinary action; for example, if the employee is found to be stealing or poses a direct threat to other workers. Notwithstanding such extreme cases, reasonable accommodation for employees with mental illnesses has demonstrably improved the workplace experience for those with such illnesses and their colleagues (Sahi & Kleiner, 2001). Employee assistance programs, a topic of the next section, can help both provide and bring attention to the need to provide accommodations for employees with mental illnesses.

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8.6 Policy Responses to Substance Abuse and Mental Illness

Employers respond to intrapersonal social problems like mental illness and substance abuse through two main channels: employee assistance programs (EAPs) and organizational policies. Policies lay out the rules and expectations for employee behavior. EAPs provide help for employees with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems who are unable, due to the illness itself, or unwilling, by their own choice, to comply with the policies. When EAPs are unable to help, additional policies may force termination.

Employee Assistance Programs

Policies alone cannot prevent or mitigate social problems like addiction and mental illness in the workplace. Re�lecting this reality, EAPs are designed to help employees and their family members cope with personal problems that affect their job performance, productivity, and health. These problems range from mental illness and substance abuse problems to, in some instances, �inancial and legal ones. EAPs can feature their own counseling services but also refer employees to external rehabilitation programs, medical services, and other therapeutic activities. For large businesses such as Fortune 500 companies, EAPs have become an essential part of doing business.

The EAP movement began in the United States in the 1950s and �irst featured alcohol abuse prevention programs in factories that were aimed at treating perpetually drunken employees. The EAP mandate eventually broadened to include other abused substances and their effects on workplace performance. In more recent years, EAPs have widened their focus to include a broader range of work life issues such as stress, trauma, mental illness, and grief counseling (Bray, Karutzos, & MacDermind, 2010).

Human resources specialists estimate that about 20% of the U.S. workforce suffers from interpersonal (group) and intrapersonal (individual) problems that might affect job performance (Daniels, Teems & Carroll, 2005). Human resources personnel are responsible for mediating interpersonal social problems such as con�lict among employees. It is up to the individual, however, to manage his or her own intrapersonal issues. The purpose of EAPs is therefore to help employees deal with intrapersonal problems before they negatively impact the workplace (Daniels et al., 2005).

EAPs also address the emotional traumas that sometimes occur at work. For example, at one chemical company, a group of employees watched a colleague slip on a metal platform and fall to his death. Following the event, several workers spoke of how they knew their colleague had been visibly depressed in the days before he slipped and fell. Some speculated that the fall was intentional—or that his depression impaired his attention to safety. Worker responses ranged from feeling guilty to experiencing depression themselves. Through its EAP, the company offered both group and individual counseling to help employees work through their grief and guilt over not having done more to prevent the accident. The EAP also provided counseling to the bereaved family and briefed supervisors on what to expect from the workers who witnessed the tragic event (Sagor, 2010).

The chemical company tragedy illustrates both the importance of the EAP and its limitations. Although the EAP may have been bene�icial to the witnesses, it was not implemented soon enough to help the accident victim deal with his depression. The EAP failed to identify the fact that the employee’s depression was affecting his well-being, and therefore his productivity, long before the accident.

EAPs can help employees heal from on-the-job trauma and get help for intrapersonal problems, but their primary purpose remains boosting employee productivity. Indeed, the key measure to determine if an employee should be referred to an EAP is work productivity. Supervisors are generally discouraged from getting involved in employees’ personal lives, but job performance is an important reason to cross that boundary. EAPs also rely on the employees’ voluntary enrollment—without employees’ sincere desire to get help, EAPs are unlikely to make a signi�icant difference (Sagor, 2010).

In addition, although an EAP may provide short-term therapy and/or coaching, long-term problems like addiction and mental illness require more large-scale interventions. In such cases an EAP counselor best functions as a referral service, identifying clinicians covered by the employee’s health insurance. For example, an employee with a substance abuse problem might be referred to an addictions counselor or inpatient treatment center, whereas a person who shows signs of a personality disorder could be introduced to a clinical social worker.

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Two types of EAPs currently exist: internal and external. Internal EAPs are owned by the employer and staffed with company employees. External EAPs are separate companies contracted to provide EAP services. External EAPs may have on-site representatives, but these are not employees of the company (Bray et al., 2010). According to a 2004 study, 64.6% of organizations with 50 or more employees had at least one full- or part-time staff person responsible for health promotion and work site wellness. Smaller companies were less likely or able to offer any sort of job-based health promotion (Linnan et al., 2008). EAPs are not required by federal legislation, but they are state licensed and must abide by related federal legislation and comply with state standards and expectations.

Because EAPs are not mandated by law, the decision to implement them is at the discretion of the employer. However, economic self-interest has been a powerful motivator for midsize and large companies and organizations. Increased productivity, lower absence rates, greater job satisfaction, lower employee turnover, and a reduction in health insurance claims all argue for a strong EAP program. EAPs re�lect a company’s investment in its employees, and those companies with EAPs tend to be satis�ied with their outcomes (Psychological Health Associates, 2011).

Drug-Free Workplace Policies

Policies and programs also exist to help employees with substance abuse problems. In response to increased drug use in the 1980s, U.S. president Ronald Reagan signed an executive order that established the federal government as a drug-free workplace. The order stated that federal employees were expected to adhere to the policy regardless of whether or not they were on duty (Federal Register, 1986). This 1986 order was followed by the Drug-Free Workplace Law of 1988, which requires federal contractors to actively promote a drug-free workplace through policies that prohibit the unlawful manufacture, distribution, possession, or use of illegal drugs on the job. It also requires them to have a substance abuse prevention policy in place. If the federal contractor does not comply with the terms of the law, the organization becomes subject to various penalties and sanctions, including frozen payments for the contract or grant and the termination or suspension of the agreement. Federal contractors who violate the law may also be prohibited from receiving further contracts or grants for a speci�ied period.

Additional legislation intended to curb drug use in the workplace includes the 1991 Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act, which requires employees in speci�ic safety-sensitive transportation-related jobs, such as air travel, trucking, railroad, and mass transit, to be drug and alcohol tested. Currently, nearly half (about 46%) of workers are required by their employers to submit to drug testing. On the whole, drug testing has been shown in numerous studies to lower illegal drug use, but some critics question the cost, which runs $10 to $30 per test and adds up to more than $6 billion per year (Carpenter, 2007). Civil libertarians and some unions have also objected to the use of drug testing in the workplace, deeming them an unnecessary intrusion into employees’ privacy, inaccurate, and unproven as a tool to stop employee drug abuse (American Civil Liberties Union, 2014). These concerns have not stopped widespread drug testing, however.

In addition to these federal laws, OSHA provides employers with recommendations for substance abuse prevention programs, including the Drug-Free Workplace Policy, a voluntary policy for workplaces not covered by the Drug-Free Workplace Law. Many employers, including government agencies, nonpro�it organizations, and for-pro�it companies, base their own policies on the Drug-Free Workplace Policy.

Several states, including Alabama and Florida, have enacted their own drug-free workplace policies, as have colleges and universities throughout the nation. The Drug-Free Workplace Law now serves as the basic foundation by which companies de�ine prohibited behaviors and their consequences—even among those not legally required to adopt drug- free workplace policies. Training is an important complement to these policies, especially workshops and seminars that ensure supervisors know how to enforce the policy without violating the law.

Contemporary drug-free workplace policies and laws exist within a context far different from the “War on Drugs” that dominated the 1980s and 1990s. Efforts to legalize marijuana have gained much traction over the past 15 years. According to Gallup polls, in 1969 just 12% of adult Americans favored legalizing marijuana. By 1977 this number had increased to 28%, decreased slightly in the 1980s and the 1990s, and rose to 31% in 2001. Each year of the 21st century brought signi�icant increases in public support for marijuana legalization; as of 2013, 58% of the public favored legalization, a sizable majority (Swift, 2013).

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Courtesy of Christine Porath.

Courtesy of Christine Pearson, Ph.D.

By 2014, 20 states and the District of Columbia had legalized the medical use of marijuana, and Colorado and Washington became the �irst states to pass laws making it legal to use marijuana recreationally (Lyman, 2014). Research into the impact of marijuana legalization on the workplace is only beginning, however. Those states that have legalized marijuana will no doubt become test laboratories on the subject for years to come, with states considering marijuana decriminalization and legalization bills watching closely to determine impacts on the workplace.

In addition to local factors like sexual harassment, bullying, addiction, and mental illness, global forces can also cause stress and con�lict in the workplace. In the next chapter, we expand our idea of the workplace as we look at how globalization impacts contemporary workers. Indeed, in the modern world employees not only have to get along with the person in the next cubicle, they may also need to communicate effectively and work as a team with people from all around the world.

Spotlight on Workplace Research: “The Price of Incivility” by Christine Porath and Christine Pearson

Researchers Christine Porath (Georgetown University) and Christine Pearson (Thunderbird School of Global Management) have taken aim at rampant incivility in the workplace—not only because incivility is unpleasant, but because its cost to businesses is enormous. Over the past 16 years, the two have studied thousands of workers and the effects of incivility. Almost all workers they interviewed say they have been treated in an uncivil way in the workplace at some point. In 2011, half of those interviewed said they were treated rudely in just the previous week—a 25% increase since 1998.

Pearson and Porath’s top-selling book, The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It (2009), presents their research on incivility and its costs. In a 2013 article in the Harvard Business Review, they explain how workplace incivility creates unanticipated expenses:

Nearly everybody who experiences workplace incivility responds in a negative way, in some cases overtly retaliating. Employees are less creative when they feel disrespected, and many get fed up and leave. About half deliberately decrease their effort or lower the quality of their work. And incivility damages customer relationships. Our research shows that people are less likely to buy from a company with an employee they perceive as rude, whether the rudeness is directed at them or at other employees. Witnessing just a single unpleasant interaction leads customers to generalize about other employees, the organization, and even the brand. (Porath & Pearson, 2013, para. 2)

The workers Porath and Pearson (2013) studied responded to rudeness at work in the following ways:

48% intentionally decreased their work effort. 47% spent less time at work. 38% deliberately lowered the quality of their work. 80% lost work time worrying about the incident. 63% lost work time avoiding the offender. 66% said that their performance declined. 78% said that their commitment to the organization declined. 12% said that they left their job because of the uncivil treatment. 25% admitted to taking their frustration out on customers. (para 11)

Porath and Pearson (2013) also cite additional research conducted by the accounting �irm Accountemps that indicates that managers and executives spend 13% of their time (7 weeks per year) dealing with the fallout from incivility. Even at Cisco, a company with a reputation as a consistently positive place to work, an internal study turned up a $12 million annual price tag for incivility (Porath & Pearson, 2013).

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To change uncivil workplace cultures, Porath and Pearson provide trainings in which they recommend that managers write personal appreciation notes, ask for feedback on their leadership style, refrain from checking phones and answering e-mail during meetings, avoid gossiping about coworkers, carefully prepare when offering criticism, and avoid making rude remarks. After taking part in one of their trainings and having seen his own facial expressions, language, posture, and tone of voice on instant replay, a CEO of a medical �irm told Porath and Pearson, “I didn’t realize what a jerk I sounded like” (as cited in Porath & Pearson, 2013). Another executive learned what his employees already knew—when he loses interest in a conversation, he looks away. Both men changed their behaviors and became more effective managers, making their employees happier and more productive—and demonstrating what can happen when incivility research is applied in the business world.

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Summary and Resources

Summary Workplace stress has increased in recent decades due to factors including decreased autonomy on the job, organizational change, and fear of layoffs, even as bullying and sexual harassment have received increased attention. Although con�lict in the workplace is expected and in some cases even desired, workplace bullying crosses a line of acceptability, resulting in low morale and reduced productivity. Increasing numbers of employers have removed toxic leaders who terrorize employees for pleasure and to advance their own careers. Substance abuse costs $120 billion in losses to the economy each year and severely impacts workers and their families. If untreated, mental illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder can signi�icantly disrupt the workplace. Organizational policies and employee assistance programs are designed to help address substance abuse, mental illness, and stress in the workplace.

Case Study: Divide and Rule—Bullying in the Workplace

Bullying in the workplace has received much attention in recent years. But responding to bullies at work is far more complicated than simply applying a set of recommended action steps. Context is needed. Read the following case study with a view toward applying the principles presented in the chapter to a real-life situation.

Eric is an accounting supervisor with a medium sized service based organization. During his �irst two years with the organization things proceeded quite well. He had 15 years of accounting experience and was able to meet his responsibilities quite successvfully. He received good performance evaluations and enjoyed his job. Six months ago Eric began to report to a new manager, Kim, at which point everything changed for the worse. Kim was very controlling and seemed to believe that management by intimidation was the best way to motivate employees. Kim was critical with all of her staff but paid particular attention to Eric. She was constantly �inding fault with Eric’s work and no matter how hard he tried, she was never satis�ied with his work.

After a couple of months Kim became more aggressive with Eric. She started yelling at him several times a day for seemingly trivial issues. She called him stupid and incompetent and made these statements in front of Eric’s co-workers and his subordinates. Sometimes she got so angry that she banged her �ists on her desk and would spit on Eric while she spoke. Eric’s �irst performance evaluation with Kim put him at the bottom of the scale, which meant he was not entitled to a bonus for the �irst time since joining the company. She then placed him on a performance plan and required him to report the status of his work four times per day. Eric overheard Kim telling two members of his staff that she thought he was stupid and incompetent and that she planned to �ire him. He felt humiliated and diminished in the eyes of his staff. During staff meetings, Kim encouraged input from other employees but whenever Eric made a suggestion she ignored him, rolled her eyes or dismissed his suggestion in a patronizing and sarcastic manner.

Eric was frustrated by this behavior, which seemed to go unnoticed by senior management. Kim was quite charming and personable when dealing with her superiors who viewed her as an effective, assertive manager. The stress of working for Kim took its toll on Eric. He began experiencing headaches and back pain. He couldn’t concentrate, his self-esteem plummeted and he became clinically depressed. His doctor prescribed medication and recommended that Eric quit his job. Eric requested that his hours be reduced and that his workload be modi�ied to help him cope with the effects of his depression. For the �irst three days Kim complied with this request but then became impatient and said she would not give out “special favours to an incompetent employee.” Eric applied for a transfer within the company but was told that his performance

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had to improve before he could be transferred. Eric believed that as long as Kim was his manager, she would never consider his work satisfactory.

Think About It:

1. The case study notes that Kim’s behavior “seemed to go unnoticed by senior management.” Why do you think that might be the case?

2. What impact do you think Kim’s bullying has on the job satisfaction and stress levels of other workers in the accounting �irm? Why?

3. What do you think (a) Eric, (b) Eric’s coworkers, and (c) senior management should have done in response to Kim’s bullying?

Source: Bernardi, L. M. (n.d.). Bullying in the workplace. Bernardi Human Resource Law. Retrieved from http://www.hrlawyers.ca/pdf/employment_law/bullying_in_the_workplace.pdf (http://www.hrlawyers.ca/pdf/employment_law/bullying_in_the_workplace.pdf)

Discussion Questions 1. Think of a time that you exerted emotional labor at work. Why was it necessary for you to do so? What type of

jobs do you think require the most emotional labor? Why? 2. Name the four categories of workplace violence. Which occupations face the most workplace violence? Why? 3. What are some of the tactics used by workplace bullies? How can a victim best respond? Have you ever been in

such a situation in the workplace? What did you do? What do you wish you had done? 4. How might you identify a colleague with a substance abuse problem? Would you seek help? For yourself? For

your colleague? How? 5. How does stigmatization and self-stigmatization make an employee with a mental illness less productive? 6. Describe three social issues in the workplace best addressed by employee assistance programs and three best

addressed by other means.

Additional Resources American Psychological Association’s tips for handling stress in the workplace http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/work-stress.aspx (http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/work-stress.aspx)

Psych Central workplace bullying quiz http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/workplace.htm (http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/workplace.htm)

Interview with job coach Christine Scivicque on how to handle a workplace bully https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yok8sy6cec&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=2yok8sy6cec&feature=youtu.be)

This American Life episode “I Was So High” (2014) about illegal drug use at work http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/524/i-was-so-high (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/524/i-was-so-high)

A high school student’s �ight against the global stigma of mental illness and her atlas of stigma http://www.scienceleadership.org/blog/the_stigma_of_mental_illness_post-2 (http://www.scienceleadership.org/blog/the_stigma_of_mental_illness_post-2)

The pros and cons of mandatory drug testing http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-pre-employment-drug-testing-be-mandatory (http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-pre-employment-drug-testing-be-mandatory)

Key Terms

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abusive work environment

deep acting

Drug-Free Workplace Law of 1988

Drug-Free Workplace Policy

emotional labor

employee assistance programs (EAPs)

interpersonal issues

intrapersonal issues

1991 Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act

policies

stigmatization

substance abuse

surface acting

workplace autonomy

workplace stress