According to the article “Clear Expectations Can Prevent Incivility, Experts Say” on SHrM, “Research shows that rudeness and incivility in the workplace—the type of behavior that doesn’t quite reach the level of bullying or harassment—creates a wide range of spillover effects. Training, clear expectations and accountability can help.”

The authors of the recent research, Christine Porath and Christine Pearson, of the University of Southern California and the Thunderbird School of Global Management, respectively, note that “the cost of employee incivility can be measured by analyzing turnover and commitment rates, productivity levels, and the estimated number of work hours lost because of negative interactions.”

The article goes on to define “incivility” in the workplace, which ranges from talking down to people to excluding people from meetings, and stresses the importance of employee training. A great way to ensure employees are informed of the organization’s policies and procedures regarding incivility in the workplace is to create an employee handbook. An employee handbook details the company’s policies and procedures surrounding the manner in which managers and subordinates alike are supposed to treat each other. Another way to foster a culture that promotes civility within the workplace is to provide training on topics ranging from conflict management to fair and equal management practices.

Though the research mentioned above has only recently been published by the distinguished scholars, the theories they have successfully helped to measure and quantify have certainly been observed in the past. Organizations have provided employee handbooks and traditional classroom training surrounding code of conduct for many years now. However, with the advent of new technology, there are new ways to combat “toxic” behavior in the workplace. Take our new product, Learning @…, for example. Learning @… is an online learning portal that combines great features such as the traditional employee handbook and training programs, but puts them into an interactive web application that employees can access any time they have an internet connection (and lets face it, that’s pretty much all the time).

So for all the managers out there, make sure to properly train and inform all of your employees about the dangers of incivility in the workplace, no matter what tools you use to do it. Step up, be a leader, and help make your company a success!

I just read a great article on the SHrM website that discusses the need to engage employees in career development conversations, especially in these troubled economic times. Please take a look at the full article here: http://shrm.org/hrdisciplines/orgempdev/articles/pages/careerconversationtips.aspx

The author of the article, Caela Farren, Ph.D., states the following reasons why career conversations are still important: “We are living in tumultuous economic times. Job loss, corporate restructure, and worrisome finances are taking a toll on career plans. Strategies and tactics continue to change rapidly in organizations, which affects career options directly. The workforce is far more diverse—multicultural, multigenerational, global, technically diverse.”

This is a very poignant and acute assessment, but it does not account for another scenario. Eventually the economy is going to begin roaring full steam ahead and break our of the doldrums that have thus far slowed it for the past two years. We are already beginning to see signs that some of the new economic policies enacted by the Obama administration are pointing us in the right direction. (This is certainly an arguable point, but I’m inclined to be a hopeful optimist!). With this in mind, it is important to have your employees on a viable and rewarding career track so that when the economic landscape corrects itself, employees do not jump ship from what they believe to be a dead end job.

Now is the time to have serious career conversations with your employees and create personal development plans that will provide goals for employees to work toward. Keeping your organization’s talent on board when the economy is back in full swing will help you to meet future business demands.

Post personal development plan information on a bulletin board (or on your Learning @… web application – hint, hint ) and help your dedicated employees succeed. Trust me, it will benefit your organization greatly!

There have been two recent articles in the news regarding employees use of social media in the work place. The first was posted on techcrunch.com and mashable.com and claims that 8% of the companies polled by ProofPoint, an internet security firm, have fired an employee due to their misuse of some of the most popular social networking sites, such as: Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Plurk, etc. (read the article here: mashable). The other was posted on the Society for Human Resources Management (SHrM) website, and was titled: Twitter with Care: Web 2.0 Usage Offers Few Second Chances. Similarly, the author notes that misuse of these popular sites can land employees in the proverbial hot water with their organizations (read the article here: SHrM).

Now some people may think that the appropriate course of action is to go home and erase every social media account they own. This might be a tad drastic. The lesson to be learned from these articles is to use social media, but make sure you do so in a responsible way. As organizations catch up with the rest of the world, regarding social media, they will surely become savvier at detecting your activities in the digital world. So the next time you decide to rip your boss a new one via your Facebook status, take a step back and think to yourself, “Is there any chance that he/she will see this?” There is a good shot that the answer is, YES!

For all the HR managers out there, it might be a good idea to make a clear statement in the company’s employee handbook that outlines the organization’s policies and attitude toward social media. Including social media as an aspect of the company’s policies and procedures should make employees think twice about posting inappropriate material.

This week, Aspen Organization Development Consulting launched its new cost-effective employee-learning web application, Learning @…

Combining technology, training, and communication, Learning @… is a customizable online learning portal that gives employees access to vital company information and learning tools in one powerful web application – and all at a fraction of the cost of traditional training and development methods.

With Learning @… companies can easily deliver key messages from senior management or the Human Resources department, inform employees of company policies and procedures, post information on learning events and seminars, provide employee performance information, host online training courses, and much more.

Learning @… is available in 3 flexible plans: Express, Professional,
and Executive.

For more information, please visit www.learning-at.com.