Stop Veterinary Intraoffice Bickering and Psychological Health and Safety In the Workplace

Intraoffice bickering and workplace incivility in the veterinary space take an exhausting toll on all of us.  Create civility and psychologically healthy standards for your veterinary office to end the emotional, physical, and monetary cost of this pervasive workplace phenomenon.

The Cost of Workplace Bickering and Incivility

Christine Porath, Associate Professor of Management at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, conducted a poll of 800 managers and employees in 17 industries.  Her work showed that of the employees that fell victim to workplace incivility:

• 48% intentionally decreased their work effort.
• 47% intentionally decreased the time spent at work.
• 38% intentionally decreased 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.

Profile of a Veterinary Practice Primed For Fighting

Veterinary practices where intraoffice fighting is more pervasive share some common characteristics.  These are:

• Job demands regularly exceed the the workers’ emotional, physical abilities to keep up.
• The case load regularly exceeds the workers’ skill levels.
• Workers are regularly left out of the decision making processes.  They do not feel that they have ‘a say’ in how things should operate.
• Rewards, praise, recognition are regularly withheld either intentionally or unintentionally.
• A sense that decisions are made without due process and consideration to the needs of the employees, their safety, their wellbeing, and their ability to succeed.
• Employees don’t have a sense of belonging to the organization because there is no sense that management ‘has their back’.
• Employees don’t have a chance to succeed or ‘win’ at their jobs because of the breadth of the caseload, the complexity of the case load, a lack of training, a lack of staffing, or other factors that are often commonplace in veterinary hospitals.

What to Do

The U.S. CDC acknowledges the importance of workplace psychological health and safety and lists resources for employers, but the Canadian government has released a much comprehensive standard that’s available for free download called Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace-prevention, promotion, and guidance to staged implementation.

The standard outlines a five step process by which businesses can improve the psychological safety and wellbeing of their employees. The steps are:

• Plan: Outline a vision of what you want for your business’s culture and the employee behavior that you would like to be a regular part of your operations.
• Train: Get the training your leaders need to roll out and maintain a psychologically healthy workplace.
• Implement:  Using the Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace as a resource, implement the plan that your leadership (and hopefully your team) has devised.
• Measure:  Measure the results of your efforts.  Look for increased signs of employee engagement, a decrease in bickering, and an increase in productivity as signs that your efforts are having a positive impact on your culture and your team.
• Correct:  Adjust your plan and your management practices according to the feedback you receive from your team and your analytics.

Practices That Support a Psychologically Healthy Workplace and That Decrease Bickering

• Create a written commitment to a strong culture. Define what it means and why it is important.
• Create a written civility guide for your practice that outlines clear expectations for behavior between employees.
• Train management to effectively demonstrate empathy to employees that are experiencing psychological stress that’s related to the workplace or other employees.
• Review the operations and caseload of your practice and ensure that it is
  • Doable,
  • Allows for balance,
  • and Safe.
• Push employees enough to keep them engaged and growing without being overwhelming.
• Visibly reward and praise employees for their achievements.
• Involve employees in the decisions that affect their psychological and physical safety at work.
• Ensure a safe work environment.
• Insist that employees are responsible for their own physical and mental health by trying to check their own bad behavior and abstaining from habits like drinking or drug taking that thwart one’s ability to behave in a civil manner.
• Create an environment where it is safe for employees to share their feelings with one another and with their employers.
• Schedule employees so that they have adequate time to rest, eat, and participate in activities outside of work.
• Hire for civility, a history of positive workplace behavior, and emotional intelligence.
• Promptly address interpersonal conflict and acts of incivility and ensure that you follow through with consequence for the behavior if it persists.
• Conduct exit interviews.

Hiring For Civility

Before Halow Consulting spends time physically talking with perspective candidates for employment, we send them a survey that, among other things, evaluates the candidate’s understanding and appreciation of workplace civility. Our questions ask for a brief essay responses. Please reach out to Bash with questions on how to create one of these online surveys. Christine Porath, writing for the Harvard Business Review, recommends using these questions when interviewing potential candidates.

“

• What would your former employer say about you — positive and negative?
• What would your former subordinates say about you — positive and negative?
• What about yourself would you like to improve most? How about a second thing? A third?
• Tell me about a time when you’ve had to deal with stress or conflict at work. What did you do?
• What are some signals that you’re under too much stress?
• When have you failed? Describe the circumstances and how you dealt with and learned from the experience.
• What are some examples of your ability to manage and supervise others? When have you done this well?
• What kind of people do you find it most difficult to work with? Tell me about a time when you’ve found it difficult to work with someone. How did you handle it?

She also recommends looking for these behaviors

• Did the candidate arrive promptly for the interview?
• Does the candidate speak negatively of former employers or others?
• Does the candidate take responsibility for behaviors, results, and outcomes, or do they blame others?”

Christine Porath, Harvard Business Review, February 6th, 2016

Coaching Employees Embroiled in Interpersonal Conflict

Employees may need to work through their conflict with another employee by talking with a leader of the practice. In such cases, it’s important that the leader demonstrate empathy, but refrains from taking sides.  Other tips include:

• Allow employees to talk through their situation, but call their attention to bad psychological habits like always blaming others and all-or-nothing thinking.
• Set boundaries for the amount of time employees can spend talking through their interpersonal issues.
• Hold employees accountable for taking responsibility for their own happiness whenever possible.
• Underline how intraoffice fighting lowers everyone’s happiness and productivity.

Other Things Leaders Can Do To Limit Intraoffice Bickering and Improve Workplace Civility

Leaders can dramatically influence their workplace’s psychological health by:

• Modeling good behavior;
• Asking for feedback from sources outside the veterinary practice;
• Seeking out psychological help for problematic behavioral patterns.

Resources

Canadian Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace

CDC’s Mental Health in the Workplace

The Price of Incivility, Harvard Business Review

Christine Porath

Should My Company Hire An Onsite Therapist? Forbes