The "disgruntled" employee?
The emergence and expression of counterproductive work behaviors
Imagine that you’re sitting in on a lecture together with your coworkers. It’s a staff day and it is time to listen to an invited speaker who will talk about stress in the workplace. You’re in the middle of the audience, preparing to sit through a one-hour talk. How would you feel?
If you’re currently feeling happy about things—you’re on good terms with your coworkers, you feel like you are on top of what you need to do, and you don’t have to worry too much over making your upcoming deadlines—you might be able to relax and enjoy the situation. You may even feel grateful for the opportunity to learn more about how to manage stress. If you, on the other hand, are feeling stressed out of your mind, worried about 3-4 different tasks that you will not have the time to complete due to attending the staff day, and recently were in a series of conflicts with your fellow colleagues about said tasks, you might almost feel provoked by the message, and annoyed by having to sit through a lecture all the while things are falling apart. You’re starting to feel like it’s all talk and no action when it comes to stress management in your organization, and it puts you in a bad mood for the day.
Perhaps people with both these types of reactions (and most likely a whole lot in between) are sitting in the audience at the same time, listening to the same person speak, but experiencing two completely different talks.
How you perceive such a situation depends on a great deal of factors (many more than just the lecture itself). In stress theory, there is a large emphasis on appraisals; how individuals interpret, assess, and make sense of the situations they face on a day-to-day basis. How we appraise things often relates to how we end up feeling about them. Our feelings are in turn largely related to our behavior. So, when we are trying to understand why people engage in different types of behaviors, it helps to see it as an interaction between the environment the person is in, the demands they are facing, and how they cognitively process the situation.
Ideally, our behavior at work results in a productive and healthy workplace. But sometimes we have to address the other side of that coin, the counterproductive work behaviors.
What are counterproductive work behaviors?
Counterproductive work behaviors are acts that harm either the organization, or individuals in the organization, and they can be expressed in many different ways. They could be minor things, such as taking stationery supplies home without permission or having a slightly longer break than allowed. Or, more severe things, like sabotaging company property or verbally abusing a coworker or client. These acts are characteristically volitional, meaning that there is some degree of intention behind the harm. Mistakes or errors are not classified as counterproductive work behaviors, even if they too may have harmful consequences. To be more specific, counterproductive work behaviors have been typologized into a few different categories:
Production deviance - this may include taking longer breaks than allowed, leaving work early, or simply not doing what you are supposed to do during the workday
Property deviance - this could be theft, sabotage, or illicit use of the organization’s resources
Political deviance - expressions of nepotism and favoritism, spreading of rumors or gossip
Personal deviance - behaviors directed at other members of the organization or clients, such as harassment, incivility, abuse, and even bullying
Nowadays, it is common to differentiate the type of counterproductive work behaviors depending on the target of the behavior, resulting in harm for either the organization (CWB-O), or the individual (CWB-I). But why do people engage in counterproductive behavior? And how is it connected to stress?
What causes counterproductive behavior at work?
In 2005, two researchers from the United States proposed a model that intended to explain why individuals engage in counterproductive behaviors at work. This was the birth of the stressor-emotion model of counterproductive work behaviors. The model postulates that environmental stressors, which are factors or stimuli that cause stress in individuals, could result in negative emotions, which in turn increases the risk of counterproductive behavior. Simply put: When people are stressed and feel like they do not have sufficient resources to deal with the demands that they are facing, feelings of frustration, anger, or hopelessness emerge. Anger and frustration can make people lash out against the organization, or a poor coworker who is unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire.
When considering this model, it is clear that harm is not just stemming from a “bad seed”, but that there are environmental risks at play. In fact, when researchers have investigated some of the most prominent predictors of counterproductive work behaviors, the strongest risk factor for engaging in counterproductive behaviors was having experienced abusive supervision, or aggression from one’s supervisor. This was closely followed by organizational risk factors, such as experiencing overly bureaucratic constraints, an aggressive climate in the organization, or a breach of the psychological contract between organization and employee. As you may recall in a previous post on toxic leadership, bad behavior can trickle downward in an organization, ultimately leading to more destructive acts. Seemingly, these acts are not only directed at other coworkers, but also the organization itself.
How can we counter the counterproductive?
Most counterproductive work behaviors are typically not very severe, but they do occur and they do have consequences. Since part of it seems to stem from a frustration or hostility towards the organization itself, it can be good to try to understand what the employee is reacting against. Are there particular issues causing them to lash out that can be resolved, or are there ways to mitigate stress in the immediate environment? If the stressor-emotion model holds, then addressing stress, frustration or negative emotions directed at the organization, could be one possible solution.
But then again, some people might just be in it for the drama. In an article that surveyed counterproductive work behavior against organizations from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution until today, the authors describe the concept of “workplace divas”. Specifically, employees who have the same dramatic larger-than-life and self-centered attitude usually connected with some Hollywood stars. Next, the authors exemplify this by describing diva professors present in many academic departments, that contribute very little yet boast incredible amounts about their status and publication records, while stirring conflict and demanding special treatment despite being less productive than their peers.
Considering the academic context, I can’t help but wonder whether the authors had a particular person in mind when writing such an explicit description. But hey, I shall not engage in spreading rumors or gossip, since that would be very counterproductive of me. Instead, this particular workplace diva has other, more productive, work to do (and don’t worry, I promise it’s not a lecture on stress management).
