Question

Answer: 1. Describe a time you witnessed or experienced incivility at work. How did the experience impact you? 2. How could you make yourself more resilient to respond to incivility at work? 3. Discuss the reasons why it is important for employers to address incivility at work and propose best practices for addressing incivility.

Answer 1

1.Workplace incivility can be defined as deviant workplace behavior of low intensity that can include such behaviors as being rude, discourteous, impolite, or violating workplace norms of behavior. People engaging in uncivil behavior may not necessarily have bad or harmful intent. I faced workplace incivility whwn one of my coworkers who was assigned the duty to train me, becanme very rude and demanding in terms of targets and completion of projects. He gave me unrealistic deadlines and gave very little training and insulted me by being rude and mocking me for not completing the project on time in front of other employees. I stayed calm and handled the situtaion in a cool way, Firstly I was very polite to him and told him that deadline is unrealistic and I need more time in completion of project. Even when he did not change his behavior I reported the matter to our boss and things were solved. This incideent impacted me in a negative way as it affected my performance , my mental health, I felt dejected and isolated but then I regained my confidence and fought with the situation. Overall it impacted my productivity and efficiency.

2. Workplace Incivilty can be handled in the following ways:

• Making positive relationships: Positive relationships are built on a foundation of trust, empowerment, engagement, and fun or play. Positive relationships increase productivity and efficiency at work.
• Focus on cognitive growth: When you face negative work environment try to be calm and compose. The most important aspect is balancing your energy. Try to indulge in some activity or learning new skill after the working hours as it will induce positive energy in you and help you to fight with the workplace related stress.
• Taking help from Human Resources: HR is one of the most important departnment of organization. It is the duty of HR to listen to employee grievances and problems and solve them, If the situation become out of control then it is better to reoport matter to HR and seek their advice and help.
• Connect to the meaning. Developing more meaning at work is closely tied to these three behaviors: prioritizing trust and respect (hard to do when incivility exists); incorporating more autonomy (feeling empowered and having a sense of control over your time and work choices); and having a clear idea of how the organization functions and your place in it. Organizations need to prioritize meaning in the same way they prioritize the bottom line.
• Working with mentor Make someone as your mentor who has been in the organization for a long time , who cam guide you about how to survive in toxic work culture, how to handle difficult boss and colleagues, how to handle work related stress.

3. It is very important for employers to address incivility at work. If an employee or boss shows incivility by being rude , speaking wrong words then it spoils the culture of organization and affect the productivity of other employees. It creates chaos and confusion and make the workplace toixc and obviously the work is going to suffer in such a situation.

Handling Incivilty as a leader:

• Asking employees how they are doing ,listen Taking care of employees help in solving the situation. Asking them how they are feeling and asking them if they are facing any problems.
• Practice conflict resolution. When issues arise, use your conflict resolution skills to address them. If you haven’t already, take conflict resolution skills training; people need to have confidence in your ability to resolve conflicts effectively.
• Training team members to resolve conflicy by themselves As a leader you can guide the team members to solve issues among themselvesby cooperation and mutual understanding. Still if the problem persists then they can talk to the leader.

Handling Incivilty as an Employee:

• Talk to your leaders. They are the ones making the decisions, and they can’t know what they are never told about. When leaders aren’t told about incivility, they live and make assumptions in an information vacuum.
• Learn how to speak to power When you face adverse situations learn to speak up to powerful people by using appropriate words and phrases. Show your leaders that you trust them and have confidence in them in solving your problems.
• Be aware of your own influence among your peers. As a human being, the things you don’t say, the things you do say and the way you say them impact the people around you. You need to be civil when you respond to incivility. Respond incivility in a courteous and polite manner. Do not yourself be rude when responding to incivilty. Set an example yourself.