What toxic workplace behaviour costs New Zealand organisations
The most expensive sentence in an organisation may be the one nobody says.
Imagine a steering group about to approve a launch date. A project analyst has spotted that the supplier cannot start testing until the contract is signed. Twice before, the project director has mocked her in front of the group for raising delivery risks. Last time, he asked whether she planned to bring a problem to every meeting.
This time, she leaves the warning in her notebook.
The meeting finishes on time. Everyone appears aligned. The minutes record a productive discussion.
An impressive result, considering how little discussion survived.
Three weeks later, the supplier confirms the testing window has gone. Before approving the date, the group could have negotiated a later launch or agreed a smaller first release. Now the date has been announced to customers. The team pays for expedited testing and delays work on another project to free up staff.
The missed warning is easy to identify after the event. The opportunities lost when people learn to keep quiet are harder to count. How do you record a service improvement nobody proposes, or a decision nobody asks you to reconsider?
When silence looks like agreement
Repeated public put-downs, deliberate exclusion and withholding information can make people think twice about raising a concern. When behaviour directed at a worker or group is repeated, unreasonable and capable of causing harm, it can amount to workplace bullying. A manager who sets clear expectations and gives difficult feedback fairly is doing their job. So is the analyst who questions a date the director wants approved.
When someone is repeatedly humiliated for doing that job, colleagues learn from it too. The next time the director asks whether anyone has concerns, they remember what happened to the last person who answered.
Meanwhile, the director may be charming upwards and punishing downwards, which makes the view from the executive floor remarkably reassuring.
When everyone knows everyone
In some New Zealand industries, today’s manager can become tomorrow’s referee, client or selection panellist. “Everyone knows everyone” sounds friendly until you need to raise a concern about someone well connected. Even if you leave, you may have to work with the same people again. An independent reporting route matters more when the people who receive complaints also influence who gets the next opportunity.
Informality can disguise differences in power. A leader can be approachable over coffee and impossible to challenge in a meeting. And when being “easy to work with” starts to mean agreeing with the person in charge, the employee who points out the problem can become the one requiring management.
The tall-poppy habit can give repeated put-downs a respectable cover. Watch what happens when the same person offers a better idea or asks a question the room would rather skip. “Don’t get above yourself” is a poor talent strategy.
WorkSafe’s 2021 survey of 3,612 workers found that 23% reported exposure to bullying in the previous year. Among Māori workers surveyed, 28% reported exposure. The small professional circles and informal hierarchies are patterns I’d look for in individual workplaces. The difference in reported exposure also gives leaders a practical question to ask Māori staff and their representatives through channels they trust. When people raise a concern, who hears it, and what happens next?
Make speaking useful again
Start with what happens in front of you. When a senior colleague ridicules someone who raises a risk, stop the remark and give the person the floor again. Follow up privately and look for a pattern. Where concerns warrant formal assessment, arrange an impartial process, give the person facing the allegations a fair opportunity to respond, and check for retaliation while the matter is being handled and afterwards.
Give people somewhere credible to go when the person they’re concerned about controls their work or prospects. Depending on the organisation, that could mean another senior leader, a designated board contact for concerns about the chief executive, or an external reporting channel. Make clear who will receive the concern, how conflicts will be handled and when the person can expect an update.
Boards can test the process with one question. If the concern involved our highest performer, who would hear it, who could act, and how would we know the person who raised it was protected? The answer should still work if that performer brings in the biggest client. That is precisely when an organisation finds out how much it means what it says about conduct.
Look at what staff say about raising concerns alongside repeated complaints, transfers and departures. A low complaint count can mean people are having a good experience. It can also mean they have assessed the process and declined the invitation. Ask whether staff can disagree with a senior leader without losing work, access or opportunities. Then follow up on the answer.
Back in the steering group, imagine the chair responding differently the first time the director mocks the analyst.
“Let her finish. We’re about to approve a date and she’s telling us what it depends on.”
The chair asks the team to confirm the supplier’s testing window before committing to the launch. The minutes record who will check it and when the group will decide. The chair follows up on the director’s conduct outside the meeting.
The group still has a difficult decision to make. It now has time to make it, and everyone in the room has seen what happens when someone raises a concern the project director would have preferred to pass over.
The next good idea may already be on the payroll. Give it a reason to enter the room.
Sources
WorkSafe New Zealand, New Zealand Psychosocial Survey
WorkSafe New Zealand, Preventing and responding to bullying at work
