The Bully-Free Workplace: Stop Jerks, Weasels, and Snakes From Killing Your Organization

Step 8: Optimize Accountability

True culture change requires the indoctrination of the antibullying spirit in every aspect of workplace life.

Integration with Performance Evaluations

If the desirable conduct is important to you and your organization, then you absolutely have to measure it. You can catch unacceptable conduct by using the appraisal system. Add the dimension of managing without resorting to abusive conduct as a metric that contributes to the determination of bonuses, pay raises, or the ability to be promoted. For good measure, ask nonsupervisory employees to evaluate their supervisors' and managers' conduct regarding respectful treatment of others, regardless of rank.

New Hiring Strategies

As discussed before, searching for ambitious managers can lead to a staff full of bullies. Start inquiring about how well applicants managed others by gathering opinions from the people they managed. Making reference checking a bosses-only tradition means that you're talking to the probable sponsor of an aggressor who admired her or his style. Managers have customers of their management services; they are called subordinates, and they can verify the person's level of managerial skill. We suggest you reference check subordinate staff at the employer's workplace prior to the one at which he or she now works. Those staff members will speak most honestly and freely.

The more expert at the work the manager is, the less likely he or she is to use bullying as a cover for the lack of knowledge ...