On both a personal and professional level, revenge can get the best of everyone sometimes. As employer, watching out for revenge driven activities in your workplace is crucial to creating a non-hostile work environment. There are many ways that employees go about getting revenge on someone else, some more conventional than others.
Sabotage
Sabotage is a common way employees get revenge on others. If there have been disagreements in your department between co-workers you’ll need to watch out for this one. Sabotage can be dangerous and can escalate quickly. Co-workers can go as far as ruining someone else’s notes to destroying or deleting their files. Sabotage is bad for morale within your company, but if not properly managed it creates the illusion that this type of behaviour is tolerated.
The Rumor Mill
Sure, there is always office gossip but using the rumor mill against someone purposefully is not the same. If there have been issues between co-workers and one is now suddenly a hot topic in the rumor mill, do some digging. Offer confidentiality to any one that comes forward to name the source and put an end to the rumor mill once and for all. Rumors can be damaging to your employees mental health and professional reputations.
Unconventional Quitting
Revenge can also directly affect you as an employer. Some employees quit in unconventional ways when put on the spot about issues with their performance, billables, reliability, etc. These unconventional ways include quitting without giving the required amount of notice, and not showing up for work anymore without giving notice at all. Both of these situations leave you and your employees shorthanded and scrambling so be aware that this can happen in some situations.
Hiding
Some employees may choose hiding as their revenge tactic. Hiding can include hiding their office supplies, personal photos or achievements, lunch, or important work documents. If you have an employee who begins down this road, it will leave all of your other employees on their edge of their seats in a bad way. If someone’s items are always going missing it will create panic in the workplace and have everyone distracted by protecting their items under lock and key.
Scheming
Unfortunately, scheming happens regularly in companies in all different industries and often becomes a group activity. Productive work environments are fueled by employees working together in low stress, positive environments. Scheming can quickly take a low stress environment and turn it into a hostile work environment that your employees dread coming to. Scheming also creates an element of distrust which is counterproductive to employee retention.
Stealing
The adult equivalent of stealing someone’s lunch money is stealing their lunch or possessions. If employees are in a state of conflict, stealing their items seems like an easy way to get back at them. This will give the illusion that your company is an unsafe place to work, and the element of distrust will spread like wildfire through your office. An environment where no one trusts each other, is not a productive or healthy environment.
It can be easy to disregard some of these points as a casual joke or friendly prank, however, they can become a HR disaster in your office rapidly. Revenge in the workplace is always a serious situation and one that needs to be handled promptly to avoid any long term negative effects on your employee relationships and the company’s bottom line.
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