What makes someone more likely to be bullied at work and how companies can help them

Raquel Peel, James Cook University and Beryl Buckby, James Cook University

Being bullied as a child, being female, young, and neurotic are significant predictors of whether you might be bullied in the workplace, our online anonymous survey shows.

Our team investigated the personality traits and coping styles of workplace bullying victims which might contribute to their victimisation.

Neuroticism is defined as a vulnerability to negative mood states such as excessive worrying, anxiety, anger, hostility, self-consciousness, and difficulty coping with stress.

Destructive behaviours such as bullying or harassment reduce employees’ potential at work, in turn increasing businesses’ operational costs. They are often associated with staff absence, increased sick days, and high staff turnover, which are also expensive for organisations.

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Absenteeism is usually a direct consequence of repeated harassment in the workplace. However, presenteeism (attending work when not fit to do so) is the new norm in psychologically unsafe workplaces.

Our study showed that most employees suffering repeated abuse at work nevertheless chose to continue attending. Yet only a small percentage reported taking action towards changing their situation – 10% of individuals had attempted to resolve the situation and 9% had made a complaint.

Presenteeism contributes to a loss of work productivity. An Australian Medibank survey in 2011 showed that presenteeism results in the loss of an estimated 6.5 working days per year, per employee. This cost an estimated A$34.1 billion to the Australian economy over 2009 and 2010.

These statistics show that although employees might keep going to work, they do not maintain their previous standards when their mental health is compromised.

What neuroticism looks like in the workplace

Neuroticism and mental health difficulties are often expressed in subtle ways.

For example, an employee might become excessively worried about missing work and professional opportunities, or unreasonably concerned about what others will think or do in their absence.

But mental distress is not always a function of personality. Resilient people can also be brought to breaking point by the “climate” at work without the control to change it.

Bullying takes many forms

Safe Work Australia defines workplace bullying as repeated and unreasonable behaviours directed towards a worker or a group of workers creating a risk to health and safety.

But bullying is not limited to overt behaviours. Covert and subtle victimisation, such as spreading gossip about someone or deliberately excluding them, also causes distress.

Concealed harassment tactics often involve abuse of power that functions to silence potential complainants.

Organisational policy is one effective way to stop bullying and incivility at work. However, there is a difference between policy and application. Most bullying policies only tackle overt behaviours.

What should be done?

Suffering in silence and not seeking help is costly to individuals and organisations. On the flip side, workplace psychological safety increases productivity.

According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, employers who invest in psychologically safe workplaces see the benefits not only in productivity but also in recruiting and retaining staff, reduced workplace conflict, and declining costs of disability and absenteeism.

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But to tackle the problem effectively, workplace policies need to tackle all types of bullying behaviours, both overt and covert.

Whether the individual chooses to leave or stay at work, the consequences of bullying persist for years and are never forgotten. All workplaces should provide effective policies for managing continuing abuse and improving the mental health outcomes of individuals after bullying.

Raquel Peel, PhD Researcher, James Cook University and Beryl Buckby, Lecturer, Clinical Psychology, James Cook University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

It’s not just sex: why people have affairs, and how to deal with them

Gery Karantzas, Deakin University

Barnaby Joyce’s affair with his former staffer Vikki Campion, and his subsequent downfall from the position of deputy prime minister and head of the National Party, made headlines for weeks. It’s not surprising. From politicians to actors and entertainers, stories of high profile individuals caught “cheating” on their partner often make front-page news.

We believe a romantic partner is there to provide us with love, comfort and security. So people are quick to make judgements and lay blame on perpetrators of what they see as a significant violation of relationship norms and betrayal of trust. Infidelity highlights the potential fragility of our closest and most important of relationships.

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But despite the blunt belief infidelity is the result of immoral and over-sexed individuals wanting their cake and eating it too, the reality is far more nuanced. For instance, infidelity is rarely just about sex. In fact, when it comes to purely sexual infidelity, the average occurrence across studies is around 20% of all couples. However, this rate increases to around a third of couples when you include emotional infidelity.

An affair is generally a sign things aren’t right with someone’s relationship. Without the necessary skills to heal the issues, a partner may engage in an affair as an ill-equipped way of attempting to have their needs fulfilled – whether these be for intimacy, to feel valued, to experience more sex, and so on. So, the straying partner views an alternative relationship as a better way to meet these needs than their existing relationship.

Who has affairs, and why?

Studies into why people cheat are many and varied. Some find people who lack traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness are more likely to be sexually promiscuous, as are those higher in neurotic and narcissistic traits. Other studies find infidelity is more likely to occur among people who hold less restrictive views about sex, such as that you don’t have to limit yourself to one sexual partner.

Other important factors relate to people’s commitment to their partner and relationship satisfaction. Those low on these measures appear more likely to have an affair. Recent work suggests one of the biggest predictors of having an affair is having strayed before.

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A survey of 5,000 people in the UK found striking parallels between men and women’s reasons for infidelity, and neither prioritised sex. The top five reasons for women related to lack of emotional intimacy (84%), lack of communication between partners (75%), tiredness (32%), a bad history with sex or abuse (26%), and a lack of interest in sex with the current partner (23%).

For men the reasons were a lack of communication between partners (68%), stress (63%), sexual dysfunction with one’s current partner (44%), lack of emotional intimacy (38%) and fatigue or being chronically tired (31%).

So if we have difficulty genuinely communicating with our partner, or they don’t make us feel valued, we may be more likely to stray. People need to invest time and energy into their relationships. Experiencing chronic tiredness over many years means one’s capacity to put in the necessary work to keep a relationship strong is also compromised.

While some couples report additional reasons, which can include a greater desire for sex, the majority speak to issues that reside either within the couple or outside the relationship. The latter can be stressors that challenge the couple’s ability to make the relationship work.

If you’re experiencing relationship difficulties, getting help from a therapist may well short-circuit the risk factors that can lead to infidelity.

Disclosure and therapy

Some people choose to keep their affair secret because they may want it to continue, feel too much guilt or believe they’re protecting their partner’s feelings. But the secret only perpetuates the betrayal. If one is serious about mending their existing relationship, then disclosure is necessary, along with seeking professional guidance to support the couple through the turbulent period towards recovery.

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Most relationship therapists suggest issues around infidelity can be improved through therapy. But they also report infidelity as one of the most difficult issues to work with when it comes to rebuilding a relationship.

There are various evidence-based approaches to dealing with infidelity, but most acknowledge the act can be experienced as a form of trauma by the betrayed person, who has had their fundamental assumptions about their partner violated. These include trust and the belief that the partner is there to provide love and security rather than inflict hurt.

But it’s not only the betrayed person who can experience mental health issues. Research has found that, when the affair is revealed, both partners can experience mental health issues including anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide. There can also be an increase in emotional and physical violence within the couple.

So a couple should seek professional help to deal with the aftermaths of an affair, not only to possibly heal their relationship but also for their own psychological well-being.

There are many approaches to counselling couples after an affair, but generally, it’s about addressing the issues that precipitated and perpetuated the infidelity. One of the most well researched methods of helping a couple mend these issues involves addressing the initial impact of the affair, developing a shared understanding of the context of the affair, forgiveness, and moving on.

Choosing to stay or go

Overall, therapy seems to work for about two-thirds of couples who have experienced infidelity. If a couple decides to stay together, they must identify areas of improvement and commit to working on them.

It’s also vital to re-establish trust. The therapist can help the couple acknowledge the areas of the relationship in which trust has already been rebuilt. Then the betrayed partner can be progressively exposed to situations that provide further reassurance they can trust their partner without having to constantly check on them.

But if therapy works for two thirds of couples, it leaves another one third who experience no improvement. What then? If the relationship is characterised by many unresolved conflicts, hostility, and a lack of concern for one another, it may be best to end it. Ultimately, relationships serve the function of meeting our attachment needs of love, comfort and security.

Being in a relationship that doesn’t meet these needs is considered problematic and dysfunctional by anyone’s definition.

But ending a relationship is never easy due to the attachment we develop with our romantic partner. Even though in some relationships, our attachment needs are less likely to be fulfilled, it doesn’t stop us wanting to believe our partner will (one day) meet our needs.

The impending end of a relationship fills us with what is termed “separation distress”. Not only do we grieve the loss of the relationship (no matter how good or bad), but we grieve over whether we will find another who will fulfil our needs.

The period of separation distress varies from person to person. Some may believe it’s worth celebrating the end of a toxic relationship, but they will still experience distress in one form or another. If the couple decides to end the relationship and are still in therapy, the therapist can help them work through their decision in a way that minimises feelings of hurt.

So infidelity is less about sex and more about matters of the heart and a misguided quest to have one’s relationship needs met. The problem is that some people choose to seek their relationship needs in the arms of another rather than working on their existing relationship.

Gery Karantzas, Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Predictive algorithms are no better at telling the future than a crystal ball

Uri Gal, University of Sydney

An increasing number of businesses invest in advanced technologies that can help them forecast the future of their workforce and gain a competitive advantage.

Many analysts and professional practitioners believe that, with enough data, algorithms embedded in People Analytics (PA) applications can predict all aspects of employee behavior: from productivity, to engagement, to interactions and emotional states.

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Predictive analytics powered by algorithms are designed to help managers make decisions that favourably impact the bottom line. The global market for this technology is expected to grow from US$3.9 billion in 2016 to US$14.9 billion by 2023.

Despite the promise, predictive algorithms are as mythical as the crystal ball of ancient times.

Predictive models are based on flawed reasoning

One of the fundamental flaws of predictive algorithms is their reliance on “inductive reasoning”. This is when we draw conclusions based on our knowledge of a small sample, and assume that those conclusions apply across the board.

For example, a manager might observe that all of her employees with an MBA are highly motivated. She therefore concludes that all workers with an MBA are highly motivated.

This conclusion is flawed because it assumes that past patterns will remain consistent. This assumption itself can only be true because of our experience to date, which confirms this consistency. In other words, inductive reasoning can only be inductively justified: it works because it has worked before. Therefore, there is no logical reason to assume that the next person our company hires who has an MBA degree will be highly motivated.

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Assumptions like these can be coded into hiring algorithms, which, in this case, would assign a weighting to all job applicants with an MBA degree. But when inductive reasoning is baked into the code of hiring applications, it can lead to unfounded decisions, adversely impact on the bottom-line, and even discriminate against certain groups of people.

For example, a tool used in some parts of the United States to assess whether a person arrested for a crime would re-offend was found to unfairly discriminate against African Americans.

They lead to self-fulfilling prophecies

Another flaw in the predictions thrown up by algorithmic analysis is their propensity to create self-fulfilling prophecies. Acting on algorithmic predictions, managers can create the conditions that ultimately realise those very predictions.

For example, a company may use an algorithm to predict the performance of its recently-hired salespeople. Such an algorithm might draw on data from standardised tests completed during their onboarding process, reviews from previous employers, and demographics. This analysis can then be used to rank new salespeople and justify the allocation of more training resources to those believed to have greater performance potential.

This is likely to produce the very results that the initial analysis predicted. The higher-ranked recruits will perform better than those ranked lower on the list because they have been given superior training opportunities.

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Calculating probabilities of future events is meaningless

Some practitioners recognise the flaws in the predictive capability of algorithmic systems, but they still see value in generating models that indicate probability.

Rather than predicting the occurrence of future events or states, probabilistic models can indicate the degree of certainty that events or situations might occur in the future.

However, here too it pays to be a little sceptical. When a model calculates that an event is likely to happen it does so as a percentage of 100% certainty. Any probabilistic prediction is only possible in relation to the possibility of complete certainty. But since complete certainty is impossible to predict, probabilistic models are of no real significance either.

Algorithms don’t ‘predict’, they ‘extrapolate’

So if they cannot predict organisational events with complete or even probable certainty, what can predictive algorithms do?

To answer this, we must understand how they work. Once developed and inscribed with their base code, predictive algorithms need to be “trained” to hone their predictive power. This is done by feeding them with past organisational data. They then search for trends in the data and extrapolate rules that can be applied to future data.

For example, workforce planning algorithms can identify employees who are likely to resign. They do this by analysing the personality and behavioural patterns of employees who have resigned in the past and cross-referencing the results with the profiles of existing employees to identify those with the highest matching scores. With each round of application, the algorithm is continually adjusted to correct ever-decreasing prediction errors.

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However, the term “prediction error” is misleading because these algorithms do not predict, but rather extrapolate. All that predictive algorithms can ever do is guess at what is going to happen based on what has already happened. The leap required to make actual predictions is not a matter of computing power, but rather of bending the laws of physics.

Predictive models can’t anticipate change

Because they are extrapolative, predictive models are rather good at identifying regularities, continuity and routine. However, the human brain is also designed to identify stable patterns. Competent managers should be well aware of their organisation’s operations, and capable of envisioning steady patterns over time.

What managers find difficult to predict is change. Unfortunately, predictive models are also poor predictors of change. The more radical change is – different from existing patterns – the more poorly predicted it will be.

To manage effectively and develop their knowledge of current and likely organisational events, managers need to learn to build and trust their instinctual awareness of emerging processes rather than rely on algorithmic promises that cannot be realised. The key to effective decision-making is not algorithmic calculations but intuition.

Uri Gal, Associate Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Customer service staff need to be problem solving not apologising

Jagdip Singh, Case Western Reserve University

Customers are good at troubleshooting the small stuff and research shows when they come to customer service staff they expect complex problem solving, options or answers – not apologies.

My research used video recordings of interactions between airline staff and customers to analyse the behaviour of both the staff and the passengers. I examined the non-verbal cues of the airline staff in more than 100 interactions and found that when they made effusive apologies it actually diminished their ability to be effective problem solvers.

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Businesses have been trying to be better at customer service since it was invented. But unfortunately it seems like they aren’t making much progress.

A 2017 study showed that 62 million families in the US are estimated to report at least one service problem a year. This left 56% customers in a “rage” or extremely upset.

According to the same study, only 25% of the customers were able to resolve the service problem in one contact with the company. In fact, 19% reported having to contact the company more than seven times to resolve the problem. Despite this, 80% of the customers remained unhappy even after the resolution.

Cost of ineffective problem solving is estimated at US$313 billion in sales for US businesses alone.

But below par customer service is not unique to US businesses. One Ernst-Young survey showed that Australian consumers fare no better. 56% experienced unacceptably poor service in a 12-month period and 57% of those who complained were very or fairly dissatisfied with the way the problem was resolved. Also, 47% upset customers posted their complaint on social media but in 75% of the cases, the company didn’t respond.

The loss to Australian businesses from these problems: A$720 for every negative customer experience, and A$40 billion per year.

How customers are changing

Over time, the nature of customer’s problems have changed with the internet and social media.

Now customers prefer to solve simple and typical problems on their own using online resources provided by companies. My research shows they increasingly reach out to companies with complex, unexpected and urgent problems.

Customers are also now connected to a community of consumers who actively vocalise and report their service problems on social media. This community are increasingly aware and confident about the what (outcomes) and how (process) of problem solving.

A 2017 market research survey of consumers in North America, found that consumers actively and increasingly use a range of self-service channels including FAQs (60%), online community forums (38%), online virtual agents (37%), mobile apps (35%) and chatbots (32%). Many of these options did not exist just a few years ago.

According to this same report, intelligent assistants like Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa will make it easier for customers to use self-service options.

Leading service organisations are developing and prototyping new artificial intelligence tools to respond to these trends. For instance, Vanguard, an investment advisor group, is piloting an artificial intelligence project to assist customer service staff answer questions and problems posed on inbound calls from customers.

Vanguard’s plan is to have customers engage directly with this bot and transition customer service staff to handle more complex activities.

What customer service providers should be doing

My research shows customer service staff should only empathise or apologise to customers in the first five to seven seconds before moving on to creative problem solving. We found customers view “small” talk in customer service interaction as a sign of ineffectiveness.

If customers are presented with options to solve their problem, my research shows, it gives them a sense of control over the difficult situation. In an experiment we conducted, customers were shown two scenarios, both of which were identical in nature. The problem involved a lost bag that contained materials and clothing for an important job interview.

The first scenario provided a single solution, while in the second scenario there were three reasonably comparable alternative solutions for the customer. At the end, the customer chose the same solution in both scenarios.

Our research found customers expressed greater satisfaction with the multiple choices of the second scenario. It’s the quality and quantity of the solutions given to customers that’s the crucial difference.

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Yet in many companies, service agents are directed, trained and monitored only to connect with customers and make them feel comfortable. This training is intuitive, easier to script, amenable to supervisory monitoring and suitable for standardised training.

By contrast, creative and problem solving is not intuitive or easy to train. This is the challenge for service companies.

Businesses must forgo the easy route to customer problem solving and take a more counter intuitive approach. By overcoming this challenge, business could see substantial payoffs and stem the financial losses that spring from bad customer experiences.

Jagdip Singh, Professor of Marketing, Case Western Reserve University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Seeing the unseeable: how viewing crime scene photos can be beneficial

Kate Rossmanith, Macquarie University; Hugh Dillon, UNSW, and Jane Mowll, UNSW

Forensic photographs are taken by specialists as part of police investigations. These crime-or-accident scene images are included in a brief of evidence, used to prove illegal acts, and to establish how and why a person died. Afterwards, once coronial and criminal processes have concluded, the forensic evidence, including the photos, returns to a notional police archive.

The subjects of police photographs range from the seemingly unremarkable – empty rooms, fences, staircases, windows, pathways, roads, kitchen tables, hallways, plates, cups – through to confronting pictures associated with cases of injury and death: the body at the scene, blood, disfiguring injuries, skin discolouration.

Bereaved families are discouraged by police and other personnel from viewing the images associated with the death of their loved one. Relatives applying for access to the material often find themselves making repeated requests but authorities will routinely refuse them on the grounds that the images will cause them distress.

While this gatekeeping is understandable, a number of social workers are advocating for families to be given a choice to access and view the archived material.

Early research indicates that the experiences of bereaved people are complex and varied. For some victims’ parents, partners, sons, daughters, extended family, and friends, the fact of the death is enough. For others, though, there is a need to see the images in order to piece together the minutiae of the events: the scene; the way their loved one lay; what happened before, during and after; what their loved one did and saw.

More than that, the images can also address relatives’ deep need to mentally process the death. Sometimes families feel misplaced remorse. Despite playing no part in the events of the death of their loved one, they believe that perhaps they could have somehow prevented the occurrence. They imagine they could have intervened, that they could have done something. In such circumstances, the police photos can become profoundly meaningful.

As Kate Rossmanith’s documentary Unnatural Deaths illustrates, bereaved relatives can find unexpected solace in such images. For instance, Juliet Darling’s partner was attacked and killed in 2009. Says Darling:

You think about it so much, and your mind goes to the scene, and tries to re-live these experiences that aren’t even yours. My wild imaginings made it almost seem to me that I had actually been at the crime scene, when in fact I hadn’t been there.

It was helpful, she says, to view the crime scene photos: “To see just the bare facts.”

The coronial perspective

Coroners considering a case will often look at the photographs of the crime or accident scene. The task of a coroner is to determine, if possible, whether a death has taken place (if there is no body, it may be far from certain); and if so, the identity of the person who has died (sometimes it is difficult to ascertain); as well as the date and place of death, and the physical cause and circumstances of it.

The answer is not always available from the medical history or records. It may not even be available from a physical examination of the body. In such cases, the circumstantial evidence becomes crucially important. When memories fade and arguments arise, crime scene images can settle many questions.

Strangely, coroners often find the photographs much more viscerally affecting than viewing a body in the mortuary. This is because the mortuary is a sterile, technical environment – bright lights, steel tables, instruments, people in scrubs; it brings home to coroners, in a way that photographs cannot, that the essence of whatever animated this person before has left him or her.

Photographs, however, taken at the scene with a body in situ, convey sadness and the prematurity of a living person’s death.

‘Afterlives’ of evidence

There is a growing public interest in forensic photos. Since the early 1990s historical forensic photographs have come to be seen as important material culture. At the same time, digital capture and transmission technologies have accelerated the mass circulation of forensic images: in the name of “open justice”, and with the sanction of the courts, media agencies regularly publicise selected evidence during coronial and criminal proceedings, with the material readily shared online.

Yet discussion regarding how we approach such forensic material has significantly lagged behind these rapid developments in transmission capabilities. As legal scholar Katherine Biber has pointed out, we lack a forum to think about, what she terms, the “afterlives of evidence”. She calls for “a jurisprudence of sensitivity” when it comes to courts’ decision-making regarding the release of evidence into the public sphere.

The issue not only involves what material is made available to us, but how we look at it, the interlocution that accompanies our looking, and the resulting questions we ask ourselves. In order to continue developing a nuanced approach to forensic images, it is critical to consider the sometimes surprising ways in which police photographs are meaningful to those people closest to them: police photographers, coroners, and, crucially, victims and their families.

Bereaved families strive to comprehend that there is nothing they could have done to prevent, or hold off, the death of their loved one. Viewing the crime-and-accident scene images can offer a path to healing.

We need to move away from approaching grief as a medical event subject to diagnosis, and instead turn our attention to the diverse needs of family members as they comprehend the realities of death, and the meanings of that death in their own lives.

For relatives, the forensic images may form an integral part of the narrative they will develop to make sense of their loved one’s death. We need to make sure families are able to access this material – but crucially, with skilled support, such as provided by social workers in some forensic and coronial offices – and to make the choice that is right for them about seeing it.

The photographs offer opportunities for restoration – not only for people directly affected by tragic events, but for the broader community too. In this way, the photos can be seen as important to larger human experiences of reconciliation that go well beyond official forensic and procedural processes.

Kate Rossmanith’s micro-documentary, Unnatural Deaths, can be seen on The Guardian. It explores the experiences of bereaved relatives as they view crime scene photos after the sudden death of a loved one.

The crime and accident scene photographs featured in Unnatural Deaths were supplied courtesy of New South Wales Police under the condition that the cases with which they are associated remain anonymous. The images depict a range of forensic investigations, including accidents, break-ins, thefts, as well as coronial cases.

Kate Rossmanith, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies, Macquarie University; Hugh Dillon, Adjunct Professor of Law, UNSW, and Jane Mowll, Lecturer in Social Work, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.