Defuse workplace anger

Do you feel your blood pressure rising as you sit down at your desk each morning? If so, the cause may not simply be the aftereffects of a stressful commute. Psychologists and HR consultants say that today, like never before, workers feel stress and unrequited anger at their jobs, which is leading to lost productivity, derailed careers, and, in extreme cases, assaults on others.

While incidents like last December's shooting rampage at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Mass., which resulted in seven deaths, grab the biggest headlines, verbal and physical assaults occur daily in our pressure-filled offices. As many as 18,000 workplace assaults are reported each week in the United States, says R. Brayton Bowen, president of The Howland Group, a Louisville-based management consultancy.

The Justice Department indicates that about 85 percent of the violent incidents reported each year involve a male perpetrator. "Men tend to get more physical about anger sooner, though women tend to stay angry longer," says Lynne McClure, a Phoenix-based management consultant and author of Anger and Conflict in the Workplace: Spot the Signs, Avoid the Trauma.

With its spate of firings and drop-dead deadlines, the technology sector is especially vulnerable to anger-induced assaults, Bowen adds. "We've been downsizing 800,000 to 900,000 jobs a year; this year we'll probably hit a million," he observes. "The people who are left have to do more with less, and the pressure is on. Any one of us, regardless of how productive we are, could lose our job tomorrow. There's some concern that in the process of all this downsizing, somebody will create a virus and take down a system or entire company," says the creator of a public radio series on anger and the author of Recognizing and Rewarding Employees.

According to a Yale University study on workplace anger, the greatest catalyst for employee rage is a real or imagined slight by a supervisor or manager. Next is a perceived lack of productivity by coworkers, followed by tight deadlines and heavy workloads. The study warns that these factors help create "underground chronic anger," an emotion that isn't expressed overtly but nevertheless affects one-quarter of the working population. The ill effects of chronic anger are high job stress, working below potential, and lack of teamwork with peers.

"The individual suffers -- in terms of decrements in happiness, satisfaction and feelings of betrayal, and the organization suffers -- individuals feeling angry put in less overall effort and their stress is likely to have an unknown but potentially substantial impact on effectiveness and productivity," the report concludes.

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine