Workplace Deviance

Workplace Deviance; Causes & Solutions

Proposal

Human Resource ManagementHuman Resource Management

Workplace deviance

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Introduction

Deviant workplace behavior is a behavior that violates organizational norms. Example of deviant behavior includes withholding effort, stealing and acting rudely to co-workers.

A study conducted by McGurn (1998) indicated that 75% of employees will have a tendency to steal property from their employees at least once

According to Bennet and Robinson (2000), there are four types of deviances:


Workplace deviance

Introduction

Production deviance such as making personal phone calls, intentionally slow working,

Property deviance, which includes stealing and sabotaging,

Political deviance act such as manager asking employee to work beyond job description

Personal aggression with deviant act such of sexual harassment, verbal and physical aggression


4 types of deviance:

Workplace deviance

Introduction

Managers who misused their power and harass its own employees which itself is a deviant act will trigger negative emotions in the workplace and ultimately lead to personal aggression.

Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly (1998) found that employees do mimic deviance behavior from their leaders and co-workers. Monkey see monkey do.

These deviance acts contribute to a negative workplace environment which will breed a hostile working environment; demoralizing employees’ morale and breaks down leader-member relationship.


:Manager’s often cited as source of deviance:

Workplace deviance

Introduction

negative work environment breed by hostile environment within an organization, creates severe effects on the employees that work inside the organization.

Employee may experience severe physiological effects like changes in blood pressure or cholesterol levels, increase in muscle tension and at times heightened awareness of the environment.

They may also suffer from psychological effects such as anxiety, anger and irritability, which may all lead to physical aggression (Fitzgerald, 2002).


:Workplace deviance may result hostile working environment:

Workplace deviance

Introduction


:Workplace deviance may result hostile working environment:

Workplace deviance

Literature review

A group of terms associated with deviance has also evolved. These actions are also defined as anti-social behavior (Robinson & O'Leary-Kelly, 1998) and misconduct at work (Vardi, 2001), just to name a few.

Robinson and Bennet (1995) have identified two primary types of workplace deviance.

i. Interpersonal deviance is targeted at members of the organization and includes behaviors such as saying something hurtful or acting rudely to coworker.

ii. Organizational deviance is directed at the organization and includes behaviors such as stealing and withholding effort.


:Workplace deviance behavior:

Workplace deviance

Causes for Workplace Deviance – Guided by literature review

Henle (2005) found distributive, procedural and interactional justices were negatively correlated with deviance. Deviance is common when employees are impulsive, low in socialization and do not perceive that their organization is fair.

Blau and Anderson (2005) results revealed that distributive justice were negatively related to instigated workplace incivility while work exhaustion was positively correlated.

Aquino, Lewis and Bradfield (1999) resulst also support that interactional justice and negative affectivity are strongly related to both forms of deviance.


:1. Organizational Injustice:

Workplace deviance


Burroughs (2001) findings showed that employees with aggressive personalities perceived more injustices and engage in more deviant behaviors at work than non-aggressive workers.


:1. Organizational Injustice:

Workplace deviance


Jelinek and Ahearne (2006) results revealed bureaucracy did significantly impact deviance while both distributive injustice and procedural injustice encourage deviances.

Zimmerman (2001) findings support the theory that firms may resort to formalization to eliminate internal corruption and organizational deviance.


2. Bureaucratization


Vardi (2001) showed significant negative correlations between organizational misbehavior and overall climate. Thus the more positively organizational climate is viewed, the less incidents of misbehavior. The dimension of laws and rules showed strong relationship with organizational misbehavior. Thus the more rules and laws implemented in an organization, the more incidents of misbehavior.

Mount, Harter, Witt and Barrick (2004) Test result revealed that positive perceptions of the work situation are negatively related to workplace deviance while personality traits moderated this relationship. organizational deviance was stronger with employees low in conscientiousness and emotional stability.


:3. Ethical Climates:

Workplace deviance


Leaders are the most powerful determinant of organizational culture. The leader’s values are “taught” to others and shape their behavior in the organization (Fleet & Griffin, 2006). Thus if a leader were to manifest deviance behavior, it will most likely to be mimicked by coworkers.

Robinson and Kelly (1988) found positive relationship between antisocial behaviors demonstrated by an individual and of those demonstrated by his or her coworkers. Thus if a leader were to manifest deviance behavior, it will most definitely be picked up by subordinates.

Works by Fleet and Griffin (2006) provide conceptual theory, which suggested that leadership has a role to play in motivating workplace deviance.


:4. Leadership:

Workplace deviance


Allen and Greenberg (1980) conducted a study on powerlessness, which stems from a lack of freedom or autonomy. Sabotage that results from powerlessness is an effort to attain control for its own sake. It involves trying to change the nature of work to achieve a non-sanctioned end (i.e., something that benefits the person or workgroup, not the organization). Examples breaking machinery to gain unscheduled breaks.

Bennet (1998) conducted an empirical research revealing that individuals who feel powerless may engage in sabotage and that such destructive behavior can increase individuals' sense of control.


:5. Powerlessness:

Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Interactional justice is perceived as fairness of interpersonal treatment the employee receives from a decision maker whether he was treated with the respect due to.

My current job faces tremendous pressure from our demanding CEO. We were often labeled as big potato and stupid cow whenever we fail to understand his directives. Often as a result of this, we will spend the entire day cyber loafing or fake a sick leave on the following day as a form of retaliation.


:1. Organizational Injustices

* Interactional Justice:

Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Communication

leaders must learn to communicate more effectively with their subordinates and name-calling is certainly not one of them.

Effective communication skills help leaders to build strong relationship with subordinates, which generally lead to building an effective organization. Communication skills are needed to tackle employees especially those with low socialization skills and to diffuse aggressive personalities.

Thus Carnegie (1936), ageless communication skills on how to win and influence people over should be adopted.




Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Practice Empathy Decision makers must practice empathy when dealings with subordinates

which may consist of different cultural backgrounds, beliefs and values especially so in multi-cultural society like Malaysia. For example, a manager must be sensitive to his Muslim employees during the fasting month and not to label the person as lazy.

Encourage upward communication Upward communication reminds employees that they played an

important role in the organization. Employees involvement helps boost self worth , self esteemed and reduce incidence of workplace deviance.




Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Procedural justice explains how employees perceive fairness of procedure. This usually relates to yearly appraisal and promotion exercise. Employees usually perceive injustice when they are not given a raise that they deemed due to or denied a chance for a promotion.

Procedural Transparency standardize and a transparency procedurals related to appraisal,

promotions and increments are made known to all employees. Employee who did well in their appraisal must be made known to all employees and what basis he or she is being appraised on.



* Procedural Justice:

Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Grievance channel to enable employees to give feedbacks to the upper management when

they perceive they are unjustly treated. This feedback channel must allow employees to come forward without fearing of repercussion from the organization or the manager that they are reporting on.

Grievance report received must be treated with impartiality and discrete.

These channel enables employee to act vent their frustration through a positive medium and thus reduce deviance incidences. Deviance happens when employees feel powerless to voice their unhappiness.



* Procedural Justice:

Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Distributive justice refers to how employees perceive fairness in the outcome related to pay.

This occurs when employees starts to compare their pay with their co-worker and the amount of workload that they have to do. Complains of unhappiness peak during yearly bonus and increment distribution.

Transparent distribution of pay Employees must be able to access information with regards to their pay

grade, job description, basis allocation of bonus and increment. In reality, this information is rarely made known and is usually manipulated by office political interference.



* Distributive justice:

Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Leaders play a crucial role in minimizing deviance incidence in the workplace. Monkey see monkey do, a closing statement made by Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly (1998). Employees do mimic actions made by their immediate managers.

Then there are managers who indulge in political deviance, slave driving their employees to work beyond their job scope or working hours. Thus it is not a surprise that incidence of sabotage and production deviance followed suit by the employees.


:2. Leadership

Solutions Proposal

Transformational Leaders It is pivotal that leaders must set themselves as a role model to his or her

employees. Leaders must take upon themselves to abstain from deviance act.

. Leaders may take on the approach of a transformational leadership style, whereby this inspirational approach inspire follower to forgo self interest, encourage followers to be creative, pursue ambitious goals and empower them to make decisions. Transformational leaders have a profound and extraordinary effect on followers. They show sincere and genuine care to the needs of followers.

However in reality, transformational leaders are rare and managers cannot be turned into a transformational leader overnight.


:2. Leadership

Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Take the following case scenario. Ali worked in a manufacturing line, assembling parts. He usually worked a straight ten-hour shift, so he and his co-workers would just burn out. To combat that, Ali would try to get more breaks, which they were only allowed two breaks per shift. To do this, he would purposely send a glove down, and it would cause the entire assembly line to break down. If the assembling machine shuts down, the line can't go on. The whole production line shuts down. It takes at least three hours to fix, so Ali is getting paid for three hours at least for just sitting around and the break he needed badly.


:3. The working environment

Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Flexi Hour working schedule. will enable employees like Ali feel that the organization care of their needs and hence reduce incidence of deviances.

DiBattista (1996) found that there is a negative co-relationship between workplace environment and production deviance. Employees involve in deviance as a means to gain temporary control of their workplace, which they perceive as rigid.

Thus a flexi-hour working schedule, which allows Ali to take a break when needed, keeps him fresh and committed to work rather than spending the hours planning the next deviant act.



Workplace deviance

Solutions Proposal

Reduce unnecessary red tapeEmployee feels powerless when they cannot approach management to view their displeasure or grouses and has to go several layers before getting through.

, gatekeepers may prevent them from reaching decision makers. Thus to gain decision makers attention, they may end up resorting to deviant act.

Formulate less rigid rulingsRules and laws must be flexible according to situations. For example in the case of Ali, rules can be relaxed to accommodate more shorter breaks in between rather than 2 fix breaks in a 10 hour shift. Rules and laws must be designed to protect the safety and well being of workers. Rules and laws that create stress such of those that Ali encountered, would most likely result in retaliation.



Workplace deviance

Conclusion

Workplace deviance behavior is a phenomenal, which each and every organization will face and has significant dire economic consequences to the organization.

Managers often neglect workplace deviance behaviors until it’s too late. Thus decision makers must at least understand the root causes of workplace deviance, which can be summed up to three important factors :

i. perceive of organizational injustice, ii. role-modeling leadership and iii. rigid workplace environment.

Leaders play an important role for they either spurred positive employee productivity growth or instigate workplace deviance. Transformational leaders may alter employee perception of organizational injustice as they are often held in high regards by all employees and thus creating a conducive workplace environment.


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Workplace deviance

Conclusion


Workplace deviance

Thank you.

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Workplace Deviance