Leah P. Hollis speaks at ACE, addressing costly bullying behaviors in higher education
http://www.cbs8.com/story/33713745/leah-p-hollis-speaks-at-ace-addressing-costly-bullying-behaviors-in-higher-education
WILMINGTON, Del., Nov. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — In this historic moment saturated with bullying, aggression, and incivility, what does bullying cost higher education? Hollis, President of Patricia Berkly, LLC, and thought leader on workplace bullying in higher education, addresses this question at the American Council on Education (ACE) Women’s Leadership Forum at Clemson University.
On average staff enduring bullying and aggression at work spend 3.9 hours a week ruminating, strategizing, and avoiding bullying; in turn, over five weeks annually is lost, per person in employee disengagement. In addressing close to 50 emerging women leaders, Hollis, also offered her research findings that documented stress leave, resignation, and suicidal ideation for those enduring bullying. Echoing one of the participants in her study she remarked, “It is devastating to have a great career and end up dealing with a bully…” Hollis further commented, “No one is a winner when a bully is allowed to fester.” In short, organizations that protect or ignore bullies are more likely to have costly turnover and low morale. She asked the audience, “Think about it…who wants to report to a workplace that is a war zone?”
Given the national attention on bullying, more colleges and universities are considering anti-workplace bullying policies. Despite the fact that workplace bullying is typically legal in the United States, many organizations are starting to recognize the debilitating impact on their employees and prohibiting the behavior as a matter of policy. One way to find bullies is to look at the foot traffic. People will leave a department to escape a bully, even take lower paying jobs or horizontal transfers just to escape. High turnover and absenteeism are costly to an organization, and some of the clear signs that something needs to change. Given the stressful times facing higher education, civility is needed more than ever.
Dr. Leah P. Hollis will speak at ACE’s Women’s Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C. in late November, 2016. She is the author of Bully in the Ivory Tower: How Aggression and Incivility Erode American Higher Education (2012). Her recent book, The Coercive Community College: Bullying and Its Costly Impact on the Mission to Serve Underrepresented Populations was published by Emerald Publications (UK) (2016). She is an assistant professor at Morgan State University who can be reached through her website at www.diversitytrainingconsultants.com.
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