Anger in the Workplace
Australia is at the top of OECD countries when it comes to working unpaid, regular overtime. Australian employees in corporate life are regularly working up to 55-60 hours a week to keep their jobs, or position themselves for advancement, this study reported. This study highlights the problem many of us face today where our working environments can be a very stressful and have a defensive dog-eat-dog based culture. A symptom of a toxic workplace culture is the degree of stress and simmering anger that from time erupts into anger based incidents that are directed at our co-workers, or an ongoing passive-aggressive set of dynamics exist that include gossiping, bullying, politicking, or whingeing occur. These behaviours can impact ourselves, our co-workers, our bosses or our customers, and even affect the bottom-line profits of a company.
While anger is a normal emotion, anger is an emotion that often causes a negative impact in an organisational environment where there exists more constraints, policies and laws that dictate appropriate behaviour as compared to social and private life. A person can sabotage their job and career when the way in which they display and deal with their anger, and how they express becomes a cause for concern.
Organisations are now realizing that organisations are systems, just like the family systems that each one of us originally grew up in. We unconsciously take our unresolved family issues into the workplace and then either project "our stuff" onto authority figures, co-workers or customers, or have our childhood dynamics replayed in front of us through our interactions, thus triggering emotional or angry outbursts from us which really relate to our past.
One way of learning how to cope with anger management issues is to seek help from a counsellor, psychologist or therapist who can help you learn better ways of expressing difficult and uncomfortable emotions and feelings. Anger management therapy has become a commonplace service used by industry and individuals to manage anger at work. Corporate Energetics work with organisations using counselling, coaching, BodyMind Psychotherapy, and organisational consultancy interventions when these behaviours show up as symptoms of both employee and organizational dysfunction.
The Dynamics of Stress, Work and Anger
Organisations are constantly juggling with an opposing set of resources, dynamics and imperatives as it tries to minimize costs and maximize profits. Organisations are often running at or near capacity, and in terms of processes, workers are often faced with workloads which may occasionally or permanently exceed capacity of workers to deal effectively with the throughput. This set of dynamics coupled with the increasing pace of change and adaptation within business, technology and society, all create stress.
Almost every workplace incorporates some level of stress. The stress may be due to interacting with customers, meeting deadlines, negative peer relationships, or simply having too much work to accomplish and not enough time. An additional stressor related to work that is especially present for many people today is the fear of retrenchment. Whatever your work situation is, there is sure to be some amount of stress that you experience on a daily basis.
A number of organizational dynamics can trigger anger in employees. Employees may have unmet expectations from their employer which they formed from the information given to them when they were considering joining the organisation. An example may be a career path or training which never eventuates, or a promise of which is forgotten when a boss retires or replaced. Employees also feel resentment towards abusive management who act with duplicity, self serving agendas which treat employees differently to themselves, or a lack of accountability they demand of employees.
There are many expectations when it comes to work performance and living up to these standards can be extremely stressful. Add to it difficult work relationships, and soon going to work can become an unpleasant experience. Many people bring stress into the workplace from home and relationships which can affect performance in the workplace.
As the stress builds, we become reactive and emotional, lowering our intolerance of annoyances and petty details from interactions with co-workers, supervisors and customers. The more pressured we feel to perform when we do not feel supported or do not feel heard, the more likely we are to become angry.
How does Workplace Anger Manifest ?
Workplace anger often exists as simmering resentment and in passive-aggressive stances until a trigger brings the anger out into the open. The anger that results may be sustained and systemic, or express itself as an outburst. While everyone experiences anger at work at some point, the way in which we handle it determines whether or not it is a problem. Some forms of destructive anger include:
Verbal abuse - loss of control leading to confrontation involving yelling and screaming at co-workers, customers and superiors can be especially problematic, inappropriate, and often embarrassing.
Physical abuse - Reacting physically, including pushing, hitting or bodily contact with plant and equipment, can not only result in damaging company resources, but can also result in automatic dismissal and even charges of assault.
Emotional abuse - includes threats to terminate employment or benefits, abuse of power through manipulation, placing others under duress, increased workloads, giving biased and poor feedback, destructive rumours, and withholding promotion or bonuses.
Workplace Bullying - Scapegoating another, Retaliating or undermining another's reputation, work or friendships, retaliation against co-workers for real wrongs done against you (real or perceived). Bullying may be encouraged in others against a common target which can take the form of undermining another's work assignments, creating conflict with others or starting damaging rumours and engaging in office gossip. Bullying very often can create a hostile workplace environment and can even result in legal action in addition to disciplinary actions by supervisors. It can also cause others in your workplace great unhappiness and fear, leading to increased turnover and absenteeism of staff.
Cyber-Bullying - A form of bullying involving attacks via the internet, emails, workplace computer networks, and mobile phones where the effect is to undermine, intimidate or attack another employee, including altering online documents, sending false emails, etc. Such action normally results in dismissal and legal action against the perpetrator.
Workplace theft and vandalism - Another passive aggressive set of actions that reflect a felt sense of powerlessness and a response that strikes back. Theft of company property, time, and other resources, plus vandalism of property including hacking into computer systems, corruption and deleting of online files and documents etc. all typically result in dismissal and legal action against the perpetrator.
Displaced Anger - Another substantial problem with work-related anger is displacing the anger on others who have nothing to do with the situation that is the cause of our anger. Some people discover that they can hold their anger in at work, only to come home and take their frustration out on their spouses, children and other family members or friends.
Conversion Anger - A person who presents with anger but actually underneath they are actually depressed or sad or longing to hit out at the source of their emotion. These people convert another issue into an anger issue which hides the true problem.
Getting Assistance for Workplace Anger
One way of learning how to cope with anger management issues is to seek help from a counsellor, psychologist or therapist who can help you learn better ways of expressing difficult and uncomfortable emotions and feelings. Anger management therapy has become a commonplace service used by industry and individuals to manage anger at work. Corporate Energetics work with organisations using counselling, coaching, BodyMind Psychotherapy, and organisational consultancy interventions when these behaviours show up as symptoms of both employee and organizational dysfunction.
Resolving anger in the workplace is not something that occurs overnight. Working with a counsellor or psychologist on anger management issues can help you to resolve the anger management issues that stem from your workplace frustration and stress.
In many cases, we help you learn stress management techniques that will not only result in a reduction of stress-related symptoms, but also boundaries and impulse recognition and management, leading to a significant reduction in angry episodes. Learning how to recognise the triggers that make you angry or the signals that tell us that we are angry can also be an important skill for anger management when it comes to our working lives.
Finally, one of the most significant issues a counsellor or therapist can help with is learning communication skills that can help reduce workplace conflict generally. Learning active listening skills can go a very long way to resolving workplace conflict.
Importantly we help you to uncover the underlying reasons for inappropriately expressed anger. Many employers have Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) . Corporate Energetics offers an EAP which may enable you to access our counselling services as part of your employee benefits.
If you or someone you know is struggling with workplace anger, or is a victim to another's workplace anger and would like to book a consultation with a qualified Corporate Energetics Consultant, or you would like to obtain further advice please Contact Us for advice.