Each month I’m reaching into the archives to highlight a piece from that month of each past year. Especially for those of you who missed them the first time around, I hope they provide interesting and useful reading. For each piece I’m including a short excerpt; you may click on the title for the full article.
December 2013: UMass-Amherst launches campus-wide workplace anti-bullying initiative — Yesterday the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the flagship entity of a major public university system, publicly launched a workplace anti-bullying initiative with a campus symposium that attracted over 500 UMass employees. This remarkable turnout, which included staff, faculty, and administrators, was over triple the number of RSVPs for the event. . . . I had the privilege of presenting the keynote address, and one of the lasting memories I’ll have is that of standing at the podium and seeing the large auditorium fill with people, with some having to stand even after dozens of extra chairs were brought in to accommodate the overflow.
December 2012: American elders: Human dignity and an aging population — At some point soon, America is going to have to come to grips with the massive psychological and economic implications of its aging population. It won’t be easy. . . . These challenges will have significant implications for the world of work. They will impact the demographics of the workplace and employee benefit programs. They also will create an expanding sector of the labor market devoted to elder care and health care. If we’re capable of philosophically redefining a crisis as an opportunity, then perhaps this is the best we can hope for. I believe these coming decades will be a test not only of our policy and economic ingenuity, but also of our hearts.
December 2011: Workplace bullying and families of targets — Workplace bullying often creates victims in addition to the target of the abuse. In particular, close family members often pay a price as well, as personal relationships are severely tested and sometimes fractured. Many bullying targets, and those who have interviewed, counseled, and coached them, have known this for a long time. Now, emerging research is helping to build the evidence-based case. Here are two helpful pieces . . . .
December 2010: “Ruthlessness, callousness and arrogance don’t belong here” — Do you like the quote that headlines this blog post? Isn’t it an important statement for a workplace with a heart? Uh oh. Too bad it came from Enron’s code of ethics. Alas, great policies do not always translate into great leadership.
December 2009: Workplace bullying in health care IV: Nurses bullied and responding — “After you read this post, go to Google and type in these two words as a search request: nurses bullying. If you had a dollar for every hit, you could retire right now and live very, very comfortably. When it comes to workplace bullying in the healthcare workplace, nurses get the worst of it. They are bullied by doctors. They are bullied by fellow nurses. And when patients act out, they’re more likely to take it out on a nurse than someone else, at times using physical violence.”