Tackling Incivility at Workplaces in India

Bullying and incivility are quite prevalent in the workplace in India, with one study finding that around half of all workers face it occasionally or frequently.

Such incidents often go unreported due to fears of negative consequences, but they ultimately harm organizations because they sap employee morale, leading to lower productivity and increased employee departures.

It’s a big wake-up call for all HR professionals and business leaders to improve this negative culture, said Swati Pillai, Mumbai-based HR leader and former head of HR administration at Hapag-Lloyd Business Services.

“The onus lies on the management and senior leaders to ensure that there are repercussions” for proven instances of disrespect or bullying, said Preeti Bose, head of leadership and talent development at law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas in Mumbai.

Incivility impacts remote workers in different ways, such as when managers leave them out of virtual meetings or give them additional work without additional compensation or recognition.

Remote work is also complicated by the fact that managers and workers can’t always see each other’s body language. Workers can infer different meanings from certain words or ways of speaking.

“Virtual [work] requires a different sort of education and training processes,” said Bengaluru-based Lokendra Sethi, vice president and India HR lead at DXC Technology, an IT services firm. This is particularly important for a virtual-first company like DXC, which has remotely hired many of its 40,000 employees in India.

“Almost two-thirds have not been to office as a structural setup,” Sethi said.

Many of the company’s new employees are young people right out of college who don’t always know the standards for appropriate workplace behavior because they haven’t been in a physical office where they could watch how co-workers and managers interact and learn from them. 

“That is a recipe, if you don’t educate them well, of workplace bullying,” Sethi said. “HR’s role is more about education.”

This includes training not only on what is acceptable as workplace behavior, but also on how to communicate well virtually. For instance, Sethi said virtual meetings may sometimes lack an exchange of courtesies at the beginning as the manager gets straight to the topic and moves on to the meeting. This may come across as cold.

Virtual work also requires learning “how you’re going to build relationships with your teams,” Sethi said. 

Being Mindful of Cultural Nuances 

Before tackling issues of incivility in the workplace, it’s key to recognize that cultural nuances specific to India may impact the understanding of what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior. 

Consider, for instance, the deference to older people in India.

“It’s in the DNA to respect the seniors, respect the elders, irrespective of how one is being treated,” Bose said.

So, a junior employee may think it’s normal for someone senior to shout at him, or, in reverse, a manager may think it’s his right to boss around younger workers. 

“They don’t understand where have they gone wrong,” Sethi said.

HR’s Role 

Experts said HR’s role is to first prevent the occurrence of uncivil behavior through education and training, such as about the use of power—as a responsibility, not a right to abuse.

These trainings should be mandatory for everyone, experts said, but especially for managers. “You need to teach these people who’re handling the ground workforce,” Pillai said.

How to deliver this kind of training to leaders is also an art.

“We don’t directly say, ‘Don’t be abusive,’ ” Bose said. If they did that, she said the leaders would focus on the word “abusive” and might miss out on the message.

Rather, they tell senior leaders how to be more inspiring, and that leaves the leader with positive actions they can take. “Give it a positive spin so people are likely to follow it,” she said.

Responding to Complaints

If, despite the training, bullying does happen, there need to be policies and systems in place on how to deal with it.

“Have channels where people can air it before this becomes a larger issue,” Sethi said. 

At DXC, Sethi said there is an email account and a hotline that employees can use to anonymously share grievances. The company has an anti-retaliation policy that protects workers who speak out against supervisors, he said.

Organizations can have listening committees to help workers resolve these issues. Bose said one of her previous employers had a “listening post,” which was a committee that would listen to grievances and share solutions. She was a member. “I realized that people just want a place to vent and then find a way out,” Bose said.

In more serious cases, however, a formal investigation might be warranted. 

Indian companies are required by law to have internal committees to redress sexual harassment concerns. Similar formal bodies can be set up for issues of bullying and disrespect. 

Consequences for Being Uncivil

All policies should be tied to consequences and stern action in case of proven disrespect, going right up to removal of an employee if necessary.

“Unless there is a penal bit attached ... what is stopping people from doing it time and again?” Bose asked. 

One way to keep managers from abusing their powers would be to tie their performance appraisals to their team management skills, Pillai said.

For this, the organization could garner feedback from direct reports, peers, and outside vendors in a process similar to 360-degree appraisals.

When leaders know that their performance rating—and, consequently, their salary and bonuses—can be affected by their attitudes, they are more likely to toe the line.

“Until you make it an objective, measurable metric for their performance, it is not going to be taken seriously,” Pillai said.

Shefali Anand is a New Delhi-based journalist and former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.