045: Why Employees Engage In Bad Behavior with Dr. Julena M. Bonner

We're proud to be sponsored by Ultimate Software. They're a leading cloud provider of people management solutions with a commitment to continuing education for HR, talent, and payroll professionals.

Ultimate Software is hosting dozens of free, educational HR workshops around the country. Check out ultimatesoftware.com/LFW for more information on how to earn free HRCI, SHRM, and APA recertification credits.

This week on Let’s Fix Work, I welcome Dr. Julena M. Bonner. She's an Assistant Professor in the Management Department of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. That’s right everyone, this week we've got an academic in the house!

Dr. Bonner received her Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University and her research interests include behavioral ethics, ethical leadership, emotions, and workplace deviance. Recently, Dr. Bonner wrote a research paper on employee unethical behavior, which we’ll cover in this episode.

So if you're interested in learning why employees spit in people's food (you betcha’, we're going there) and how to mitigate this kind of bad behavior, sit tight and listen to this episode of Let’s Fix Work.

In this episode you’ll hear:

1. Dr. Bonner share why she began her research on customer and employee hostile interactions
2. Some types of lashing out behaviors employees displayed that Dr. Bonner observed during her research; including assault, sabotaging food, and more
3. Given the risks and consequences of employee bad behavior against customers, employees still do it and we explore some reasons why
4. Where emotional responses originate
5. Ways to mitigate employee bad behavior or stop it in its tracks
6. What a culture of ethical behavior and ethical leadership looks like

“When a work environment has a strong culture of ethical behavior to your formal policies and informal values exemplified by other employees and managers, employees are more likely to control their reactions and behave professionally when they're mistreated by the customer.” ~ Dr. Julena M. Bonner

Resources from this episode:Dr. Julena M. Bonner: http://huntsman.usu.edu/directory/bonner-julena

Laurie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurieruettimann/

Let’s Fix Work on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/letsfixwork/