Counterproductive Behaviors At Work: What They Are, And Characteristics
Although it is logical to think that all workers will always act in accordance with the interests of the company, this is not always the case.
Let’s find out What are counterproductive behaviors at work? what characterizes this type of behavior, what are the contexts in which it occurs and who are the people most likely to commit them.
Counterproductive behaviors at work are those behaviors that some employees carry out, consciously and deliberately, and that clash head-on with the interests of the company , therefore generating damage or losses at some of its levels. This behavior can be an isolated event or a constant that ends up involving very serious figures in terms of repair costs for the damage caused.
Depending on the type of behavior and the intensity of the sabotage carried out by the employee, the company may have to face an unforeseen economic event, either directly, because it must replace or repair the elements that have been damaged by the behavior of the worker in question, or indirectly, because he has stopped generating a certain amount of wealth. Both cases involve a loss that causes damage to the company.
AND It’s not just about economic losses but counterproductive behavior at work also generates serious problems for its reputation, since having employees who deliberately boycott the company’s actions is an obvious stain for the brand, and more resources must be allocated to recover the image. brand that existed before these calamitous acts.
Another of the damages that these actions can entail is losing very valuable team members, since It is possible that the employees who have engaged in counterproductive behaviors at work were previously highly efficient people and brought great value to the company through their notable work. We will explore the reasons that could lead to such a radical change in attitude later.
Lastly, another of the negative effects that counterproductive behavior at work can cause is the judicial repercussions, since if the company manages to demonstrate that one of its employees carried out actions with the aim of harming the company, the most It is likely that they will choose to sue you and take you to trial, so that the justice system can impose the corresponding sanction. But this scenario is still another setback for the company, which could have been avoided.
These behaviors can be categorized into different types, depending on their nature. Let’s look at them in greater detail.
1. Theft
We have already anticipated the first of the types of counterproductive behavior at work, and it is theft. Obviously, there are degrees, since This category ranges from the theft of a pen or other office supplies to stealing cash directly from the till The damage caused to the company will depend on the value of what was stolen, but we must not forget that ultimately, stealing is stealing, and any action of this nature is reprehensible.
To give us an idea, according to research, theft by employees represents, every year, losses of 40,000,000 dollars to American companies. This is a non-negligible figure that allows us to have a better perspective to understand the scope of this type of problem.
2. Sabotage
The second type of counterproductive behavior at work is sabotage. This behavior deliberately implies damage or destroy company material, or interfere so that processes become less efficient in any way Returning to the topic of ethics, sometimes the people who carry out these actions consider that they are totally justified.
To understand it better, we will give an example. Let’s imagine an office worker who deliberately drops his coffee on the computer and causes an irreparable breakdown. At first we would think that his behavior only seeks to cause harm, but his reasoning could be that the computer was already very old, it constantly had errors and his superior did not provide him with a new one.
So, ethically, the person would think that his behavior would not be sabotage as such, since he needed a computer in good condition to be able to work without problems and thus be more efficient. The truth is that the company has incurred an unexpected cost due to a deliberate action by the employee so it would enter into counterproductive behaviors at work.
Sabotage should not be taken lightly. Together with theft and other types of fraud against the company by internal personnel, it is estimated that these behaviors generate 10% to 20% of the total number of annual bankruptcies of companies in the United States, so they are factors to be taken into account, and companies must establish measures and awareness programs to prevent them from occurring, to the extent possible.
3. Substance use
We enter a different terrain within counterproductive behaviors at work, and that is that the next item on the list refers to the consumption of toxic substances, such as alcohol and drugs, within working hours, or before it, as long as the effects fall within the individual’s working time. This is an invisible problem, but very serious for some companies
This type of behavior can generate losses of about 30 million dollars a year in all US companies, since it leads to an accumulation of loss of efficiency of workers that ends up having an impact on the organization’s processes and therefore also on its results (and its benefits).
4. Time out
The last of the types of counterproductive behavior at work would be the one that It has to do with inactivity within the work day whether in the form of unjustified absenteeism from the workplace, more abundant and prolonged breaks than what business rules dictate, or even the performance of other tasks unrelated to the company during work time, such as browsing web pages with objectives or constantly checking your mobile phone.
This is a working time in which the activity that in principle should be carried out is not being carried out and which therefore represents a notable decrease in the employee’s productivity, making it increasingly difficult to achieve the marked achievements.
Profile of the transgressor
For companies, it is vital to be clear about the profile of the worker who may engage in counterproductive behavior at work and thus be able to anticipate these malicious actions, thus avoiding the terrible repercussions that we have learned about in the previous point. It does not always have to have the same characteristics, but there are some qualities that tend to be repeated among these individuals.
The first factor that usually appears is a lack of empathy , and it is understood that workers who try to boycott their own workplace, in general, must have a low level of empathy, since they fail to understand the company’s needs or identify them as their own, despite being part of it. On the contrary, they act against his interests, which, ultimately, would also be causing harm to himself.
However, research shows that these people do not always have a low level of empathy, far from it. In some cases, employees who engage in counterproductive behavior at work have a high level of empathy. How is this explained, then? Another factor comes into play here, which is ethics, and that is something very personal.
The thing is, In the eyes of the person, the actions they are taking may be perfectly ethical If your moral code or your way of perceiving reality makes you understand that your counterproductive behaviors at work are actually completely justified behaviors, you will have no ethical problem in carrying them out, because it will not involve a clash of beliefs.
This ethical justification can be real, because we believe that the actions are not harmful, or that they pursue a greater good, or it can even be constructed, as a form of self-regulation of the individual. In that case, what you will do is adapt your beliefs to the behavior carried out, so that a discrepancy does not occur that would lead to discomfort. That is precisely what is known as cognitive dissonance.
Finally, there is an important factor that should never be forgotten: boredom, or lack of motivation Some behaviors, such as those we saw related to downtime, excessive consultation of the personal telephone, etc., are simply due to the fact that the worker is very unmotivated in his task and constantly seeks to escape from it through that type of actions.
