Stop the Invisible Bully: A Step-by-Step Guide for Managers to Fix Underutilization
Ever feel as though you are being “left out of the loop” or ignored when work projects are being discussed or assigned? When your viewpoint or experienced is not taken into account? Feel deliberately “passed over” during meetings for viewpoint or perspective. You may not be imagining it. One example is underutilization—a bullying tactic that creates a feeling of uselessness or a lack of value—managers must move away from exclusionary behaviors and instead foster a culture of transparent accountability and professional support.
What can managers or immediate supervisors do to change the culture? Let’s review some best practices:
1. Establish and Enforce a Modern Code of Conduct
Managers can ensure that the organization has a clear Code of Conduct that is updated for the current workplace climate.
- Define Respectful Behavior: Use team meetings to establish shared definitions of workplace respect versus bullying.
- Explicitly Prohibit Underutilization: The code should define and ban behaviors such as “removing areas of responsibility without cause” or “overruling decisions without a rationale”.
- Mandatory Training: Implement civility training that considers diverse learning styles and generations to ensure all employees understand the expected standards.
2. Provide Transparent Rational for Decisions
One of the key indicators of underutilization is the dismissal of an employee’s professional input without explanation.
- Explain “Why”: Managers should avoid overruling decisions without providing a clear business rationale. This ensures employees understand the logic behind changes and do not feel their expertise is being ignored.
- Avoid “Just-in-Time” Guidelines: Prevent confusion and stress by providing stable, clear work guidelines rather than “constantly changing” them.
3. Ensure Equal Access to Consistent Information and Resources
Underutilization often occurs when managers “purposely withhold business information” or ignore established processes.
- Follow Preparation Checklists: Managers should lead by example by following and enforcing Preparation Checklists to ensure all team members have the resources needed to succeed.
- Audit Work Distribution: Regularly review workloads to ensure they are fair and that specific individuals are not being assigned “impossible workloads” or “unreasonable duties” designed to set them up for failure.
4. Actively Validate and Utilize Employee Expertise
To prevent employees from feeling “erased, invisible, or ignored,” managers must proactively recognize their contributions.
- Identify “Best Practices”: Managers should identify and showcase high-quality work as visual examples for the rest of the team. This reinforces the value of each employees’ contribution.
- Continuous Improvement: Encourage a focus on “an endless series of tiny improvements,” helping employees grow in their roles so they feel competent and fully utilized.
- Address “Lackluster Performance” with Support: Instead of ignoring a struggling employee (which leads to underutilization), provide “triage” retraining, coaching and mentoring or supplemental retraining to help them expand and solidify and/or enhance existing skills.
5. Foster Feedback and Accountability
Managers must create channels for employees to report when they feel their skills are being wasted or ignored.
- Utilize Evaluation Surveys: Treat employee evaluations as a “voice for change” rather than a formality. These surveys can highlight where policies are failing and where individuals may be feeling underutilized.
- Inspect and Verify Change: Don’t just acknowledge issues; perform “inspection and verification” to ensure that improvements in team synergy and communication are actually occurring.
Approaching humanity and career development approach, managers can create and support a working environment that moves the team toward a more collaborative and respectful environment where every member’s skills are utilized and value is recognized.
Related
- Stop the Invisible Bully: A Step-by-Step Guide for Managers to Fix Underutilization
- Subtle Sabotage: How Workplace Underutilization Can Be a Subtle Form of Bullying
- Decoding Workplace Conflict: Lessons from Movies
- Infographic “Confronting the Workplace Bully”
- Amplifying a Colleague’s Visibility in the Workplace, a Guide