Civility and Risk

By: Dr. Gary Anderberg

In Shakespeare's comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, the leading lady, Beatrice, refers to another person as being "civil as an orange" (II, 1). The Bard loved puns,* and this one recalls that in those days, Spanish oranges came from Seville. Those are the bitter oranges from which real Dundee marmalade, the good stuff, is made.

Let's talk about what civil means in 2024. Civility is becoming an important concept lately as it becomes less common in the workplace. The folks at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) have just published a new instrument that has implications for risk: the SHRM Civility Index.

This is serious stuff. Consider the following from SHRM's current research:

• 161,000,000 people go to work every day in the US.
• 171,000,000 acts of incivility are experienced every day.
• 58% of US workers believe that our society is uncivil.
• Two-thirds of workers have experienced incivility in the workplace in the last month.
• One-third of workers expect conflict to increase in the coming year.

Sure, some of that uncivil behavior is no more than some slightly bent feelings over a thoughtless phrase or other minor irritations, but what happens when incivility boils over into a shouting match, a punch is thrown, or something even worse happens? In the aggregate, incivility in the workplace impacts both productivity and risk.

Here's the real kicker for us risk professionals: only 25% of workers believe managers and supervisors can effectively handle uncivil behavior in the workplace. Sounds like we're either not taking this issue seriously or we're dealing with it in ineffective ways — or both.

We strongly recommend reading the SHRM report. It brings an almost invisible but insidious risk into the light. Some of us, such as yours truly, are blessed with remarkably decent and professional colleagues who are delightful to work with. Clearly, this isn't the case everywhere.

As Don Pedro says later in Much Ado About Nothing when a terrible lie is unmasked, "Runs not his speech like iron through your blood?" If this mere glance at the SHRM report doesn't give you a chill or a hint of iron in your blood, maybe you should read it again.

* A point in common between the greatest writer in English and your humble scribe.