As an employee or as an industrial organizational psychologist, everybody at one point or another has seen counterproductive work behavior which leads to decreased productivity.
There may be an employee who continuously comes late to work or perhaps a coworker who takes long breaks during the day. You might have even seen active workplace bullying or an employee sexually harassing another. All these deviant behaviors at the workplace are simply unacceptable.
While counterproductive work behavior is common, it doesn’t have to be such a drain on resources and employee morale. Quite the opposite, such as in the case of an industrial-organizational psychologist who can help businesses and industry:
- Identify counterproductive work behaviors.
- Learn to lessen counterproductive work behaviors.
- Put strategies in place to fight counterproductive work behaviors in the future.
When counterproductive behavior in the workplace is totally controlled, employees are likely to engage in organizational behavior, actions that go beyond role boundaries and promote a productive and collaborative team.
What Is Counterproductive Work Behavior?
A widely accepted definition of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is “voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in so doing threatens the well-being of an organization, its members, or both” (Source)
Usually called workplace deviance, counterproductive work behavior manifests itself in many ways that affect morale, productivity, and in some cases the reputation of the company.
Most industrial-organizational psychologists recognize five general headings under which all counterproductive work behavior can be classified:
- Withdrawal: Includes absenteeism, lateness, or too long breaks.
- Abuse: Including bullying, harassment, or verbal aggression.
- Theft: Ranging everything from stealing supplies to embezzling.
- Sabotage: An act of intentionally making a company’s resources or reputation subject to damage.
- Production deviance: Purposely misperforming or misdoing an assignment.
These can all be forms of counterproductive work behavior, which may not always be readily seen, but over time they do erode performance and culture within the organization.
Are All Counterproductive Work Behaviors Equal?
Not all counterproductive work behaviors have the same effects or seriousness attached to them. While some may appear as trivial nuisances, others could result in fundamentally serious long-term damage to the success and well-being of an organization. The differences between the behaviors, as well as the nature of disruption they can cause, should be understood so businesses can take appropriate action.
Let’s review a few typical real-world examples of counterproductive work behavior that take place in workplaces of any size and industry:
1. Tardiness and Absenteeism
In the beginning, this seems like a harmless little thing, but chronic lateness or unexplained absenteeism creates serious ripple effects. While one team member comes in late or misses a day of work, the others start to cover up for him or her. Deadlines may be missed, and team dynamics will start to suffer. Over time, habitual tardiness can lower morale, breed resentment in others, and normalize low accountability.
Impact: Disrupted schedules, uneven workload distribution, increasing stress on punctual employees.
2. Bullying and Harassment
It is one of the most dangerous and destructive kinds of counterproductive work behavior. Whether verbal abuse, intimidation, exclusion, or sexual harassment, all forms inflict deep emotional and psychological damage on the victims and cause high turnover, absences, lawsuits, and even long-term trauma among the affected employees.
A workplace tolerating bullying sends the total acceptance of abuse and completely undermines trust, collaboration, and psychological safety.
Impact: Increased mental health issues, toxic culture, potential legal risks, and reputational damage.
3. Overworking and Late Nights
Unintentionally, working overtime can be categorized as counterproductive behavior. Workaholics constantly bear the facade of commitment when, in reality, those prolonged hours shatter the body’s ability to rest; stress physiological and psychological adoptions lead to burnout states, cognitive exhaustion, and poor judgment. These employees become emotionally disengaged, somewhat depressed, and sometimes even take their stress out on fellow workers.
In addition, less-than-healthy precedents are set, proposing that burnout equals success: consequently, encouraging workers to overextend themselves to keep up.
Impact: Reduced creativity, potential chronic health hazards for workers, reduced productivity on the whole, and a consequent rise in turnover as victims of burnout.
4. Digital Loafing
Now that remote and hybrid work has become the new normal, distractions find new avenues to thrive among workers. Digital loafing is in fact a big bag that covers many dark sins: browsing the Internet, online shopping, personal chats on websites, or mindless scrolling on social media. A little digital loafing is considered refreshing; however, too much of it means missed deadlines, softened concentration, and ineffective output.
Counterproductive work behavior in this form is understated, yet it is common and relatively difficult to spot without the presence of trust and high-engagement strategies.
Impact: Low output, low degree of focus, and diminished accountability for remote or hybrid teams.
5. Breakdowns in Communication
Communicating poorly is perhaps not overt misbehavior but is one of the most dangerous forms of counterproductive work behavior: stealthy and damage-inflicting. Withholding information, failure to update, ignoring communications, and misinterpretation of instructions: all cause costly blunders and create a breeding ground for distrust.
Usually, tiny lapses of communication can start really big problems in a collaborative environment from missed deadlines to team conflict.
Impact: Consequently, inefficiencies, duplicated work, misaligned direction, and emotional tension in teams.
6. Lack of Independence
Micromanagement, or too much-sighted supervision, can result in leaving the employees either passive, disengaged, or resistant. Lack of control on the part of the employees over their tasks or outcomes may lead them into total non-trying or out of passive-aggressive measures like dragging their feet or subtly damaging projects.
Such insidious defiance is pure and classic counterproductive work behavior, which is actually more damaging as it is confused for ineffectiveness or laziness.
Impact: Declining torchbearers for innovation, ownership, and job satisfaction.
7. Theft
This, indeed, is one of the forms of counterproductive work behavior that is most severe and tangible. Theft runs the spectrum from minor petty theft (for example, stealing office supplies) to huge thefts such as embezzlement and fraud. A study concluded that 64% of small business establishments encounter some form of employee theft.
Employees who feel they are underpaid, ill-treated, or unappreciated may likewise have justification as to why their stealing from their employer is a breakdown in workplace culture which has now become a cost to the company.
Impact: Financial loss now, legal repercussions later, increased surveillance, and loss of trust.
8. Gossip and Rumor-Spreading
Gossiping is one of counterproductive work behavior that can reduce the effectiveness of the organization but often receives little in the way of attention. Gossip appropriately creates cliques undermines authority and spreads disinformation; unchecked gossip leads to paranoia, bias toward some members, and ill will in a workplace. It diverts attention from real business, damages reputations, and makes cooperation nearly impossible.
Rampant rumor destroys relationships, encourages retaliation, and triggers cycles of violence in all organizations.
Impact: A divide among relationships, a complete absence of coworkers upon whom one can lay trust, high turnover, and an atmosphere that is toxic.
Why It’s Crucial to Address Counterproductive Work Behavior
Ignoring counterproductive work behavior does not only bring petty inconveniences to an organization. It has far-reaching and devastating consequences over time. Consider the following:
– Production and engagement tend to fall off because the members have lost focus and morale.
– Emotional exhaustion is brought about by falling staff morale.
– High performers resign rather than suffer toxic dynamics at work.
– Time into reworking, theft, or inefficiencies is money thrown away.
– The reputation of the organization stands to badly suffer when it comes to attracting new recruits and retaining clients.
– Organizational trust declines, an incalculable loss for team building or innovation.
What Drives Counterproductive Work Behavior?
Fixing counterproductive work behaviors requires an understanding of the roots of what is considered counterproductive work behavior. Some general causes would include:
1. Personality Traits: Some people may be inherently more impulsive, aggressive, or resistant to authority; these behaviors can lead to the development of counterproductive work behavior.
2. Toxic Work Environments: Fear, gossip, or favoritism create an avenue for positive behavior to flourish.
3. Lack of Training or Structure: An employee lacking training or direction may resort to counterproductive work behavior out of self-defense or as a coping mechanism.
4. Imbalance of Perception: Things such as an unfair promotion, a wage gap that remains unaddressed, or a lack of recognition usually result in retaliation in the form of theft or sabotage in the organization.
5. Stress and Transitions: Major life events or struggles with mental well-being manifest as destructive behaviors in the workplace.
6. Bad Management: If leadership lacks communication or accountability, neglects its employees, and thereby has harmful disengaged staff.
Another condition for counterproductive work behavior is a breach in psychological contracts, that is trust or expectation between employer and employee.
How to Manage and Minimize Counterproductive Work Behavior
We have investigated the problem, so now it is time to consider what needs to be done to contain and prevent the spread of counterproductive work behavior forthwith in practice.
1. Develop Clear Policies: Set explicitly what behavior is acceptable and what is not. Practice transparency about the consequences.
2. Set Examples: Leaders set the atmosphere. Those managers with integrity and respect will most likely see those behaviors duplicated by their followers.
3. Design Feedback Mechanisms: Encourage ongoing performance reviews, coaching sessions, and peer feedback. The sooner intervention takes place, the more likely small issues will not evolve into counterproductive work behavior.
4. Employee Well-Being Investments: It’s important to provide psychiatric therapy, flexible working hours, and wellness programs. Employees who are happier are less likely to rebel against anything.
5. Hiring For The Right Reasons: Use behavioral assessments during recruitment processes to help weed out potential candidates who may engage in counterproductive work behavior.
6. Reward Positive Behaviors: Promoting organizational citizenship behavior including teamwork, helping others, and innovation will promote the kind of culture you want to create.
7. Train Managers to Handle Conflicts: Arm leaders to identify early warning signals and resolve interpersonal issues before they escalate.
From Counterproductive to Constructive: Shifting Workplace Behavior
Counterproductive work behavior tends to get ingrained into the culture when it’s left without interference from anyone. In the right circumstances, however, organizations manage to successfully transform their workplaces from toxic environments to healthy ones. Teams become better capable of collaboration and alignment, as well as being engaged in resilience.
By identifying and managing counterproductive work behavior, industrial-organizational psychologists and HR leaders can help businesses protect their bottom line, strengthen employee engagement, and establish a sustainable culture in the organization.
The main things to be aware of are accountability and action. So let us just form a collective commitment towards creating workplaces where respect, collaboration, and psychological safety become normal and counterproductive work behavior is only an exception.
