The Incident

After workplace violence training was conducted at the organization, during which early

intervention was emphasized, an employee called the Employee Assistance Program $($EAP$)$

member of the workplace violence team for advice on dealing with his senior co$-$worker, he

said the co$-$worker, who had been hired at a senior professional level six months earlier, was

in the habit of shouting and making demeaning remarks to the other employees in the office.

The senior co$-$worker was skilled in twisting words around and manipulating situations to his

advantage. For example, when employees would ask him for advice on a topic in his area of

expertise, he would tell them to use their common sense. Then, when they finished the

assignment, he would make demeaning remarks about them and speak loudly about how they

had done their work incorrectly. At other times, he would demand rudely in a loud voice that

they drop whatever they were working on and help him with his project. The employee said

he had attempted to speak with his supervisor about the situation but was told not to make a

mountain out of a molehill. During a department meeting, he asked the employee for a

particular file but was presented with a different one. The wrong file has been given. In a

dramatic episode of screaming and yelling, he threw the file back toward the horrified employee. He stormed out of the meeting room, swearing about how incompetent the

employee was.

Incident Response

The EAP Counselor met with the employee who had reported the situation. The employee

described feelings of being overwhelmed and helpless. The demeaning remarks were

becoming intolerable. The employee believed that attempts to resolve the issue with the

coworker were futile. The fact that the supervisor minimized the situation further discouraged

the employee. By the end of the meeting with the counselor, however, the employee

recognised that not saying anything was not helping and was allowing a bad situation to get

worse. At a subsequent meeting, the EAP counselor and the employee explored skills to

address the situation in a respectful, reasonable, and responsible manner with both his

supervisor and the abusive coworker.

The counsellor suggested using language such as:

$$ I don$$t like shouting. Please lower your voice.

$$ I don$$t like it when you put me down in front of my peers.

$$ It$$s demeaning when I am told that I am$...$

$$ I don$$t like it when you point your finger at me$.$

$$ I want to have a good working relationship with you.

The employee learned to focus on his personal professionalism and responsibility to establish

and maintain reasonable boundaries and limits by using these types of firm and friendly $$Istatements$,$ acknowledging that he heard and understood what the supervisor and coworker

were saying and repeating what he needed to communicate to them. However, employee

need to understand type of disruptive behaviour due to personality disorder of the senior coworker and find solutions for the problem.

Based on a scenario given, student should be able to:

a$.$ Describe the problems and challenges of distruptive behavior found in the case.

b$.$ Explain causes of the problem related to distruptive behavior at work.

c$.$ Explain the techniques$/$solution should be considered to manage communication at

work. $($Please relate with topic learn in topic $8$ : Communication skill and Effective

Writing$)$