Retaliation – The Ways It Is Done (Part 1)
Despite the unethicality of retaliation against whistleblowers,
the promised protections, and the conventional denial of
retaliations after they have occurred, actions against whistleblowers are so
common that they must factor into any potential whistleblower’s thinking before
she acts.
Estimates of the percentage of whistleblowers who suffer
retaliation range widely. One study reported
that 90% of whistleblowers suffer retaliation[1]. A 2013 survey found that 21% of those who
reported misconduct suffered retaliation[2]. A study of the reprisal rate among a sample
of federal employees was between 17% and 38%[i3]. Alford cited studies reporting that one-half to
two-thirds of whistleblowers lost their jobs[4]. A 2010 study counted 75% who lost their jobs
as a result of retaliation[5]. In addition, the more powerful are the
corporate authorities that the whistleblower insults, the more likely is the retaliation[6].
To the perpetrator, whistleblowing is a crime against the
organization, its leaders, its stakeholders, and its defenders, and it calls
for punishment. As in the broader
society, punishment is meted out based on the criminal’s motivations, his emotional and
rational temperament, and his capacity for correction. The criminal’s soul is on trial, and the
whistleblower is judged based not on his job performance but on his spirit.
The case against the whistleblower: the disappointed, the incompetent,
the malicious, and the paranoid too often make groundless accusations in the
name of whistleblowing[7]. That was HomeFirst’s contention against me. Another:
whistleblowing is a breach of loyalty, and the whistleblower must be certain
that the impropriety is genuine, imminent, and serious and that whistleblowing is taken as a last resort.
He must be above suspicion[8]. Again: the whistleblower starts off in the wrong
because he hopes to stop the game despite being neither coach nor referee. The whistleblower counters: In the corporate
game, the whistleblower must be empowered to act as referee no less than any
other participant; but the argument fails.
In the 2013 National Business Ethics Survey of employees,
whistleblowers who experienced retaliation reported a wide variety of abuses,
many reporting multiple acts of retaliation:
-
Supervisor intentionally ignored or began treating
differently 69%
-
Other employees intentionally ignored or began
treating differently 59%
-
Supervisor or management excluded from decisions and
work activity 54%
-
Verbally abused by supervisor or someone else in
management 49%
-
Not given promotions or raises 47%
-
Verbally abused by other employees 43%
-
Almost lost job 38%
-
Hours or pay were cut 29%
-
Relocated or reassigned 28%
-
Demoted 21%
-
Harassed at home 18%
-
Experienced physical harm to person or property 16%
-
Experienced online harassment 15%
Proving retaliation is extraordinarily difficult when the
acts are the tactics familiar to most experienced managers who have hoped to
move an employee out by making the job experience painful, restricting resources,
giving bad job assignments, and providing bad reviews based on carefully
selected information[9]. Like
the one no one really likes, the whistleblower may simply be shunned until she
gives up and leaves the organization.
The ostracism suffered by most whistleblowers is
particularly insidious because often it is not an explicit action and the
perpetrator can do it without ever having to admit the act or apologize[10]. The variety of acts of ostracism with their varying
extent, intensity, and clarity compound the tactic’s ambiguity. As a result, the victim may not quite
understand what is going on and may be unable to complain credibly about the
experience.
Acts of ostracism can begin in too familiar expressions of
dislike or disgust and evolve to acts of greater sophistication. HomeFirst CEO Jenny’s raised lip or rolled eyes in response
to my comments in our senior management meetings expressed her
displeasure. After I spoke with the
County about the overbilling problem (1st issue), Jenny decided that she and the Program
Officer would resolve the matter without my assistance. After I identified the residential licensing
violation (2nd issue), I was excluded from the eventual legal discussions, normally part of
my job.
On a November 2013 morning, the Development Officer and I
chatted about whether we would meet with Jenny and the Program Officer as we
usually did each week. A few minutes
later, I saw her and the Program Officer walk into Jenny’s office, and I
followed only to have the door closed in my face. When I pressed the door open, Jenny explained
that she would meet only with them that day.
The three would meet weekly, and I would join on alternate weeks. I used emails and meetings with senior
management and the Finance Committee to raise concerns about compliance and
cash flow, but no discussion ensued.
Jenny decided that she would supervise the office manager, who had
reported to me for years, and the facilities director would report to the
Program Officer, not me, beginning in the new fiscal year.
These are not big things.
Ostracism is not usually about big things. People don’t win generous sympathy for being
excluded from a meeting or for not having to worry about photocopier
maintenance. What I perceived as slights
could be, and were, easily explained away as routine business decisions. Still, those accumulating slights made going
to work painful.
While the whistleblower suffers ostracism, the group that
ostracizes becomes more cohesive[11].
Jenny and the Executive Committee
members that planned my termination basked in team spirit. Facing unified resistance, the victim of
ostracism becomes more aggressive, even toward those who are not responsible
for the rejection[12],
leading to further retaliation and a cycle that can end only in termination. I got the message that ostracism is intended
to communicate, but still I was there cranking out warnings and finding
problems.
A second sort
of punishment, written reprimands, is a traditional step on the path to
documenting any employee termination.
Reprimands are valuable to managers because they are typically beyond rebuttal. My contention that Jenny’s two written
reprimands related to my justifiable responses to illegal directives mattered
not at all. Whether signed by the
employee or not, reprimands go into the file.
Regardless of its truthfulness, the reprimand provides legal defense, if
one were needed, to fire an at-will employee.
The final
punishment is termination, which is typically subject to discussion among
different members of management and often involves conversations with legal
counsel. Whistleblowers may also suffer post-termination efforts to get even, such as poor references or refusing to
provide references at all.
Whistleblowers weigh, however imperfectly, the costs and
benefits from disclosing wrongdoing. The
company’s acts of retaliation provoke anger that shifts those calculations and
leads to further whistleblowing actions[13]. Although the manager’s role demands that she
suppress overt emotional displays so that nothing can be used against her or
the organization[14],
emotions still color decision making[15]
and fuel the expanding conflict. Once the
game has begun, its end is just a matter of time.
[1] Devine, Tom and Tarek F. Maassarani. The
Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, Inc. 2011
[3] Rehg, Michael T.,
Marcia P. Miceli. Janet P. Near and James R. Van Scotter. “Antecedents
and Outcomes of Retaliation against Whistleblowers: Gender Differences and
Power Relationships.” Organization
Science. 19.2 (March-April 2008): 221-240
[4] Alford, C. Fred. Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational
Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. 2001
[5] Patick, Patricia A. “Be Prepared
before You Blow the Whistle.” Fraud Magazine. September/October 2010.
[6] Miceli, Marcia P.,
Janet P. Near, and Terry Morehead Dworkin. Whistle-blowing in Organizations. New York: Rutledge. 2008
[7] Bok, Sissela. Secrets: On
the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation. New York:
Vintage Books. 1984
[8]
Bok,
Sissela. “Whistleblowing and
Professional Responsibilities.” In Ethics Teaching in Higher Education. Daniel Callahan and Sissela Bok (eds.). New York and London: Plenum Press. 1980.
277-295
[9] Devine, Tom and Tarek F. Maassarani. 2011
[12] Twenge, Jean M. and
Roy F. Baumeister. “Social Exclusion
Increases Aggression and Self-Defeating Behavior While Reducing Intelligent Thought
and Prosocial Behavior.” In Dominic
Abrams, Michael A. Hogg and Jose M. Marques (eds.) Social
Psychology of Inclusion and Exclusion. New York: Psychology Press. 2005
[13]
Henik, Erika Gail. “Mad as Hell or Scared Stiff? The
Effects of Value Conflict and Emotions on Potential Whistle-Blowers.” Journal
of Business Ethics 80.1 (2008): 111-119.
[15] Ashkanazy, Neal. “No
separating emotion from the workplace.” The Globe and Mail, January 18, 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment