HJNO May/Jun 2022

54 MAY / JUN 2022 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS COLUMN MENTAL HEALTH ASemployees return toaphys- ical workplace, there are both new and old worries to face. The pandemic gave many people time to consider work- life balance, job satisfaction, and other is- sues experienced while in the workplace. It’s striking when you consider that most of us will have clocked in 10 years of our lives spent at work upon retirement. Returning may bring with it apprehension related to previous interpersonal tension. Sure, we know laws exist to protect you against ha- rassment and bullying behaviors, but what about that more subtle, hard-to-nail-down behavior we’ll call “incivility”? It’s the rare employee who hasn’t expe- rienced being interrupted while making a point at a meeting, having another per- son take credit for your work, feeling your ideas were dismissed, being excluded from an invitation to a meeting that you should attend, or being belittled either verbally in front of colleagues or in a written message. It’s likely you’ve experienced incivility in your workplace. And honestly, it’s likely that you, too, have inadvertently or inten- tionally perpetrated such behavior. Incivility is defined in research literature as “Low intensity deviant behaviour with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in vi- olation of workplace norms ...” , e.g., rolling eyes, showing little interest in another’s opinions, checking emails while meeting, and other similar behaviors. This defini- tion excludes aggressive, bullying, dis- criminatory, harassing, or violent behavior. Interest in, and instances of, “incivility” appear to be on the rise. One literature search on Journal Stor- age (JSTOR) for academic papers referring to “workplace incivility” shows an almost 4-fold increase in matches comparing the periods of 1990-1999 and 2010-2021. (Fig 1) (Note: JSTOR was founded in 1995, so, we have doubled the number of articles showing as an estimate for 1990-1999). Incivility can negatively impact employ- ees on the job, their home lives, and their families. At work, incivility contributes to absenteeism, dissatisfaction, resignations and retirements, reduced productivity and engagement, while potentially escalat- ing to higher levels of rude behavior and to toxicity. For individual workers, it can increase anxiety, depression, and eating, Monica Donahue, MBA, SPHR, CCP, CHRE Special Correspondent RETURNING TO A BetterWorkplace