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11 Examples of Misconduct in the Workplace That You Must Know

11 Examples of Misconduct in the Workplace That You Must Know

Trying to pinpoint the areas you need to work on as a leader or team member? Need to know a few examples of misconduct in the workplace? You are in the right place!

As a manager or team member, it’s really important to understand the office offenses and misconduct for maintaining a friendly workplace & ensuring a healthy relationship with the team member or co-workers. If you are enough aware of your imperfections, it will be the first and foremost step toward your improvement.

One of the toughest parts of working with other employees is interacting with people and managing them properly. You can’t become a perfect manager but can maintain a better understanding of your team. You need to be clear in your purpose and people from the very beginning.

At the same time, as a team member, you must be aware of every possible misconduct in the workplace to enable you to maintain a healthy environment at the office.

Today’s post will look at the topic of managing common workplace misconduct in more detail and provide some tips on how to deal with this as a business owner or team manager.

Importance of Addressing Misconduct in the Workplace

workplace misconduct

Workplace misconduct is a serious issue that can have devastating consequences when left unaddressed. This can lead to low employee morale, poor working relationships, and poor performance.

Misconduct in the workplace is a broad term that encompasses any type of behavior that is not in line with the company’s policies. It can range from inappropriate jokes to sexual harassment.

More essentially, workplace misconduct affects corporate culture and creates a work environment that is unhealthy for employees to work in. It is important for organizations to educate employees about their rights and responsibilities. An organization collects and tracks all reports of workplace misconduct and takes appropriate action.

So an employee or a team member should always remember that workplace misconduct is unacceptable behavior that is inappropriate for the workplace and negatively impacts their work, environment, and hampers the reputation in the office.

In fact, in the U.S., this is the third most common reason a company uses for disciplinary action, after absenteeism and tardiness. But what qualifies as workplace misconduct? How do you handle these situations? What sanctions are in place for such misconduct? Employees should always keep the answers to these questions in mind before they decide to work for any company.

Maintaining fair, productive, and safe working conditions is vital to your company’s sustainability. By dealing with misconduct promptly, you are protecting your employees, promoting teamwork, and upholding best practices, in addition to avoiding the threat of employee lawsuits.

Types of Common Misconduct in the Workplace

When you think about workplace misconduct, your first thought might be about sexual harassment. But workplace misconduct has a much broader definition than sexual harassment. There are several types of workplace misconduct that can put your business at risk.

examples of workplace misconduct

Misconduct in the workplace can be classified into four categories:

  • Sexual harassment
  • Discrimination
  • Bullying
  • Violence

Sexual harassment is when someone makes unwanted sexual advances or requests for sexual favors or engages in other unwanted verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Discrimination is when an employer treats an employee unfairly because of their age, race, gender identity, religion, disability status, or other protected characteristics. Bullying is when someone uses words or actions to hurt another person over and over again. Violence includes physical assaults and threats of violence against others.

Also Read: How to Manage Bad Manager Behaviour at Workplace

11 Examples of Common Workplace Misconduct or Offenses You Must Know

A project could be destroyed only because of bad manager behavior. You might get lots of poor management offenses by googling within a minute. But not all of them have the same importance or are significant. In this article, we built a list of 11 examples of misconduct in the workplace you may not know you’re committing!

Not Developing a Clear Communication Plan

how to maintain proper communication

Communication can be the leading problem when it comes to moving and managing people through a certain change. Having a better communication plan is certainly an advantage for you. But remember, your plan must be combined with other core requirements of change management. You should always be careful about building and maintaining proper communication within your team.

Not Enough Administration (Being Too Hands-Off)

Your employees need your guidance and recognition. Are you aware of what are your employees are actually doing, what challenges they are facing and what facilities they are waiting for to overcome the situations? If not, pinpoint it as bad manager behavior! Not even think of being too hands-off.

Ignoring the Root Causes of Employee Resistance

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown

Resistance is a function of disruption. The causes of resistance are certainly predictable. You should be alert about why these happen and how to treat them properly. Build strong communication and maintain the consultancy.

Authoritarian or Uncaring

How do you make a decision? Do you neglect the thoughts and opinions of your team or seek inputs from them? It’s important because you can’t build a perfect team bonding ignoring this practice? Honor your people and give them space. You may be smart and even right most of the time, but never underestimate the team power! Remember- authoritarian or uncaring are the signs of a poor manager.

Over-Simplifying or Downplaying the Impact of the Change

Your employees can be badly affected by both of the practices. You shouldn’t try to address the change management of your projects from an oversimplifying perspective. Give proper importance to the mindset of your teammates. Avoid bad manager behavior by creating trust.

Treating Everyone Alike

People are different. It’s a mistaken notion that you should treat all the employees the same.

how to treat every team member alike

If you take two people doing exactly the same job, it’s almost sure that each will have different skills and potential. Each of them has different needs and expectations. So you shouldn’t treat everyone alike. It is also considered as misconduct and bad behavior at the workplace!

Charging Too Much Is the Bad Manager Habit

Making mistakes is part of the job. Try to remain positive all the time. It’s not so easy but part of your duty! Great leaders are considered great listeners. So, don’t complain too much. Don’t charge too much. You will be the winner at the end of the day.

Self-Contradictory Leadership

Management skills vs Leadership skills

You need challenges to grow. Great leaders love challenges to ensure their development growth. Moreover, there are basics in every project or organization a leader never gets bored with. If you stop caring about the basics, others will stop caring too. So try to keep the focus on both the challenges and basics. Avoid self-contradictory leadership. It is misconduct in the workplace as well.

Not Helping People Visualize the Possibilities

It’s important to visualize the possibilities. People love to know the future state. If you are not ready to help your people to visualize the possibilities, they will be frustrated. It will lower the speed of your team. So, be positive and helpful. Give them enough space and freedom. Try to be a true leader.

Ignoring Career Development Opportunities

career development opportunities

It’s critical but a must be considered fact. If your organization doesn’t have a clear career plan, your people will start to see it elsewhere. You should make your team feel free and be clear about their career plan with you. Don’t only think to use their skills and capability for your project, it’s also an example of misconduct at the workplace. Help to ensure their career development. Today it is too regarded as the basic convenience.

Trying to Make Big Changes All at Once

Sometimes it’s good to break down changes into fewer steps. You can properly manage your process and reduce your cost. But this practice may not bring the desired result all the time. Here is a fear that can affect your employees. Everyone can’t handle the sudden changes and furnish them with the situation quickly. So, try to avoid making big changes all at once. Consider the ways you can follow to make your people feel more comfortable and satisfied.

Avoid Misconduct to Keep Your Work Environment Healthy

The best way to avoid misconduct is to be aware of your actions and keep them respectful at all times. This means not saying anything that would offend someone else or make them uncomfortable, avoiding touching, stroking, grabbing, or any other unwanted physical contact.

If you are uncertain about a situation and need help determining whether your behavior was appropriate, ask the individual how the interaction made them feel or if anything uncomfortable happened.

healthy work environment

It is important to know what constitutes misconduct in the workplace. Hopefully, the examples & guide that we have shared today, will help you avoid committing any misconduct in the workplace and enable you to maintain a healthy work environment in the future.

It’s good that you are considering the common office offenses or misconduct beforehand as it is highly essential when it comes to managing large teams or projects. As we mentioned earlier – you might not be able to manage a team better without building and maintaining a strong bonding with your people.

Moreover, you can meet your desired success and ensure your project’s long-term development by caring for your team and avoiding these common misconduct. So, avoid misconduct in the workplace and ensure a healthy workplace to prove yourself to be a true leader!

If you like you can check out how great leaders ensure quality & results with the proper team and work management automation. With the proper tool, even you could also be a smart team manager utilizing the best project management tools and skyrocket your business organizing your task easily.

Hope you have enjoyed this post on the examples of common misconduct that needs to be avoided in the workplace. You can drop in any queries or share your workplace misconduct experience with us in the comments below.

2 thoughts on “11 Examples of Misconduct in the Workplace That You Must Know”

  1. Pingback: Why Projects Fail and How to Avoid Failures
  2. Pingback: The TOP 5 SME Predictions For 2021 • 01/06/2021 • Articles

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