The do's and don'ts of workplace behaviour!
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What monstrous workplace behaviors are highlighted this Halloween?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Welcome back. You're listening to Breakfast Business with me, Tom McEnany, standing in for Joe Lynham. Halloween is here and that means it's time for your annual dose of monstrous workplace behaviour. Joining me now to give us the ghoulish details is Moira Glassick, Chief Operating Officer at Peninsula Ireland. Good morning, Moira.
Morning, how are you?
I'm doing very well. How are you doing?
I'm good, thank you.
Do you like Halloween?
Yeah, I can take it or leave it.
All right. OK. You're not dressing up then?
What horror stories can arise from social nights out at work?
Not dressing up today, no.
All right.
OK.
I must say I miss dressing up and going around doing trick or treating with my son. But the thing is, once they turn 17, it's harder to go around the neighbours begging for sweets, you know. But anyway, we're talking about horror stories. You give me a list of your own favourite horror stories. And of that list, Myra, what's your own favourite? What's the one that keeps you awake at night?
It's the one that comes up all the time and it's employees on social nights out and work. There is always a drama. OK. And people forget that when the drama happens outside of work in the social setting, it normally comes back into the workplace. So one of the ones that we've had this time around is two employees that went for karaoke. All right.
How can a karaoke night lead to workplace drama?
That sounds reasonable. Which is something very popular. A few drinks taken.
Absolutely. So there's always potential. But we had two employees at this particular event who wanted to be the star of the show. So unfortunately, it ended up with two employees fighting against each other on who was going to hold the microphone and who was going to do the most singing.
And when you say fighting, you're talking fisticuffs?
Fisticuffs, yeah. So they got into a bit of an argument over who was going to be the person up singing for the night. Unfortunately, it ended up back in the workplace and the employer ended up having to do a disciplinary and harassment investigation between the two employees.
Disciplinary and an harassment. Yes. So somebody, because they couldn't get the mic at the karaoke night, put in a formal harassment claim to their employer.
Yeah.
What are the consequences of inappropriate behavior at work events?
Yeah, I can see why that would be fun to deal with.
Yeah, well, it all starts out as fun and games. Ended up in a few tears back in the office after the offence from the night before.
OK. Throw in some others.
We've also had the employee who in the food industry was being very proactive or so the manager thought they were being very proactive until they discovered when they were making fries, they were actually putting some of their nasal waste in with the fries as well.
Picking their nose.
Picking their nose, basically, and throwing it in on top of them. Oh, oh, oh. Which isn't very pleasant.
Let's not mention the restaurant.
Let's not mention the restaurant. Definitely not. It was all sorted out anyway. So that's the main thing.
How do shortcuts in the workplace lead to dangerous situations?
Before you leave it, I remember there was a famous fish and chip shop up beside us in the north of the country. I won't mention the town in case there's only one in the town. And in order to establish whether the hot plate on which they cooked the burgers was hot enough, the guy behind the counter was just spitting it. And if the spit sizzled, it was hot enough and he'd throw your burger down, you know. I'm sure they've stopped that practice now.
I'm nearly positive they've stopped that practice. They're very good at being checked these days. And I think the other one that we come up quite often is when employees are trying to create shortcuts. So they're trying to make their job much quicker. Which is fair enough. Which is fair enough. Which is fair enough. And find imaginative ways of trying to do that. So we had one situation where an electrician decided to duct tape two power tools together to try and drill things quicker. Unfortunately, it caused a little bit of a few sparks.
What is job stacking and why is it a concern for employers?
Wait a second, duct tape? OK, OK, OK.
So this is a drill. A drill. So duct tape, two drills together. So in order that they could drill the wall quicker.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What monstrous workplace behaviors are highlighted this Halloween?
0:01–0:34
2
What horror stories can arise from social nights out at work?
0:34–1:16
3
How can a karaoke night lead to workplace drama?
1:16–1:54
4
What are the consequences of inappropriate behavior at work events?
1:54–2:30
5
How do shortcuts in the workplace lead to dangerous situations?
2:30–3:23
6
What is job stacking and why is it a concern for employers?
3:23–4:06
7
How can social media reveal workplace misconduct?
4:06–5:20
8
What unusual complaints have employers had to address?
5:20–7:41