EVERY company has 鈥渂ad apples鈥� who grouch about their job and foment discontent in the workplace just because of their own lousy attitudes. Or so management tends to think. But the findings of an American study suggest that cynical employees are no more likely to be whingeing malcontents at heart than the most docile of workers. Instead, cynicism towards work is probably bred in the workplace and is the fault of management itself.
A team from Ohio State University in Columbus reached this conclusion after studying employees at a manufacturing plant in America鈥檚 Midwest. The researchers asked 757 workers to complete questionnaires aimed at defining their attitudes towards work and to life in general, and conducted detailed interviews with 100 employees.
The workers were asked to say how often they felt distressed, hostile, upset, nervous and irritable, which is a standard way to assess people for 鈥渘egative outlook鈥�. Other questions were aimed at estimating how cynical they were about their jobs. This involved rating how strongly they agreed with statements about the workplace such as: 鈥淭he reason why things won鈥檛 get better around here is because the people in charge don鈥檛 care.鈥�
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Some workers were found to be cynical and some had negative attitudes. But while cynical workers were less committed to the company and less motivated in their work, they were no more likely to have a negative outlook on life in general than workers who were not classified as cynical. 鈥淲e believe that cynical workers are usually made, not born,鈥� says John Wanous, professor of management and human resources, who carried out the study with fellow professors Arnon Reichers and James Austin.
The researchers believe there are two main causes of cynicism in the workplace. The first is that employees tend to become disillusioned when they see one job improvement scheme after another heralded with fanfares and then fizzle out. 鈥淵ou could walk into corporate human resources and ask 鈥楧o you have a programme to get more employee involvement, or a programme to put people into autonomous work groups where they learn cross-functional skills?鈥� and they鈥檇 say 鈥楬ell, yes, here it is,鈥� and hand you a big book,鈥� says Wanous. 鈥淏ut walk out onto the shop floor and you won鈥檛 see a trace of these things.鈥�
Wanous recommends that companies let employees know whether schemes failed or succeeded, and why. He also recommends that managers make highly visible improvements to the workplace as well as introducing less tangible measures such as 鈥榠ncreased participation in the decision-making process鈥�. Such improvements could include cleaning up shop floors and installing new lights. That way, people would see that changes have taken place.
The other main cause of cynicism, says Wanous, is perceived hypocrisy on the part of the employer 鈥� such as cuts in pay and bonuses that affect only the rank and file. 鈥淎ny time the axe falls disproportionately, people get cynical.鈥�