Bad Emails- Bad Day

Comments

Bosses who e-mail their workers with harsh performance reviews do their employees more harm than good, according to a new British study on mental health.
  A study found employees' blood pressure shot up significantly when they read negative e-mails from their supervisors and managers. The more they received the more health effects they experienced, putting them at increased risk of heart attach and stroke, says George Fieldman, a psychologist at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College.
  “There is a biological health consequence of treating staff badly,” he said. “To treat staff well is in their interest, and it's probably in the interest of the manager in the long term.” Sending hostile e-mails to staff may actually be counterproductive because such messages increase employees' negativity, the researchers said. 
 
The study is believed to be the first direct evidence that threatening e-mails can have physical consequences. Dr. Fieldman says it could trigger a spate of lawsuits brought by unhappy employees claiming their bosses make them sick.
  But the number of threatening e-mails sent by managers is expected to rise exponentially in the coming years. 
 
Bosses are increasingly relying on e-mail to castigate employees so they can avoid face-to-face confrontations, said Dr. Cary Cooper, a professor of organizational psychology and health at Lancaster University Management School.
“The downside of e-mails is going to be highly prevalent in the new world of work that we're going to see in the next five years,” said Dr. Cooper, who was not involved in the research.
  “It's the wrong way to do it. People need the interaction and the clarification and the appropriate feedback. And it's a managerial cop-out.”
  For the latest study, the researchers asked 48 students to read two e-mails advising them they had broken a rule. 
 
One was written in neutral language and one was written in a threatening tone.
 Some of the participants read e-mails sent from colleagues of equal status, while others read e-mails from senior administrators. Machines monitored their blood pressure throughout. 
 
The participants who demonstrated the most significant changes in blood pressure were those who read threatening emails ostensibly from their superiors.
  A previous study conducted by Dr. Fieldman and his colleagues suggested employees are also at danger from high blood pressure when they are supervised by someone they dislike.
   The researchers did not compare the effects of receiving bad news from a boss by e-mail with receiving the same news face to face.
Dr. Fieldman said he hopes the findings encourage bosses to treat their subordinates with respect.
   “It's a good idea to be kind and sympathetic and try to place yourself in somebody else's shoes so that you can resolve an argument, rather than say 'My only concern is looking upwards in the hierarchy,' in what I call the 'smile up, spit down' theory of management.” 
  
The findings were presented this week at the British Psychological Society's annual occupational psychology conference. The researchers also expect them to be published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association.WSN