The Curse of Work
What should HR do about swearing in the workplace?In most workplaces you’re pretty likely to be exposed to some degree of swearing – unless, perhaps, you work in a convent. (And even then, who can be sure?)
And whether you like it or not, there’ll always be a colleague who peppers their language with it – some more liberally than others.
Reasons for swearing are manifold. Stress, anger and frustration are usually solid causes. But they’re not the only ones – and don’t be fooled into thinking that swearing betrays an inarticulacy on the part of the effer and blinder.
Quite the contrary – in the right hands swearing can be an almost beautiful thing, adding emphasis, emotion and a prosaic flow to everyday dialogue. From Lenny Bruce to Malcolm Tucker via NWA, popular culture is full of examples of swearing used to great effect.
Despite a recent survey which found 81% of employees thought swearing ‘brought an employee’s professionalism into question’, it would be foolish these days to expect many profanity-free workplaces.
That said, for every swearer, there’s almost certainly somebody who’ll be offended by it. You know the type. So, there’s a need to maintain a balance here, between the Kenneth Tynans and the Mary Whitehouses of the workplace. Those who see nothing wrong with the odd F-bomb, and those who are upset by being exposed to them.
Where the balance should be struck, of course, depends on many things.
Curse you’re worth it
For starters, there’s obviously sector and workplace type. To put it bluntly, the language you’ll hear on a building site or in a timber yard will differ to what you’ll hear in your average office environment. Any expectations of language should take this into account.
The role of the individual is also crucial. Any customer-facing role requires a more respectful vocabulary than one that doesn’t bring the individual into contact with the public. In most cases, HR policies will set out expectations on swearing that are designed to protect customers, rather than other employees.
And then there’s pure common sense. In a high-pressure working environment or one that presents challenging scenarios or requires significant emotional investment, each employee could be a pressure cooker waiting to let out a steaming whistle of lively language.
The common sense comes in when you evaluate the situation – if you’re managing a factory floor and someone’s severed a finger, maybe it’s acceptable. If you’re in a primary school and someone’s dropped the chalk, maybe not.
Swear the heart is
Some workplaces – particularly those which, as mentioned, require certain levels of presentability and customer care – have hard and fast policies that cover use of bad language. Breaches of these can be considered a disciplinary offence and are dealt with accordingly, as would any other behaviour that breaches your wider HR policies.
But even in the absence of formal policies, a set of informal guidelines or an agreement among staff can help to keep things in check if there’s sensitivity around swearing in a particular working environment.
This allows you to take action if an employee is upset or offended at the language used by a colleague, while enabling you to employ that vital common sense when addressing the situation.
It’s also important to remember that with swearing, as with many workplace behaviours, context is everything – and some situations require firmer action than others.
If bad language is used aggressively, for example, then it could constitute bullying or harassment and will be covered under your standard HR policies. And, if the language is of a discriminatory nature, it must be addressed under the 2010 Equality Act, lest you find yourself open to a claim of discrimination based on protected characteristics.
And even if the extent of the swearing doesn’t reach these levels, it’s still important to consider that employees’ individual tolerance to bad language will differ, depending on factors such as age, background and culture.
Ultimately, as a people issue, it’s important to consider that people are different and as such, have different thresholds when it comes to issues like this.
Besides, in the absence of formal, or even informal policies, you can tackle the issues by encouraging people to adopt some more palatable alternatives to the usual array of profanities than they might be used to.
Hollywood swears
Perhaps you should take the Hollywood approach and replace conventional swearwords with frankly ridiculous alternatives in the hope of getting your workplace a PG rating.
For example:
From Die Hard 2, in which Bruce Willis inexplicably addresses one of his nemeses as ‘Mr Falcon’ in a climactic scene (in which everyone knows what he originally said):
On a similar note – and one which at least deserves points for creativity and matching up with the lip sync, here’s Samuel L Jackson expressing, in uncharacteristically polite terms, how he feels about *those* snakes on *that* plane:
Or, there’s the Usual Suspects, in which the words ‘Fairy Godmother’ are used in place of an address that was originally far less charming:
And finally, my favourite. From The Big Lebowski, when a raging Walter Sobchak demonstrates, by smashing up a car, the consequences of, erm, ‘finding a stranger in the alps’.
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