Bullying is wrong wherever it happens: in the classroom, on the playground, in cyberspace—everywhere. This is about workplace bullying. It’s wrong there, too.
Ray Williams calls bullying “North America’s silent epidemic,” and says “bullying involves the conscious repeated effort to wound and seriously harm another person—not with violence, but with words and actions.”
Bullying is silent because the bullying triad keeps it so. Bullies don’t announce that they are bullying. Victims either don’t say they are being bullied or, if they do, those whose job it is to investigate and stop the practice — HR departments, for example—blame the victim or do nothing. Witnesses, if there are any, don’t speak up on behalf of co-workers being bullied.
What Happens in the Workplace?
A red flag should go up if you are the victim of, or witness to, any or all of these tactics used by a supervisor or co-worker who:
- Repeatedly blocks a worker’s promotion without valid explanation
- Continually gives an employee the silent treatment or deliberately ensures that an employee “doesn’t get the memo”—i.e. is not given important and necessary work-related information
- Deliberately and repeatedly disrupts or prevents work being done
- Constantly sets unworkable deadlines and faults workers for not meeting them
- Insists on excessive overtime without adequate compensation
- Demands prolonged overtime rather than staffing a workplace adequately
- Repeatedly verbally attacks or makes jokes about an employee
- Verbally attacks, intimidates or humiliates a worker and superiors know about, but do nothing to stop, the offending behaviour
- Repeatedly “forgets” to pay a worker, or repeatedly doesn’t pay on time (sometimes occurs in solo practice professional offices or in “Mom and Pop” stores that employ one or two workers, or in small businesses where payroll is done by hand or by one employee with many other responsibilities)
- Repeatedly threatens a bullying victim, or jeers "It's my word against yours!" if the victim begins to stand up for himself
The list is by no means exhaustive. But when is it bullying and when is it just a personality conflict?
Rose or Flower?
Once or twice, it may be just a co-worker or boss losing her cool or showing an unpleasant facet of his personality. In my last job, during a period of chronic sleepless nights and emotional upheaval on the home front (linked to caring for a Mom in end-stage Alzheimer’s), I still turned up for work each morning, accounted for but exhausted. My explanation to the boss when he finally asked for one was met with a shrug and an indifferent “Well, we all have our stressors.” Lack of compassion maybe, but not bullying. Sometimes a rose is just a flower.
Continually demanding that I alone handle a 2-person workload within an impossible timeframe, repeatedly refusing to increase staffing level to match a growing workload, regularly suggesting I was just incompetent for not being able to get 12 hours worth of work done in 8 hours, repeatedly denying legitimate vacation requests with “you didn’t give me enough notice” while allowing a co-worker vacation leave on short notice—all over a several-year period—now that was bullying.
Sometimes a rose is really a rose.
What Does Bullying Matter to Employers?
Bullying can cost an employer in lost productivity whether an accusation of bullying is substantiated or not. Ray Williams notes that bullying in the workplace “leads to increased levels of stress among employees, higher rates of absenteeism and higher than normal attrition.”
Bullying costs an employer’s time to document events, investigate accusations, and come up with strategies or make policies against bullying actions. It takes time and money to train replacement workers if an experienced worker quits the job rather than endure continued bullying.
Bullying can cost a business its reputation. Victims are not necessarily silent outside the workplace. Given the rapid spread of information via social media today, a disgruntled worker can tell the whole world in just minutes that XYZ Company tolerates victimization of its staff. Whether the accusation is substantiated or not XYZ Company will suffer significant damage to its corporate image—damage costly to repair.
Bullying can be deadly. The Canada Council reports that “in April 1999, a bullied worker went on a shooting rampage at OC Transpo in Ottawa, leaving five people dead.” The resulting coroner’s inquest recommended that Canadian federal and provincial governments, and employers, develop legislation and policies to address workplace harassment and violence.
Bullying costs money. Stiff economic penalties may be imposed on employers who see and do nothing. Sarah Scott reported on a female officer who took the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) to trial for doing nothing to support her against continued harassment by a senior officer. A British Columbia court awarded the complaining officer almost $1 million.
What Does Bullying Matter to the Victims?
Bullying takes its toll on victims medically. Bullied workers may report any or all of: headaches, anxiety, nausea, insomnia, high blood pressure, eating disorders, depression and even thoughts of suicide.
A Swedish study of 3,100 men over a 10-year period found that “employees who had managers who were incompetent, inconsiderate, secretive and uncommunicative” were 60% more likely to suffer a heart attack or other life-threatening cardiac condition.
This is not only a men’s issue, though. WBI (Workplace Bullying Institute) reports “research finds most workplace bullying victims are women.”
As any victim of workplace bullying knows, targets of bullying spend a lot of both workplace time trying to deal with the abuse emotionally. Even if the victim stays on the job, she may lose time checking and double-checking her work to fend off the bully’s next attack. Victims may disrupt co-workers’ schedules with their tales of woe, need for reassurance, or cautions to co-workers to guard their own backs.
Workplace bullying takes its toll on home life, too. Families are often sounding boards at the end of the day while workers relate the day’s events over and over, trying to make sense of it all. Families may even fall victim themselves to a worker lashing out at home when he cannot release pent-up emotions at work.
A worker and his family may suffer financially if the worker is bullied to the point of either finally quitting the job, of if the bully succeeds in so tormenting his victim that the victim is fired for inappropriate workplace behaviour that results from an inability to cope with being bullied in the workplace.
Bullying matters to such an extent that books are written about it, legislation is enacted against it, economic penalties are imposed upon it, and organizations and institutes—WBI, “the first and only U.S. organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying”—commit time and money to studying all aspects of it.
To read about the three groups who make up the bullying triad, click to read Workplace Bullying—The Triad: Bullies, Victims and Bystanders. For ideas on how to stop workplace bullying, read Workplace Bullying: Stop It!
Sources
Nyberg A., Alfredsson L., Theorell T., Westerlund H., Vahtera J., Kivimaki M. Managerial leadership and ischaemic heart disease among employees: the Swedish WOLF study. Occup Environ Med 2009:66:51-55
The Canada Safety Council. Targeting Workplace Bullies
Morera, Natalia. Research finds most workplace bullying victims are women
Scott, Sarah. Is this the end of the toxic boss?
Williams, Ray. Workplace Bullying: North America’s silent epidemic.
