Workplace bullying is never far from the headlines these days and there are worrying signs that it is on the increase. Anti-bullying policies are pretty widespread in Britain’s but are what are employs being asked to report, here are some examples we have assembled.
- Offensive, intimidating, malicious, or insulting behaviour;
- Abuse of authority which violates the dignity of an individual or a group of people;
- Creating a hostile environment against an individual;
- The undermining, humiliation or injury of an individual.
- Making offensive or intimidating comments;
- Withholding information so the job cannot be done properly;
- Unreasonable or impossible deadlines or workloads;
- Overbearing supervision or unjust criticism;
- Blocking opportunities or making threats about job security.
- No clear job description, or one that is exceedingly long;
- Set unrealistic goals and deadlines which are unachievable or which are changed without notice or reason or whenever they get near achieving them;
- Frequently or constantly criticised and subjected to unwarranted, destructive criticism;
- Encouraged to feel guilty, and to believe they're always the one at fault;
- When they defend themselves, their explanations and proof of achievements are ridiculed, overruled, dismissed or ignored;
- Frequently subject to nit-picking and trivial fault-finding. The triviality reveals an absence of any serious concern;
- Subject to excessive monitoring, supervision, micro-management, recording, snooping, etc.;
- Undermined, especially in front of others and behind their back. Concerns are raised, or doubts expressed about a person's performance or standard of work, but the concerns lack substance and cannot be quantified, or are simply false;
- Threatened, shouted at and humiliated, especially in front of others;
- Taunted and teased where the intention is to embarrass and humiliate;
- Singled out and treated differently, e.g. being disciplined for arriving one minute late, when others stroll in late without penalty;
- Belittled, degraded, demeaned, ridiculed, patronised, subject to disparaging remarks;
- Regularly the target of offensive language, personal remarks, or inappropriate bad language;
- Have their work plagiarised, stolen and copied - the bully then presents their target's work (e.g., to senior management) as their own;
- The subject of written complaints by other members of staff (who have been coerced into fabricating allegations - the complaints are trivial, often bizarre ["He looked at me in a funny way"] and often bear striking similarity to each other, suggesting a common origin);
- Forced to work long hours, often without remuneration and under threat of dismissal;
- Refused requests for leave, or unacceptable and unnecessary conditions are attached;
- Denied annual leave, sickness leave, or especially compassionate leave;
- When on leave, are harassed by calls at home or on holiday, often at unsocial hours;
- Receive unpleasant or threatening calls or are harassed with intimidating memos, notes or emails with no spoken communication, immediately prior to weekends and holidays (e.g., 4pm Friday or Christmas Eve - often these are hand-delivered);
Is it prevalent in our workforce?
As far as the UK is concerned, research for the BBC carried out by Charlotte Rayner PhD of Staffordshire University Business School and Prof. Cary Cooper of the Manchester School of Management (UMIST) has concluded that a staggering 53% of their sample reported having been bullied at work and 77% of respondents reported having been witnesses to such bullying (Leadership Organization Development Journal 1997 p 211-214). These statistics appear to be consistent with the growing body of research available at this time.
Conclusion
Workforce bullies are set you cost UK employers a few hundred million in the coming decade in successful cases brought by employees. The interpretation of our actions is now more in focus than ever before.