Bullying in the workplace, checklists for management and employees, plus the root cause of bullying

In this article, the various aspects of bullying in the workplace that we will be discussing are:

Bullying in the workplace

• What is bullying?
• What management can do
• What employees can do
• Checklists for management and employees
• The root cause of bullying

So, let’s begin

What is workplace bullying?

The definition of bullying in research is:

The repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power.

Workplace bullying can be verbal, physical, social, or psychological abuse by your employer (or manager), or another person or group of people at work.

Workplace bullying can happen to volunteers, work experience students, interns, apprentices, and casual and permanent employees.

The types of bullying are:

• Physical – bullying where an individual or group is or can be harmed physically. This includes hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching, and pushing or damaging property.
• Emotional/Verbal - the use of words to mock, shock, tease, or ostracize another person.
• Psychological – socially isolate an individual, make demeaning or sarcastic comments or gestures, and engage in threatening comments or behavior. threaten, manipulate, or stalk someone.

Bullies often apply more than one type of bullying. Bullying can happen face-to-face or online

Dangers of bullying

Bullying can result in physical injury, social and emotional distress, self-harm, and even death. It also increases the risk of depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school.

What does bullying in the workplace look like?

Bullying can be anything from something as small as belittling statements to something as serious as physical assault

Examples of workplace bullying

Examples of what is considered bullying: Damaging, hiding, or stealing someone's personal belongings or work equipment. persistently criticizing, undermining, belittling, demeaning, or ridiculing someone. swearing at someone or using inappropriate language toward them. using the Internet to harass, threaten or maliciously embarrass someone.

Bullying can be:

• Verbal – repeated hurtful remarks or attacks, or making fun of your work or you as a person (including your family, sex, sexuality, gender identity, race or culture, education, or economic background) or spreading rumors or insulting a colleague, yelling or using profanity
• Physical – shove, trip, push, grab in the workplace, threaten to abuse, attack, or threaten with objects that can be used as a weapon
• Exclusion – excluding an individual from group activities or stopping them from working with people or taking part in activities that relate to your work
• Abusing positions of power – giving pointless tasks that have nothing to do with the job, giving jobs that are impossible to do in the allotted time or with the resources provided, deliberately changing work hours or schedule to make it difficult to complete the task, holding back necessary information for getting the work done properly, preventing an employee from progressing at work or criticizing an employee without valid reasoning
• Intimidation – making you feel unimportant and undervalued
• Initiation – where you are made to do humiliating or inappropriate things in order to be accepted as part of the team.
• Hazing – an extreme form of initiation that involves humiliation or ridicule of an individual or group, the willful destruction or removal of public or private property for the purpose of initiation or admission into, affiliation with, or as a condition for continued membership in an organization

The negative implications of bullying in the workplace

Bullying can negatively affect your workforce. It can result in:

• Bad relationships between colleagues
• Driving down productivity because employees are less active or successful or less confident in their work
• Hostility between colleagues
• Absenteeism – Want to stay away from work
• Losing staff
• Lack of respect for the bullying
• Lack of trust - You feel you can’t trust your employer or the people with whom you work
• Lack of confidence and happiness about yourself and your work
• Mental health risks, for example, anxiety, lack of sleep, stress, leading to reduced productivity, feeling scared, stressed, anxious, or depressed
• Reduced sense of personal value
• Have your life outside of work affected, such as study and relationships
• Have physical signs of stress like headaches, backaches, sleep problems

Bullying Statistics

These statistics were taken from the iHasco blog

A report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), using two surveys,: one employees and the other surveyed HR professionals and decision-makers (employers), found that:

• 24% of employees think their organization turns a blind eye to workplace bullying
• 15% experienced bullying in the last 3 years
• 53% of the above did not report it?
• Some reported suffering anxiety, stress, insomnia, heart palpitations, and suicidal thoughts
• 34% of employers (decision-makers) said one of the barriers to conflict management?was the lack of confidence that managers have in challenging inappropriate behavior?
• 40% of those who were bullied/harassed said that their manager was responsible
• 1 in 10 reports being harassed/bullied by social media, email, phone, or text

MANAGEMENT: What can managers do?

• Put a policy in place that clearly spells out your company’s bullying policy
• Train all staff, management as well as employees, regarding your company’s policy
• Have a zero-tolerance policy toward bullying
• Know what the signs of bullying are and keep an eye out for such signs, paying special attention to those who are more susceptible to being victimized
• Lead by example. The tone of the company is set by the people at the top. It’s important to remember that actions speak louder than words
• Create a positive workplace culture with good working relationships
• Have an open-door policy. It must be possible for victims to come forward, as well as those who observe the bullying, who are not directly affected
• Deal with complaints promptly and fairly, applying your policy fairly in all situations
• Provide constructive criticism, without using negative personal comments. Address the problem without degrading the person

EMPLOYEE: What can employees do?

What you can do if you are being bullied at work

• Be informed about your workplace’s bullying policy and complaints procedure
• Keep a diary. Document everything that happens, with dates, times, and names of people who can corroborate your claims including what you did to try to stop it
• Approach the bully. If you feel safe and confident, approach the person who is bullying you and tell them, in a non-confrontational way, that their behavior is unwanted and not acceptable, preferably with someone as a witness. If necessary, get advice from an appointed contact person or from a colleague or manager
• Report it internally to your appropriate senior, following your company’s procedures for making a complaint and resolving disputes.
• Report it externally to support services. If all else fails after you have exhausted all options in your workplace, if the bullying is serious, get outside information and advice.

What Can YOU Do to Stop Bullying?

Addressing the question of bullying is everybody’s responsibility, from top management right through to the proverbial ‘tea girl’.

Here are checklists of strategies that people in managerial positions as well as employees can use in your organization.

CHECKLISTS

CHECKLIST FOR TOP MANAGEMENT

Questions to address are:

• Are your policies and procedures up to date? Do they address respecting one another in the workplace, provided clear expectations regarding interactions among coworkers, and is there a clear channel for reporting workplace incivility or bullying?
• Do you provide easy access to communication channels and support systems? These channels could be reporting to a senior, a toll-free hotline that employees can call to report instances of incivility (rude or unsociable speech or behavior) or feeling targeted, or employee and customer surveys. (Resolving the issue could include a warning, requiring the bully to have counseling, a mediation process, or even firing the bully if the situation continues).
• Do you process complaints fairly? There must be a standard investigation process to evaluate every reported incident and a universal disciplinary policy for instigators of bullying. Is your complaint process fair towards employees when lodged by an external customer who has been accused of incivility? Does it ensure a thorough evaluation of the information gathered?
• Do you set the tone? – Model and support ethical, respectful behavior in your everyday interactions. True respect is earned. You aren’t entitled to respect merely because of your seniority. Respect is also reciprocal. If you treat others with respect, the chances are very good that you will be treated with respect in return. Management sets the overall tone for workplace behavior, and your employees are watching you for cues.

CHECKLIST FOR MIDDLE MANAGEMENT

Do you:

• Keep your ear to the ground. Because you are closer to your employees than the senior level is, you need to listen to your employee concerns both formally and informally, taking specific note of sudden shifts and pattern changes in behavior.
• Address concerns and all forms of aggression. Respectfully attend to employee concerns about incivility and disrespectful verbal aggression whenever it occurs. When necessary, follow through on progressive discipline.
• Walk the talk. Treat your employees respectfully, and encourage respectful interactions at all times through all communication channels. What applies to top management applies to you as well, because your employees take their cue from you.
• Arrange, support, and attend training. Provide ongoing training on respectful workplace interactions. Having employees acknowledge a policy during orientation isn’t enough. Employees need to know specific behaviors that are acceptable or unacceptable and be trained in how to handle incivility and bullying when it occurs.

CHECKLIST FOR EMPLOYEES

• Know that it starts with you. Evaluate your current work environment to understand how you’re being perceived and/or treated. The first thing you have to establish is whether the problem lies with you. If there has been a change in attitude towards you, you have to figure out why. If it’s because of factors or changes such as changes in schedule, supervisors, or assignments contributing to your own sense of dissatisfaction, you need to take responsibility for that. If you’re being treated disrespectfully, wherever possible, you need to bring it to the other person’s attention and asked them respectfully to stop
• Be a role model. If you want to be treated with respect, you need to treat others the way you want to be treated. Remember that true respect is earned.
• Communicate. If people do something that you feel is disrespectful, wherever possible, discuss it with them. Don’t jump to the conclusion that they are bullies. If their background or upbringing is different from yours, it is possible that they do not realize that you regard their behavior as disrespectful. A discussion will give them the opportunity to understand your perception—and the opportunity to change.
• If you see something, speak up. if you witness disrespectful or uncivil behavior even if it’s not directed at you, it’s your responsibility to speak up, to say something—either directly to the person if it’s safe to do so, or otherwise to your supervisor, HR, or leadership team.
• Attend and participate in training. This is important because awareness training and skill building is essential for all employees. It helps you translate policies and procedures into everyday workplace behaviors.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A SAFE AND RESPECTFUL WORKPLACE?

In one word – EVERYBODY! Setting the tone starts at the top, but everybody is responsible for creating and maintaining a safe and respectful workplace. Bullying can only exist in environments and cultures that tolerate it, so if you see it, speak up, and remember that preventing and stopping workplace bullying starts with you.

ROOT CAUSE OF BULLYING

So much is written about bullying and how to handle it, but does any of what is written address the root cause? If you don’t address the cause, it’s the same as giving a cancer patient medication for the pain, without treating the cancer.

Nathaniel Branden is regarded as The father of Self-esteem. I have done an in-depth study of his book: 6 Pillars of Self-esteem

He identifies the pillars as:

1. The practice of Living Consciously
2. The practice of Self-acceptance
3. The practice of Self-responsibility
4. The practice of Self-assertiveness
5. The practice of Living Purposefully
6. The practice of Personal Integrity

If we apply these practices to the matter of bullying and self-esteem, we need to ask:

• If someone is living consciously, meaning he raises his level of consciousness regarding how his actions are impacting his co-workers, will he continue with his bullying?
• If she is practicing self-acceptance, will she still feel the need to constantly put others down in order to feel bigger or better than them?
• If he raises his level of self-responsibility won’t he take responsibility for the hurt he is causing others through his thoughtless actions?
• If she is practicing self-assertiveness (not to be misinterpreted as aggression), will she feel the need to belittle others in order to feel better about herself?
• If he is living purposefully, will he not seek to build others up rather than break them down?
• If she practices personal integrity will she still be able to verbally or physically hurt others without harming her own sense of integrity?
• Victims accept this type of treatment because of their poor self-esteem. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” In other words, victims give the bully permission to treat them the way they do because they feel they are not a person of value as a human being. Victims usually are not aware of this because it occurs on a subconscious level. If they were aware of their value as a human being, would they allow themselves to be treated in this manner?

It is my contention that bullying is the result of poor self-esteem in both the bully and the victim. The bully bullies in order to feel better, more superior, more powerful, and so on, that the victim.

Victims, on the other hand, allow bullying because of their poor self-esteem. They believe, usually on a subconscious level, that they are not worthy of being treated better.

If my contention is correct, should we not be paying much more attention to the positive aspect of building people up rather than the negative aspects of rules and regulations?

Don’t get me wrong. We need to have checks and balances in place, but wouldn’t it be better for all involved to have their self-esteem built up, rather than constantly worrying about what should or shouldn’t be done?

Now I’d like to hear from you. Please leave a comment saying whether you do or do not agree with my contention

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