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Guidance: what you need to know – bullying at work

Bullying in the workplace can lead to a drop in employee productivity and morale and also to expensive court cases for organisations. Connect looks at how to form policies and procedures aimed at identifying, preventing and dealing with this problem.

Headlines

A survey showed that over a third of respondents experienced some form of bullying at work and, of these, 80 per cent said that the bullying has affected their health
The survey found that around three-quarters of bullying comes from people at a higher level in an organisation
If it can be proved in court that an organisation allowed a manager to bully a member of staff, the costs can be enormous. In 2009, the News of the World was ordered to pay almost £800,000 to a reporter who left work as a result of “a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour”
Bullying can be dealt with as part of an organisation’s stress management policy.

In two previous articles on March 1 and March 15 Connect looked at violence at work where abuse, threats or physical violence came from outside the organisation. This time, we consider the problem from within an organisation, such as from bosses, peers and even support staff.

We’re all protected by law from physical attacks, and from “conduct which may cause harassment, alarm or distress to another person”. However, harassment and distress may be more difficult to disentangle in a work situation. For instance, if a boss tells an employee they haven’t done their job well, that might be distressing, but it might be necessary to get the job done correctly. Also, if support staff always refuse to do the work you’ve allocated to them, they could be deliberately trying to upset you or they may just be overloaded themselves.

Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) requires employers to provide a safe and healthy working environment, and this must include protection from bullying. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) imposes an obligation on employers to make sure that there are control measures in place to reduce the risk of bullying so far as is reasonably practicable.

Why tackle bullying?

Bullying affects people differently. While some may be able to stand up to it, others suffer anxiety, insomnia, lack of concentration, and apathy. They may become withdrawn, or they may become more aggressive with their colleagues and subordinates and a situation can escalate. It’s also not good for productivity and, in extreme cases, people can choose to leave the workplace, resulting in increased recruitment costs and, as identified earlier, litigation costs.

How do we identify bullying at work?

The International Labour Organization defines bullying as “a form of psychological harassment consisting of persecution through vindictive, cruel or malicious attempts to humiliate or undermine”.

The TUC provides some useful examples of what constitutes bullying in Bullying at Work: Guidance for Safety Representatives. These include:

competent staff being constantly criticised, having responsibilities removed or being given trivial tasks to do
staff being shouted at
staff being shouted at
staff being persistently picked on in front of others or in private
having promotion blocked
regularly making the same person the butt of jokes
constantly attacking a member of staff in terms of their professional or personal standing
setting a person up to fail by overloading them with work or setting unachievable deadlines
regularly and deliberately ignoring or excluding individuals from work activities
staff having their views and opinions ignored.

How can we prevent bullying at work?

UNISON suggests that a bullying policy should include:

a statement of commitment by the employer to tackle bullying
a definition of bullying with examples and a clear statement that bullying is unacceptable
prevention measures to reduce the factors that contribute to bullying
duties of managers and supervisors to prevent bullying
trade union involvement (or employee representatives)
independent contact officers to provide help and support
information and training for managers and staff.

Since stress is often the cause of bullying (as well as the result), implementation and monitoring of the HSE stress management standards can go some way towards reducing bullying. For example:

Demands: when there’s too much work for a team to complete in working hours, some workers may feel able to take on extra work, while others may have commitments which prevent them staying late. These staff may then be criticised by their co-workers for not pulling their weight

Control: a professional may be used to controlling how they organise their work, provided they meet deadlines. A new manager may want to be more hands on, checking up on progress more often. This removal of control could be perceived as harassment

Support: ignoring a worker could be perceived as unsupportive

Relationships: if a good relationship has been established, one person may be able to explain to another that they feel unsupported, overworked, or offended by certain remarks or behaviour before the situation escalates

Role: unclear roles can create conflict. A boss may criticise a worker for not having carried out a task they believe that person should be doing. The worker may feel unfairly victimised by this criticism if they don’t believe it’s part of their role

Change: organisational change can spark off a plague of bullying complaints. People have to learn to work with different people, possibly on unfamiliar tasks with new systems. This can create conflict as people adjust to new roles and relationships. Clear job descriptions can reduce the problems of organisational change.

How should we deal with bullying at work?

If a complaint is made despite the existence of measures to prevent bullying, a procedure needs to be in place to make sure that the case is followed up and investigated. A complaints procedure should include:

an independent person that a worker can go to, who’s not in their line management, who will treat complaints confidentially. In some cases, a worker may just want to talk to someone about the problem and with appropriate advice and counselling can deal with the problem themselves
assurances of confidentiality when complaints are made, or when an employee provides evidence against a manager in support of a co-worker’s complaint
procedures to prevent victimisation of those who do complain
a mechanism for investigating the behaviour of a manager without needing a specific complainant
a clear procedure for registering and investigating complaints
access to training, support and counselling for complainants, and for the managers complained against.

The interests of the complainant need to be balanced against those of the alleged bully. Some claims may be malicious, and can themselves be a form of bullying. The bullying policy needs to make clear that false accusations will not be tolerated and can result in disciplinary action.

Anti-bullying training could include:
defining bullying and bulling behaviour, with examples. A manager may recognise that shouting or pushing are forms of bullying, but may not realise that teasing, ignoring or withholding information can also cause distress
explaining, with evidence, the consequences of bullying behaviour. Some managers may not realise the serious consequences their behaviour may have on others
understanding the causes, consequences and responses to stress and learning to identify stress
communication skills – learning to listen, handling interruptions, planning to communicate, communicating assertively
developing skills for positive interactions, eg ‘I win, you win’ outcomes. This can be supported by video-recorded role plays, so that a manager can observe and comment on their own behaviour and the effect it has on others.

Review and monitoring

As with other hazards, the organisation should record complaints of bullying (both informal and formal complaints), monitor the situation and review the success of the bullying policy and anti-bullying training provided.