Bullying and harassment at workplaces

Workplace bullying can be in many forms, be it harassing or offending others, socially excluding a person, and inducing a negative impact on someone’s work task and engagement

With many returning to their physical workplace and cohabiting with fellow colleagues at workplaces, poorly-managed problems such as bullying and harassment may resurface. Bullying and harassment may have been taking place during the period of working from home and may intensify with physical return to office. 

Due to isolation and lack of physical interaction many employees are already in a state of mental exhaustion and depression. Recommencement or intensification of bullying and harassment on return to the workplace may further burden the fragile mindset of some employees. 

Workplace bullying

Workplace bullying can be in many forms, be it harassing or offending others, socially excluding a person, and inducing a negative impact on someone’s work task and engagement.

Bullying is a phenomenon that occurs over a period, repeatedly, at regular intervals and happen face-to-face, on social media, in emails or phone calls. It may not always be obvious or noticed by others. Generally bullying is an escalating event where behaviour from a person or group is unwanted and makes you feel uncomfortable, including feeling frightened, less respected or put down, made fun of or upset.

Examples of bullying at work could include someone has spread a false rumour about you or keeps putting you down in meetings. Your boss may not let you go on training courses, but they allow everyone else to; or your boss keeps giving you heavier workloads than everyone else. Your team may never let you join in social events or someone at the same or more junior level as you keep overrules your authority.

Bullying can also happen from staff towards a more senior employee, a manager or an employer (this can be called ‘upward bullying’ or ‘subordinate bullying’). 

Employers and managers should work together to identify the cause of the issue and address it. A basic right of all employees is to be treated with dignity and respect at their workplace. Workplace bullying can undermine the employee morale and confidence leading to stress related illnesses, high staff turnover, absenteeism and presenteeism. Bullying and harassment not only has an adverse impact on the person who is being the victim but also can have a damaging impact on the witnesses and others who know about it, including the family of the victim. 

Across the world the methods of bullying may be similar. However, due to cultural differences the acknowledgement, reaction, and response to bullying and harassment may vary significantly. Due to lack of awareness, inadequate policies, and evidence, poor management response and fear of repercussions, bullying and harassment are often not reported.

In many studies done throughout the world it has been identified that many of the perpetrators are of a senior work level/category than the victim. When considering the gender of the perpetrators most often women are bullied by both men and women, men are mostly bullied by men and rarely women bully men.

The pandemic has brought in an increased awareness on the mental health and work-related stress of workers, however, there has been less interest in workplace bullying or harassment. It is worthy to note that workplace bullying, and harassment may be a significant cause of the workplace stress, hence, may require further recognition.

Here is an example – during COVID-19 a nurse at a leading organisation was under tremendous distress due to intimidation while obtaining details of some infected employees or first contacts. Some employees had been impolite and malign. The nurse complained that some of the criticisms were gender-based. She was extremely upset to the extent that she was tearful and suffering from headaches and palpitations while at work.

The management of the organisation promptly acted on this matter by creating awareness among all employees on their strict policies against bullying and harassment. They also had webinars on improving the understanding on bullying and harassment as well as COVID-19, its spread, and implications. This led to the bullying reduce drastically and she continued with her work.

Creating awareness

Drafting organisational policies and procedures is only an initial step in tackling bullying at work. Although important, policies and procedures will not stop bullying and harassment, unless, more awareness is created, and proper mechanisms are in place for confidential disclosures and swift response without penalising the informant.

Organisational and employer-based interventions should aim to influence the attitude towards bullying leading to the development of organisational culture and a work environment where bullying and harassment are not tolerated irrespective of the rank of the employee. 

Changing perceptions, attitudes and behaviours may require continuous training, awareness, empowerment, patience, and time to ensure a lasting cultural change, which necessitates a meaningful commitment by the management. Bullying and harassment can adversely affect the corporate image and client confidence. Due to the complex nature of bullying and harassment a multiform approach is needed with continuous communication in an organisation. 

What you can do 

In some cases, the person upsetting you might not realise the effect of their actions so you can try talking with them, if you feel you can. It’s a good idea to explain how their behaviour makes you feel, be firm, not aggressive and stick to the facts.

If you do not feel comfortable talking to the person face to face, you could put this in an email or ask for support from a trade union representative, if you have one. If you do not feel comfortable doing this or the bullying carries on, you should talk with someone at work you feel comfortable with. This could be your boss, another manager, your trade union or staff representative, if you have one. 

It’s also a good idea to keep a diary or record of the bullying, including how the bullying made you feel, dates and times it happened, any evidence, for example emails or screenshots of social media posts, any witnesses. Most bullying happens out of sight of others, so you might not have any witnesses. This does not stop you reporting the bullying to your manager to get the situation resolved.

Reference and acknowledgement: https://www.acas.org.uk/if-youre-treated-unfairly-at-work/being-bullied.

[Dr. Aseni Wickramatillake is a Specialist in Occupational Health, Industrial Hygiene and Ergonomics and Technical Adviser, Workplace Safety and Health Association (WSHA). Nick Pahl is CEO, Society of Occupational Medicine, UK. They can be reached via [email protected] and [email protected]]