Managing bullies at work

WE all know about school bullies, but today’s high-pressure business is encouraging the growth of workplace bullying. MAUREEN VERNON looks at how to recognise if you are being bullied - and what to do about it.

"IMMEDIATELY I heard his voice, my heart began to beat faster. His footsteps came closer and I prayed he’d walk by. When he stopped beside me I felt sick and shaky inside, hardly able to speak......"

Val stopped, clearly upset by her memories. An experience of being stalked? No, Val’s account of being bullied at work.

Bullying at school is the subject of much debate, but at work the situation is different. The behaviour of the bully is often encouraged by the goals and ideology of senior management - new systems and reorganised staff structure are expected to be achieved swiftly and economically with little consideration for how these goals are to be achieved.

The victim’s plight is mostly ignored. There is no guarantee a complaint by the victim will be believed, or the bullying stop.

Research shows that one in 10 employees say they have been bullied. According to Professor Cary Cooper and Helge Hoel of UMIST, these victims, when compared with other employees, demonstrated poorer health and lower motivation, and higher rates of absenteeism.

Stressful employees cost organisations money, but there is little evidence to show that prevention of bullying in the workplace is taken seriously. So, if you are being bullied what can you do? What is it costing you in terms of your health, family relationships and confidence?

One of the most common difficulties for those who are being bullied is recognising what is happening. Val says: "I just thought I was imagining it. I told myself I was being over-sensitive. In the end, I believed what he said... I thought I was useless at my job and somehow this feeling crept into everything I did, even when I wasn’t at work."

Bullies can be difficult to spot. Scrooge, in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, might fit our image of a bullying employer, but bullies today are often smiling, smart, convincing ‘corporate image’ individuals, employed by both private and public sector.

UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line say around 20 per cent of enquiries are from the education profession; 12 per cent from health care professionals; and 10 per cent from social services and caring professions. Solicitors, whom you might expect to be aware of the financial risk associated with poor management, are not bully-free. A recent review of a help-line run by the Trainee Solicitors Group showed the number of trainees claiming to be bullied is growing.

If you think you’re being bullied, ask yourself:


Have you recently changed jobs, or had a new manager?

Have your duties altered recently?

Has the level of responsibility of your new duties changed?

Is your work being constantly criticised?

Is the criticism mostly unjustified?

If you work as part of a team, are you the only member of the team to be criticised?

If your job is largely the same and your manager is unchanged, is the manager under new pressures?

Is this feeling of being bullied, new to you?

Do you find yourself wondering if you are going mad?


If you answer ‘yes’ to most of these questions, then the chances are you are being bullied

If you can’t recognise the bully by looking for a Scrooge-like individual, how can you recognise him? Firstly, it may not be a ‘him’. According to UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line more than 50 per cent of reported bullies are female. This seems likely, given that a large proportion of bullying takes place in the education and caring professions, where many of the managers are female.

The most reliable guide to organisations where bullying is endemic is to obtain the company’s human resource record for the previous 12 months - sickness, early retirements, disciplinary procedures, grievances, suspensions and dismissals. This might be difficult and, if you are keen to impress, expressing doubts about an organisation’s management record might be counter-productive. However, it should be fairly simple to find out whether the organisation has frequent changes of policy, structure and staff: handled badly, they all create stress and an environment conducive to bullying behaviour.

However careful you are about selecting your employer, you may find yourself being bullied. The ‘job for life’ has disappeared and it can mean that the work you enjoy today changes overnight with the arrival of the ‘Manager from Hell’.

"I was terrified I would be dismissed," said Val "My work was suffering, I was missing deadlines. I finally went off sick but within days of my return he started again. This pattern went on for six months and finally I was rushed into hospital with a suspected heart attack. Tests showed there was nothing wrong with me - it was stress."

For Val this was a turning point. She chose to take early retirement and says she "has not looked back". But things could have been very different. And early retirement is not an option for many of us.

Val admits that she let things go on too long. By the time she was hospitalised she had little energy and thinking rationally was difficult. She had not kept records of what was happening.
Action to consider if you are being bullied

Keep records of any meetings, conversations or written communication you have with the bully. These will be important if you ever have to take industrial action.

Don’t allow yourself to believe you are ‘imagining’ what is happening. Reading the notes you keep will help you to see the situation more clearly.

Try to separate what you have done and the bully’s response. Just because you have made a mistake, that does not give the bully the right to humiliate you.

If you decide to complain to the bully, take time to consider what you are going to say. A self- help book on assertiveness can be useful in helping you to formulate your complaint.

Think about what support you have in the workplace - colleagues, union, past managers, appraisal records; and at home, family, friends, hobbies

If you are beginning to feel unable to cope, counselling, a visit to the doctor or attending a self-help group (assertiveness, self-esteem, adult bullying, etc) might help.

Become aware of organisations that help victims of bullying:




Andrea Adams Trust (01273 704900) - one of its aims is to provide support and advice for victims. It also has a list of helpful books and publications.
Bully OnLine - an excellent website for all aspects of bullying. Log on and you will realise you are definitely not alone. Visit www.successunlimited.co.uk.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Maureen Vernon is part of PPD Training and also a counsellor specialising in assertiveness and life skills. Call PPD Training on 01363 774021 and Maureen on 01392 876721.