When was the last time you had a conversation with someone about bullies at work?
Sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was yesterday. According to a 2017 National Survey, 61% of Americans are aware of abusive conduct in the workplace. This includes 19% of Americans who are bullied and another 19% who witness it, totaling an estimated 60.4 million Americans. Of course, examples of the bullying are much more apparent via news outlets, social media, and the like.
Despite what we have learned over the past two decades, it remains a key problem for leaders and managers. The experts—academics, management consultants, industrial psychologists—all report an increase in bullying. And it’s not limited by demographics, tax brackets, or titles: bullying is increasing in cubicles, manufacturing plants, and even executive suites.
For organizations and individuals, the costs are staggering. Some estimates exceed $150,000/bully/year. This costs employers and insurers $250 billion annually for direct employee health care costs, turnover and re-training costs, accidents related to stress-induced fatigue, litigation and settlements, and resistance to top-down change initiatives.
Traditionally, experts recommend that those bullied document the events, calculate the costs, and present these to the employer with a request to remove the bully. Unfortunately, the reported success rate for this approach is only 22.3%. As a coach, I believe the best approach for individuals and organizations is prevention: protect your employees with policies that enforce zero tolerance for workplace bullying and model the behavior you expect from all employees.
Identifying Bullies at Work
Certainly, bullies at work need to be identified. In today’s culture, workplace bullying is defined as unwelcome behavior that occurs over a period of time and is meant to harm someone who feels powerless to respond. According to the official website of the U.S. government, stopbullying.gov:
“Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior…that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.
In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:
An Imbalance of power:…such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others.Repetition: bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.
Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.”
Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.”
What You Need to Know, and Watch For
Generally speaking, bullying in the workplace goes largely unrecognized by employers, but great leaders and managers watch and listen for the signs:
- Changes in employee behavior (withdrawn, absent; agitated, frustrated)
- Individual pitting or competition
- Blaming, or taking undeserved credit
- Gossip, mockery, jokes or other forms of humiliation
- Cliques, alliances, or teams, that are not inclusive and supportive that lead to shifts, or redistribution of responsibilities, tasks or assignments
- Spying, interfering, obstructing, poaching, undermining or sabotaging
Aggression may involve a single incident, while bullying involves repetition and patterns of behavior. It is often subtle and hard to put one’s finger on. Bottom line, workplace bullies undermine an individual’s right to dignity at work.
What do you think? What has been your experience with bullies at work? I’d love to hear from you. You can call me at 561-582-6060, let’s talk. And as always, I can be reached here, or on LinkedIn.
