We have just heard this week about the allegations of bullying at No. 10, which raises questions such as ‘what is bullying?’; ‘what impact does it have?’ and ‘what can be done about it in the workplace?’. All are answerable questions.
A number of years ago now, my colleague Helge Hoel, from Manchester Business School, and I undertook a national study to explore the scale of the problem in the British workplace. The national investigation was sponsored by the British Occupational Health Research Foundation and was carried out among many public and private sector employers. We found that roughly one in ten employees in our sample had been bullied within the six month period of our investigation. By bullying we meant that someone had been persistently demeaned, devalued or harassed by someone else at work. In the majority of cases it was a boss but it could be a colleague, a subordinate to a manager or a client to a provider of a service. The evidence was that bullying did damage the mental well-being of the individual concerned – it led to more sickness absence than for someone who was not bullied and adversely affected self-reported performance.
In this area, organisations need a robust policy and a safe, confidential reporting procedure so that employees can highlight the issues they are facing – this enables the allegation to be investigated properly and action to be taken if appropriate. Obviously organisations have to be careful about employees using bullying as a means of avoiding tough managerial decisions, but any investigation of allegations should explore this as well. Bullying is not acceptable in any context – but it should not be confused with positive pressure being applied along with the appropriate managerial support to achieve great results. Bullying is very different – it damages people and the broader morale of an organisation.
Having said that, it’s a two way street – we as employees have a role to play in creating good relationships with our managers and I’ll blog on that topic tomorrow.
