Many coaches come across clients who are being bullied at work – this is borne out by a survey by law firm Wright Hassall, which finds that 50% of UK workers say they’ve been bullied at work or witnessed bullying.
Some 48% of men and 59% of women said they’d been bullied or seen bullying, with a quarter (26%) of the total sample saying they didn’t know what to do if they were being bullied at work, finds the survey of 1,026 workers.
There was disagreement about what constitutes bullying. More than half (57%) don’t think shouting at work counts, a third (35%) wouldn’t classify making jokes about a person as bullying and 32% discount exclusion from group meetings. Almost two-thirds (63%) don’t feel abrupt emails counts as bullying, one in 10 people (12%) doesn’t think intimidation counts and one in five (21%) doesn’t believe spreading rumours about a person counts.
Tina Chander, head of employment law at Wright Hassall, said “It’s time for workplaces to focus on bullying reporting and make sure that everybody knows what support is available to them.
“At the very least, a workplace should have a bullying and harassment policy in place, but there’s no point in having a policy if no one is aware of it. HR plays a vital role, as do the leaders, but it’s up to colleagues to care for one another and speak up when behaviour is wrong.”
On shouting, she said,“Workplaces that tolerate shouting from senior colleagues may write it off as people simply ‘being passionate’, but this behaviour can cause serious problems, especially if an employee decides to make a formal complaint and take the employer to a tribunal; the costs and reputation damage associated with this can be crippling.”
There’s currently no legal definition of bullying. However conciliation service, Acas, describes it as “unwanted behaviour from a person or group that is either offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting, or an abuse or misuse of power that undermines, humiliates or causes physical or emotional harm to someone”.