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Are You Dealing With Workplace Bullying?
 As
an employer, the treatment and happiness of
your staff is probably one of the most
important considerations you take in the
everyday running of your business. However,
the number of employees being bullied in the
workplace is still going up; and if you do
not know how to deal with it you could be at
risk of tribunals as well as unhappy and
unproductive employees.
A new survey by employment law firm
Peninsula has found that 74% of employees
claim to have been a victim of bullying at
work; up from 52% in 2003. 68% of employers
say that their employees have reported a
case of bullying, up from 48% in 2003. This
means that up to 6% of bullying goes
unreported, and could potentially be having
a negative effect on your employees right
now.
Mike Huss of Peninsula provides some
excellent advice for preventing, stopping
and dealing with workplace bullying:
“Discrimination against an individual
because of their sex, race, disability,
trade union membership,
and or religion are well known and
quite rightly forbidden. Bullying can exist
in its own right with no connection to sex,
race, disability etc.
It can take
the form of shouting, personal insults,
persistent criticism, setting impossible
deadlines,
allsorts of issues like that where the
application by the perpetrator of this
behaviour is perceived by the recipient as
being harassment or bullying.
It is
important to note that it is the perception
of the recipient that counts not the
intention of the individual dishing it out.
There has been a substantial increase in
bullying; nobody could have gone through the
schooling system of whatever age without
having experienced some form of bullying. It
can take many different forms ranging from
physical abuse literally assaults through to
more psychologically aimed assaults with
crude ,or
bullying text messages on telephones, emails
etc.
In terms of stopping it, you should
obviously have a clearly written equal
opportunities policy which is communicated
to the people when they join the
organisation which is enforced. If someone
transgresses ensure that your policy is
updated, current and that the management
team are fully trained in it. The management
team should know how to deal with a
complaint should one be raised, and from
time to time carry out recap training of
staff in importance of adhering to the
policy.
If a complaint is made, and clearly people
should be encouraged to make a complaint,
the employer should follow what their own
contractual terms and equal opportunities
policy says. It should obviously contain the
elements that it is treated seriously, and
dealt with quickly as a consistent
investigation. The operation of the policy
requires, and from what emerges from the
investigation, disciplinary action is
appropriate against either, the individual
perpetrating the bullying or indeed the
individual falsified complaint.
As a principal it would be best if the
matter can be dealt with informally and
internally rather than at Tribunal or
elsewhere. Sometimes this is not possible,
in which case certainly for the employer it
is important as I have already said if they
are to stand in the hope of winning the
case, the employer is if he/she can show
they have a proper policy in place which is
communicated, enforced and updated. An
employer can argue usually successfully that
he is not vicariously liable for the actions
of the person conducting the harassment or
discrimination; if the employer cannot show
that they have the policies in place then
they will be held vicariously liable for the
actions of the employee and can face
unlimited awards because of it."
Read more about Warnings, Sacking, Dismissal
and Redundancy in our article here.
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