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| Path: Main Street > Resources/Library > Research Articles > Feature Article |
Are you being bullied at work?
By Andre Yesput
October 16, 2006
You just sat down to start your work and a co-worker barges into your office screaming at the top of her lungs about a mistake you made on a report. The co-worker tells you that you can’t do your job properly and throws her hands in your face. You stare in silence at your computer screen and wonder why this is happening to you. The next day, you feel like throwing up on the way into work.
You have just been bullied at work, and you are not alone. According to a recent survey by Peninsula, an employment law firm in Great Britain, workplace bullying is a growing problem and is on the rise. Four out of five employees have been bullied at work and 81% of employees report that they have been bullied at some time or another during their employment. Sometimes employees are too afraid to report the person or persons who are bullying them for fear of repercussions or job loss. Some even fear that their professional reputation or credibility would be on the line if they report the bullying behaviour.
But some are not afraid. Just recently, Helen Green, a secretary at Deutsche Bank, was awarded $1.5 million in damages after suffering a mental breakdown because of the bullies in her office. The judge who handled the case referred to the managers of the bank as ineffectual in dealing with the ongoing problem of bullying that Ms.Green experienced. Yet, sometimes the targets of bullies are not so lucky and not everyone gets awarded for their pain and suffering. Often group or team members side with the bully and refuse to help the target of the bullying. This is referred to as the Abilene Paradox.
Could reality TV be more honest than real life?
If you've ever watched an episode of The Apprentice, you would see the paradox being played out between the apprentice teams during the firing segment of the show. Donald Trump sits in his big leather chair and has to decide who will be fired from the team. The team is called into the boardroom to discuss the stupid decisions they made. As the team gets further and further into their discussion, they desperately search for a scapegoat to blame for the whole team's poor decision making. Sometimes two or more apprentices decide to agree that one apprentice is to blame, so they target that person. This usually ends up with the Donald yelling his famous line: "You’re Fired!" The only difference between this reality series and the real bullies of the workplace is that at least the fired apprentice publicly knows who is on their side and who isn’t. This is clearly not a team in conflict, as some of us would like to believe; it is a team in agreement with each other.Unlike Donald Trump's boardroom, where the team agrees in public, most boardrooms and workplaces agree in private and individually and they do not communicate their feelings to each other. However, when things become public they all tend to deny the agreement and claim they do not know it exists. The paradox? Private versus public versions of reality, and it is often created by public silence about what each worker knows is the truth.
Falling victim to groupthink
A close friend recently confided in me that he was being bullied by several of his co-workers. After a year of harassment, he decided to report the abuse to his manager and he too began to bully him. He then reported the bullies to the human resource department and an investigation was conducted. Each co-worker who witnessed the harassment and was not involved in the bullying was interviewed in private and felt for the target. However, once the co-workers were in a group setting and discussed the situation, they all failed to do what was right. Why? Because the position they had about the abuse in private was vastly different from the position they held in public. Some psychologists refer to this as groupthink, similar to why most of the Nazis during the Second World War failed to stand up for those being bullied and tortured,Some workers who are bullied fail to report the harassment, yet the group or team also fails out of fear that they too will lose their jobs or that the bully will attack them as well.
So what can be done if you are being bullied in the workplace?
- Put a name to the face of bullying. Call it psychological harassment, violence, emotional abuse, organizational isolation.
- Seek out the assistance and support of a mental health professional or your local employee assistance program.
- Check with your family doctor for any signs of physical health problems related to the bullying, such as stress, hypertension, depression or insomnia.
- File a written complaint with the Human Rights Commission and speak to a lawyer or labour board.
- Make a demand letter to the organization you work for. Research their policies such as a code of conduct or harassment policy.
- Start looking for another job.
- Start or join a workplace bullying support group.
- Expose the bully to the person at the top of your organization.
Andre Yesput is an employment consultant based in Toronto who deals with workplace issues.
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