Start Here
If this is one of your first visits to our site there a few starting points we would recommend.
Direct links within this page
link to the sub-sections on this page here:
Key recommended sites on workplace bullying
Overview from Occupational Health and Safety
Five Steps Forward; arm yourself with these
Spotting the Symptoms and Looking after Yourself
Some key questions to ask yourself
What should be done about 'it': taking responsibility in a bullying workplace
Here are some introductory links and resources, and lower down the page you will find some suggestions as to how you can begin to address your situation.
Caution! Are you being bullied? Or is it good ol' harassment? Or something else entirely?
Read this first.
Have you ever read one of those very thick and heavy medical books? The type that outlines and then gives details of symptoms for every disease and affliction.
After no more than 15 minutes you believe you have evidence that you are suffering from several forms of cancer, five or six tropical contagions and are the first recorded case outside Africa of 'Atkinson's blongo-blongo'.
Not making light of these, or workplace bullying, but we would not want anyone to 'horriblize' themselves into believing that their health symptoms, both physical and emotional, are caused by being bullied at work if it were not so.
So how do you tell? What confirms that it is indeed your workplace and the bully, or bullies, there that are causing your problems?
Here are some common sense suggestions to clarify your situation:
How is your health? Has it changed over the last year?
Have you suffered from emotional instability before? Does depression run in your family?
Has your sleep pattern changed over the last year?
Has your eating changed over the last year? Are you eating differently, either more or less?
Has your drinking (alcohol) changed over the last year? Are you drinking differently, either more or less?
Has your use of 'recreational' or prescription drugs changed over the last year? Are you using them differently , in different circumstances, either more or less? But especially more.
Has your contact with friends changed over the last year? Are you contacting them differently, either more or less? But especially less.
Has your relationship with co-workers changed over the last year? Are you being treated differently at work? This can mean worse or be represented by being ignored.
You can even be 'befriended' (so called) by co-workers who were formally distant - they could be doing this to please the bully, getting close to know you better and thus manipulate you better.
Has your responsibility at work changed over the last year? Have you been promoted, demoted, transfered? Are you unclear about the exact definitions of your new role?
Has your contact with family changed over the last year? Are you treating them differently, seeing them less?
Has your relationship with your partner changed over the last year? Or has an intimate relationship ended in the last year?
If you answer 'yes' to most of these you could be simply suffering from depression, not necessarily caused by your workplace.
If you answer an emphatic 'yes' to the questions involving work and co-workers, we suggest you should continue to reseach this site and others we recommend. Information is power; research and look closely at yourself and your behaviour.
It is changes in behaviour which are most revealing.
More on distinguishing bullying: How do I know if I'm being bullied?
The key factors in bullying are intent and repetition.
Someone can be cruel unintentionally, or cruel once or twice. That would not be considered bullying and does not make the person behind it a bully. Nor does a manager telling you what work you need to have done considered bullying. When, however, someone intentionally hurts you, and targets you for different behaviour than the rest of your workgroup, over a long period of time, that is considered workplace bullying.
Things that are known bullying tactics include:
- Being singled out for different and irrational treatment from others at your workplace
- Continual criticisms and attempts to undermine you and your achievements
- Being islolated from colleagues and information needed to do your job
- Being humiliated in front of others
- Having work duties suddenly changed with no reason given - either to menial tasks under your position or to being overloaded with work - usually with less authority and more responsibility
- Being set up to fail - as when someone in authority rearranges your schedule and how you do your work and then gives you a bad review due to how they have rearranged it
- Gossip, complaints and slander about you being spread to other staff or to management - without your being able to respond to such complaints nor told even what they are
- Having vacations, sick days and - compassionate leave refused or held up unnecessarily or longer than other staff
- Being subjected to disciplinary procedures without prior verbal or written warnings for trivial or fabricated reasons and without proper investigation
- Being coerced into leaving through no fault of your own - as in constructive dismissal, medical leave, etc.
There are many more examples that can be shown, but if you feel you are being bullied, do read further on the site - everything from health to books to whatever else may interest you. Knowledge is power. Make it your job to learn as much as you can and to find ways to bullyproof yourself and your workplace.
Key sites we recommend
Tim Field: Bully On Line
Since we can't (and wouldn't want to) compete with the wonderful work on Tim Field's Bully On line, firstly here is a link to the pages linking bullying at work - describing the behaviours, and the health effects which a bullied person - the target - might experience.
This is the section that defines workplace bullying and the symptoms that can result:
Bully On Line: Am I Being Bullied?
The site that has saved lives! The original Tim Field site is here:
Drs Gary and Ruth Namie
Based in the United States is this site, 'The Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute' and 'Bullybusters', run by the excellent Drs. Namie. Once again, personal experience lead to their interest; Gary Namie became involved when Ruth Namie was bullied out of her job. They both travel tirelessly with dozens of media appearances every year. They have recently updated their site which is now even easier to use, and includes some Canadian links.
Overview from Canadian Occupational Health and Safety
Since this is a site based in Canada here is a rather good overview from our very own Canadian Occupational Health and Safety. The source with the full article is here:
Canadian Occupational Health and Safety
But here is a list of contents and an abstract of the first couple of sections:
Health Promotion / Wellness / Psychosocial
Bullying in the Workplace
What is workplace bullying?
Is bullying a workplace issue?
What are examples of bullying?
How can bullying affect an individual?
How can bullying affect the workplace?
What can you do if you think you are being bullied?
What can an employer do?
What are some general tips for the workplace?
What is workplace bullying?
Bullying is usually seen as acts or verbal comments that could ‘mentally’ hurt or isolate a person in the workplace. Sometimes, bullying can involve negative physical contact as well. Bullying usually involves repeated incidents or a pattern of behaviour that is intended to intimidate, offend, degrade or humiliate a particular person or group of people. It has also been described as the assertion of power through aggression.
****Further links are available on the Canadian links and Worldwide links pages****
Five Steps Forward: This is all sounding a lot like my situation; what should I do next?
Bullying and your HealthIf you a newcomer to this site and the world of workplace bullying we trust you will find our resource a useful starting place. We, Karen and Stephen, have both experienced long bouts of bullying at work, and have also experienced the emotional and physical effects that this can cause.
(For more on the physical and emotional effects of bullying go to this section of our Health page.)
Firstly, we would like you to know that you are not alone, crazy, or bad at your job. ‘I thought it was me’ is a common early response when someone is just beginning to put together the link between their poisonous workplace and their damaged health.
Thousands of people discover that their daily bad experiences at work, and the wide range of health symptoms that they are suffering, are linked; they are cause and effect.
According to several recent surveys workplace bullying is three times more prevalent than sexual harassment.
Targets of bullying at work (‘targets’ is the preferred term; ‘victim’ helps keep you in a bad place) tend to be the best and the brightest, the hard workers who want to make things better, make things right: ‘if I work harder I will make this situation better’. We tend to stay longer in a bullying workplace and therefore are more damaged before we get out and begin to recover.
Secondly, if you have been badly affected, it is very important to realize that you have been injured. You have an injury which will heal, not a deformity or permanent disability.
We would suggest five areas to work on, especially early in the voyage of discovery which accompanies the process; if you begin to get into good habits early, these habits will make your healing and recovery quicker:
1./ Information - is power.
Follow up all the links on our site. Follow all the links from each site you visit, and so on. Yes, it may be a little excessive or compulsive to start with, but the more sites you visit which confirm the frequency and awful ‘normality’of workplace bullying the better, or at least less alone, you will feel.
View the booklists at our site and at others, and read these books - most are easily available at the library.
It is also wonderfully encouraging (nice word; from the French for heart of course) to read that people do come out of the other end of these situations.
2./ Document
- every incident, however seemingly trivial or repetitious it may seem. Start a journal, keep it with you always. If you feel uneasy about taking it to work for fear of discovery, keep it in a safe place at home, and enter events each night.
Include:
- the date (and time if relevant)
- who was present: bully, onlookers, etc.
- what exactly happened
- how you felt about it
- and what consequences the incident had: ‘only one hours sleep that night’
3./ Support - is important and can be hard to find
Do you have friends relatives, a union, another group who are truly understanding and supportive?
Once you have information, you may feel more able to begin to talk to others colleagues, workmates, friends, family and others.
You might also wish to contact a support group, or post on a discussion board about bullying at work.
For example, you may wish to contact us for advice, information or simple human contact with someone who has been through prolonged workplace bullying. This is an important step in your progress. When you e-mail us (or another group) you may find you don't know where to start. Alternatively you might start discussing your situation and not know where to stop - everything just gushes out, and it's all interconected.
4./ Taking care of your self and yourself.
Follow up on the links and reading (mentioned above) around your health and what bullying does to it.
Do you have a good doctor who both listens to you and hears what you say? Does your doctor understand the physical and emotional effects which bullying at work can have?
How does he or she respond if you take in articles or webpage addresses that you would like him or her to read?
Are depression, PTSD and other injuries of the mind seen as 'weakness' by your doctor? Is a prescription the first response?
Read some articles on sleep (sleeplessness is a very common and intrusive early symptom), diet, stress relieving tips and so on.
5./ Plan - a strategy; should I stay or should I go?
Should I stay or should I go?
We can't put it any better than Joe Strummer and the Clash:
'If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?'
Joe Strummer and The Clash 1982 (used without permission but we're sure Joe wouldn't mind.)
Most targets, but not all, have to make this choice at some time in the process.
In all our experience, no matter how horrible, damaging and sustained the bullying has been we have never found one target who wanted revenge. Recompense, justice, recognition, financial compensation, an admission of responsibility certainly; but not getting even.
Targets, as discussed elsewhere, tend to be the best and the brightest, the ones who see injustice or a lack of logic or due process and want to fix, heal, improve or offer a remedy. This is both their wonderful strength and their awful flaw; this trait makes them a perfect target.
Stayers can sometimes survive if they have the right tools
We do know of targets who have stayed, armed themselves with new survival tools and the situation has begun to improve. These tools come from support groups such as No Bully For Me, books on interpersonal dynamics, healthy release of toxic emotions and more.
Do ask yourself some of the questions below before you consider if this route is the right one for you.
Just one more Meeting.......
Most targets, Karen and I (this is Stephen typing) included, have been through the cycle of 'one more meeting'. This next one will be the meeting when finally I am heard, the situation will be recognised, the proper procedures will fall into place and the healing and restructuring will begin.
The meeting may be with a manager, a shop steward, a board or tribunal, or even at a more 'advanced' level: a WCB appeal or a meeting with say management from national Head Office, but the belief in 'one more meeting' is the same.
Some questions to ask yourself
- Can you really improve the situation for your benefit?
- Is it truly just that one person who is bullying you?
- Or is bullying the 'norm' (?abnorm?) in your workplace?
- Do you really have the supports to 'fix' the situation?
- Am I staying because I want to save others from what I have gone through?
- If I stay what is the worst that can happen?
- If I leave what is the worst that can happen?
- Who are you staying for?
- Is this the only job I can get? Am I being valued as a person and an employee at my work? Would I be respected and valued if the bullying stopped tomorrow?
- Even if I was 'heard' tomorrow how would the atmosphere and history heal?
- If I was offered a reasonable amount of money tommorrow to just walk away, would I take it with relief? Am I really just staying so I can leave with hope for the future?
- If I stay in an improved workplace will I have time, tranquility and space to heal? (As 'fixing' the situation will not 'fix' the injury you have suffered.)
- Even if the bully (if there seems to be just one in your situation) were to disappear tomorrow would the onlookers suddenly be on my side or 'normal' again?
- If there a gang of bullies, do I really think I can make them all go away or amend the behaviour of all of them?
The choice has to be yours.
We can't make the decision whether you should stay or go. We do feel that great damage is done to those who stay far longer than is logical or justified. Ask yourself some of the questions above; strive for a realistic answer. Talk to friends or other support; have them ask you the questions face to face; do they truly believe your answers?
Here is a model for making decisions; it is not a cure all but can help in making sure that any decisions you do make, do take into account your values and desires.
It has this acronym: D.E.C.I.D.E.S.
- Define the situation
- Establish an action plan
- Clarify your values
- Identify alternatives
- Discover probable outcomes
- Eliminate alternatives systematically
- Start acting on your plan
The third stage, clarifying your values, is for most targets of workplace bullying the most crucial part of the process. It is often their higher sense of values, morals, a strong work ethic and a desire to make things better that has set them up as an ideal target in the first place.
It is the very struggling with the dilemma of how far to compromise to survive that causes so much grief.
What should be done about 'it': taking responsibility in a bullying workplace
The thing Stephen and I hear most at support group meetings and on-line is that there 'should be a law' or 'that bullying can't/shouldn't happen.' Or that 'workplaces/unions/hr/management should do more.' Yes it would be nice if it were a perfect world. But it's not. Until we the targets demand better treatment, work towards healthy workplaces, and find out how they can change themselves to be more 'bullyproof' nothing will change. No amount of defeatism, negativity or complaining about how unfair it is will change the way things are. The situation must be healed from, accepted, and if you want justice, as many targets do - it is up to you.
First though - remember to ask your self specifically - what exactly do you want to fight for? No law will get your job or career back. You may receive financial compensation if it is legally recognized, but will the bully change? Are you looking for the bully to apologize? Would you even believe them if they were forced to anyway? Are you looking for others to acknowledge the injustices you've suffered? Or do want to move toward more effective solutions, such as fighting for more medical leave to heal and decide what you'll do with 'the rest of your life?' Do you want to protect others left behind? Do you feel fighting the corporation, union or organization one on one will change the way they do business? Changing the bully or getting your job back will not likely happen. If your goal is trying to help yourself and others (it's amazing how healing helping others can be) - then help spread the word and help create more healthy workplaces. Join with others and create peer mediation and support groups. Focus on the positive.
Workplace bullying is slowly coming into the public consciousness. The more that is known about it, the quicker society will be able to see that like any other form of harassment, it is unacceptable. Much like how sexual harassment or racism was viewed originally, workplace bullying may seem ridiculous to others at first. That is often because people have many assumptions about bullying. Beliefs like - 'it only happens on the schoolyard,' and it 'only happens to the weak and unpopular' are common. The truth is, it can happen to anyone, at anytime, and usually happens to the best and brightest - and the most popular (at least initially) of a group. It can happen at work - paid or unpaid - in service industries and large corporations.
Many organizations, simply by their structure, encourage bullying. This may make you feel that it is unjust and unfair. You're right - it is. So what should be done about it?
The bully targets people because they have something they want, fear, or feel may be revealed about the bully, by the person(s) they target. And, like sexual harassment - much of the behaviour that is accepted today as simply 'part of the job' will be seen for the demoralizing, unprofessional and unacceptable behaviour it is in future. Ultimately bullying is not only self-defeating, but, like a cancer, it undermines the entire organization and leaves the company devoid of its best talent. However, this better future we'd like to see will not come about if everyone stands back and asks what is being done without looking to themselves first. All 'revolutions' or movements for change start with people standing up for themselves, educating others about the unacceptability of the behaviour, and working hard to make changes. (Think of Rosa Parks - she changed a nation - but there were also thousands out there fighting for justice with her.)
If you are being bullied - it will be up to you and your co-workers to do something about this phenomenon. Bullies bully to gain power or feel powerful. No one in power ever wants to give it up. Healthy workplaces start with the targets and the bystanders - those who really have the power to make changes and may not realize it. Because the bully is so used to having it. Bystanders give a lot more power than they realize to a bully. Because they fear they will be next (and they will be - once the first target is defeated) or because they want to be on the 'power side' they do not stand up to the bully. By not saying anything, by adding to the spread of malicious gossip, and by laughing at cruelties instead of standing up for the target, they allow the bully to gain power not only from the target, but also from them. They give the bully the authority to continue on because no one says the bullies should behave otherwise. Yes, management may be the ones needed to actually do something about the behaviour permanently - but bullies can't wreck the havoc that they do if people stick together and report such behaviour. Peer pressure is an amazing thing. So few know the value of saying no to gossip or reporting the cruel behaviours they are witnessing. And yes - some management or others meant to help out won't listen. But how can a bully bully without a target? If a group sticks together against a bully, eventually the bully will have to give up and go elsewhere for their power.
Not until the focus of our working world changes to concern for people over profits, ethical, healthy and sustainable workplaces will real changes happen. We need to be the leaders we are searching for. Lead by example. The old adage of 'treat others as you would like to be treated' - the golden rule - seems to be going the way of the dodo bird. With rudeness becoming 'hip,' cynicism on the rise, and strong relationships becoming less and less valued, we need to bring back the dirty word - 'good working relationships' to the workplace.
We cannot pretend we exist in a void, and like slaves, or mechanical equipment, can work without relationships with others. It is a fact we are social creatures. We should look at this as a positive and create growth and healthier relationships at work.
So what should be done about it? You decide.
And for those thinking this kind of transformation of work will only affect 'the bottom line' - yes it will - for the better.Karen
