There is no escaping it workplace bullying within UK organisations is on the rise. As such we as managers and leaders must be courageous in taking a firm and proactive stance against all forms of bullying in the workplace. Recent research indicates that the eradication of bullying in the workplace requires strong intervention, or to be more specific, three levels of intervention which can be employed before, during or after incidents of workplace bullying have occurred.
Primary Interventions
Prevention is undoubtedly the strongest form of defence in our continued fight against the scourge of workplace bullying. Primary interventions prioritise processes which seek to cut off bullying behaviour at the source and advocate practices such as:
- Education: Educate your staff toward identifying the potential causes of bullying in the workplace. This may extend to education surrounding common perpetrator and victim characteristics or simply, the tell-tale signs of direct and indirect workplace bullying behaviours (e.g., yelling, intimidation, gossiping and gaslighting).
- Creating the right culture: As well as clear signposting of zero tolerance anti-bullying polices and codes of conduct, consider how you can work toward designing a working environment which will help reduce the incidence of bullying behaviours. For example, feelings of stress and job-related insecurity have both been evidenced to precipitate acts of workplace-bullying. Resultantly, we must endeavour to create a culture of transparency and psychological safety, whereby our employees are kept informed of any organisational developments and provided regular opportunities to share their ideas, opinions, and concerns.
- Challenging conflict: Whilst conflict is often inevitable within organisations, it is also a predominant catalyst for workplace bullying behaviour. Take time to educate and role play scenarios in which potential workplace conflicts may arise and work collectively to find solutions. This will not only reduce the likelihood of such conflicts arising in the future, but it will also provide extended opportunities in which to improve the quality of working relationships.
- Adopting the right style: Supportive, ethical, and transformative leadership styles have all been evidenced to be effective deterrents in the fight against workplace bullying. Consider how you can better implement elements of these respective styles, through engaging in practise such as promoting an open-door policy, always acting with honesty, respect and integrity or exploring new ways in which to motivate and inspire your working team.
Secondary Interventions
Despite our best efforts, we cannot always prevent acts of bullying from taking place. Nonetheless, we can be proactive in finding quick and effective resolutions through processes such as:
- Early Detection: Should we fail to initially identify an episode of workplace bullying; it is essential we are quick to intervene when we are made aware of such acts. Ensure immediate support is provided to the victim (e.g., opportunities to share their experiences with a designated safeguarding lead) and ensure swift and suitable action is taken against the perpetrator.
- Mediation: Should they feel comfortable doing so, attempt to engage the perpetrator and victim in conversation (with a neutral party serving as a mediator). Although this process has the potential to escalate into further conflict, it can also play a crucial role in helping us get to the root cause of the incident.
- Investigation: In conjunction with the mediation process, you may wish to engage in an independent inquiry, to better determine how the incident occurred. Be warned you may uncover some inconvenient truths during this process (e.g., employees failing to report the incident or even worse acknowledge it), however, it will be a worthwhile endeavour if it aids future prevention.
Tertiary Interventions
In the aftermath of those unfortunate occasions in which repeated incidents of workplace bullying have already occurred, tertiary interventions can be introduced as a mechanism in which to provide support and assistance to the victims. Most commonly, this support will come from external health care professionals who often provide counselling to the victim, whilst also seeking to explore the organisational causes of bullying in greater detail. At this stage, all members of the organisation have a professional responsibility and ethical duty to reflect on the events which led to this level of escalation, and work collectively to ensure similar incidents never happen again.
Through taking the time to develop a detailed understanding of the What, Why and How of workplace bullying, we will find ourselves better positioned to enhance the quality of future internal processes and ultimately, establish ourselves as an effective anti-bullying organisation.
Sources
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