Most people associate workplace bullying with blue-collar workers. But bullying is also common in knowledge-based industries.

Surveys show workplace bullying takes place in just about every industry, though the specific form of bullying changes from industry to industry.

To underline the problem in white-collar workplaces a 2002 report by Australia’s APESMA professional women's network said around one-third of respondents to its survey have been bullied at work.

In 2000, Australia's Office of the Employee Ombudsman says it is currently receiving more than 500 complaints a year on workplace bullying related issues and that number is increasing each year.

Workplace bullying increasing

In its January 1999 Australian Jobs Index Survey, Morgan and Banks reported that 10.4% of employers believe bullying is increasing at work. (I'd like to quote more up-to-date statistics from Australia and New Zealand on this but can't find any).

According to England's The Daily Telegraph, an online poll of 10,000 people found that 92 per cent believe they are the victims of workplace taunts and intimidation, with 56 per cent believing it is a serious problem in their office, shop or factory.

International research and anecdotal evidence from Australia and New Zealand suggests that the worst industries for bullying are education, healthcare, social services and the voluntary sector. The Morgan and Banks 1999 Jobs Index survey identified tourism as a particular problem industry.

There’s also evidence bullying is more widespread in the public sector than in private industry, though this may simply show the willingness of public sector workers to report bullying.

Until recently there wasn’t much formal awareness of bullying as a problem. To some extent the increasing number of reported cases reflects the fact that employees are only just becoming used to being able to report bullying.

Outsourcing and cost-cutting can trigger bullying

But there are other disturbing trends. Some white-collar staff unions have pointed out that outsourced operations and understaffed workplaces are ideal breeding grounds for middle management bullies.

There’s evidence managers, who are themselves under undue pressure, often turn into workplace bullies as a misguided coping strategy.

Bullying can take a number of forms. At one end of the spectrum are malicious rumours, over critical work evaluation and physical or verbal isolation. At the more extreme end there are direct verbal threats and even physical violence.

Deaths as a result of workplace bullying are thankfully rare, but they do happen.

Of course, bullying has been a feature of the workplace for most of human history. No doubt when the senior public works managers of Ancient Egypt floated down the Nile on their annual off-site management brainstorming session some bright spark figured that a light whipping might incentivise the pyramid-building process and spice up productivity.

Bullying kills productivity

Today’s more enlightened managers, particularly in knowledge-based industries, recognise a happy workforce is a productive workforce and that bullying has a direct negative impact on productivity.

There are all kinds of estimates put on the potential costs of workplace bullying, but ultimately it is impossible to measure the economic cost.

Other facts about workplace bullying.

• Most research says that men and women are bullied in roughly equal numbers and both men and women bully others in roughly equal numbers. However women are more likely to report a bullying incident – men are less willing to admit to being intimidated.
• Same sex bullying is far more common that intra-sex bullying.
• Victims often lose self-esteem and blame themselves for the problem.
• About one victim in 100 either attempts or succeeds to commit suicide.
• 90% of calls to Britain’s workplace bullying hotline came from white-collar workers – only 5% involved manual workers.
• About 10% of all reported cases result in legal action – this proportion is increasing.
• Two-thirds of the members of Unison (the UK civil service union) say they have witnessed workplace bullying.
• Most bullied people report damage to their health
• The overwhelming majority of bullies are repeat offenders.
• In the majority of cases more senior managers say they are aware that the bullying took place.
• Bullying is responsible for around one resignation in four.

If you have been bullied at work, why not use our anonymous comment feature at the Knowledge Worker website to share your experience?

See also:
Workplace bullying resources

As beating the office bully explains, workplace bullying is more common than most people suspect. Depending on which research and statistics you accept, it could account for 40 percent of resignations.

Apart from being unjust and unpleasant for the people on the receiving end, bullying also damages the business where it takes place.

By definition, a company tolerating bullying cannot be meet its full productivity potential. And it wastes physical and emotional energy that could be put to better use.

For knowledge workers, who need mental space and a degree of inner peace to work the productivity loss is worse. Managers who indulge in bullying behaviour or turn a blind eye when others bully are less likely to get results.

Is office bullying making a comeback?

According to Is the office bully back? (no longer online) the economic crisis has unleashed a new wave of bad behaviour in the office. Hence this neat package of related stories on workplace bullying from bNet.

I don't know if the credit crunch has triggered more bullying than usual — the problem seemed bad enough in the good old days of the boom — but the tightened job market means bullying victims have fewer escape routes. Bullying has always been one of the main reasons people leave jobs.

If you're a manager worried about bullies you should read the complete set of stories. Every manager should read the workplace bullying primer.

I like this list from the how to handle a workplace bully section:

How managers unwittingly encourage bullying

1. Pit workers against each other or emphasize a competitive work style.
2. Have a lax management style, so that employees must fill in the blanks themselves on what is acceptable and what is not.
3. Make unreasonable demands and goals of employees and managers.
4. Fail to give supervisors the authority to reprimand problem workers.
5. Set impossible deadlines or provide too little funding to accomplish a goal.

Useful anti-bullying tips from the BBC

BBC news: How to resolve bullying at work has useful tips including:

Keep a detailed diary of every incident. Note down dates, times, the people involved and what happened – this could be crucial evidence for an employment tribunal.

These are what lawyers call contemporaneous notes. Basically, you should write notes close to the time something happens and include the time and date. Here's a good piece on how to take these note as a PDF document.

Busting the office bully

How to bust the office bully is another useful PDF download. Not surprisingly this 2007 report from The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University reads like an academic project complete with citations. The document explains techniques allowing victims of workplace bullying to tell their stories to other people in plausible ways, this is the first step towards dealing with the problems of bullying.

Australian employment law and bullying

In this simple, but effective post, New South Wales lawyer Frank Egan points out employers risk legal exposure if they tolerate bullying. In plain English this means bosses who allow bullying can end up being sued by their employees.

No complaints doesn't mean no problems

Britain's Andrea Adams Trust provides sound advice for employers and employees who face bullying, including yet another downloadable PDF fact sheet. There's also a telephone hotline for people living in the UK. It even manged to enlist Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a supporter of its Ban Bullying at Work Day campaign. In a recent press release, the trust quoted the results of an on-line survey of 10,000 people, including:

• 92 percent of workers felt they are bullied.
• 49 percent of those indicated that their immediate manager was the bully.
• 56 percent of  respondents stated  that  in  their workplace bullying  is a serious problem.
• 47.8 percent of  respondents  stated  that  when  they  made  a  formal  complaint
• procedures were not followed correctly.

Beyond bullying

Beyond bullying is a New Zealand-based website which advocates "zero tolerance to workplace bullying in New Zealand". There's also a book. While useful with links to Australian and New Zealand legal material, the website appears  neglected, the most recent material I could find was from 2006. Like most of the other workplace bullying sites, there's a PDF download, but unlike the other documents, this reads more like a PowerPoint presentation than a tract.

The presentation points bullying is due to weak, and not strong, management.

NZ Department of Labour

This 2005 report (downloadable PDF) written by New Zealand's Department of Labour defines workplace bullying in legal terms and then looks at the rights of employees and employers when it takes place.

NZ Public Service Association

It shouldn't come as a surprise a union produced one of the best New Zealand sources of material on workplace bullying.  For example, the downloadable workplace bullying is not OK is one of the most comprehensive and readable documents I've seen on the subject. For example its definition of what workplace bullying (called harassment in the material) is not:

• Friendly banter, light-hearted exchanges, mutually acceptable jokes and compliments
• Friendships sexual or otherwise, where both people consent to the relationship
• Issuing reasonable instructions and expecting them to be carried out
• Warning or disciplining someone in line with organisation policy
• Insisting on high standards of performance in terms of quality, safety and team cooperation
• Legitimate criticisms about work performance (not expressed in a hostile harassing way)
• Giving negative feedback including in a performance appraisal and requiring justified performance
• improvement
• Assertively expressing opinions that are different from others
• Free and frank discussion about issues or concerns in the workplace, without personal insults
• And targeted EEO policies, parental leave  provisions or reasonable accommodation and provision of work
• aids for staff with disabilities.

Five HR responses to workplace bullying

Finally, on a lighter note, Scottish Boomerang has outlined five hr responses to workplace bullying including the mafioso:

Perhaps the worst stance, the Mafioso HR Department knows there is a problem with workplace bullying and actively participates or supports the abuse by bringing false, fabricated or unnecessary proceedings against the targets of bullying, supporting the culprits, joining in “the fun”. Their typical way is to issue threats to targets and abuse procedure. They are the harbingers of doom to any firm and they ride in on the pale horse.

Oh, yes, you know who you are. And so do we. We can tell by the attrition rates, the number of lawsuits, and the fact that you can smell the fear and tension the moment you walk through the door.

Most people think workplace bullying is about blue-collar workers. But bullying is far more common in knowledge-based industries than you might imagine. Surveys show workplace bullying goes on in just about every industry, though the specific form of bullying changes from industry to industry.

To underline the problem in white-collar workplaces a 2002 report by Australia’s APESMA professional women's network said around one-third of respondents to its survey have been bullied at work.

In 2000, Australia's Office of the Employee Ombudsman says it received more than 500 complaints a year on workplace bullying related issues and that number is increasing each year. In its January 1999 Australian Jobs Index Survey, Morgan and Banks reported that 10.4% of employers believe bullying is increasing at work. (I'd like to quote more up-to-date statistics from Australia and New Zealand on this but can't find any).

According to England's The Daily Telegraph, an online poll of 10,000 people found that 92 per cent believe they are the victims of workplace taunts and intimidation, with 56 per cent believing it is a serious problem in their office, shop or factory.

International research and anecdotal evidence from Australia and New Zealand suggests that the worst industries for bullying are education, healthcare, social services and voluntary work. The Morgan and Banks 1999 Jobs Index survey identified tourism as a particular problem industry. This is echoed overseas. There’s also some evidence that bullying is more widespread in the government than in private industry, though this may reflect the willingness of government workers to report bullying.

Until recently there wasn’t much formal awareness of bullying as a problem. To some extent the increasing number of reported cases reflects the fact that employees are only just becoming used to being able to report bullying.

Outsourcing and cost-cutting can trigger bullying

But there are other disturbing trends. Some white-collar staff unions have pointed out that outsourced operations and understaffed workplaces are ideal breeding grounds for middle management bullies. There’s evidence bosses, who are themselves under undue pressure, turn into workplace bullies as a misguided coping strategy.
Bullying can take a number of forms. At one end of the spectrum are malicious rumours, over critical work evaluation and physical or verbal isolation. At the more extreme end there are direct verbal threats and even physical violence. Deaths as a result of workplace bullying are thankfully rare, but they do happen.

Of course, bullying has been a feature of the workplace for most of human history. No doubt when the senior public works managers of Ancient Egypt floated down the Nile on their annual off-site management brainstorming session some bright spark figured that a light whipping might incentivise the pyramid-building process and spice up productivity.

Bullying kills productivity

Today’s more enlightened managers, particularly in knowledge-based industries, recognise that a happy workforce is a productive workforce and that bullying has a direct negative impact on productivity. There are estimates of the potential costs of workplace bullying, but ultimately it’s impossible to measure the economic cost.

Here are some other facts about workplace bullying.

• Most research says that men and women face bullying in roughly equal numbers and that both men and women bully others in roughly equal numbers. However women are more likely to report a bullying incident – men are less willing to admit to being intimidated.
• Same sex bullying is far more common that intra-sex bullying.
• Victims can lose self-esteem and blame themselves for the problem.
• About one victim in 100 either attempts or succeeds to commit suicide.
• 90% of calls to Britain’s workplace bullying hotline came from white-collar workers – only 5% involved manual workers.
• About 10% of all reported cases result in legal action – this proportion is increasing.
• Two-thirds of the members of Unison (the UK civil service union) say they have witnessed workplace bullying.
• Most bullied people who report damage to their health
• The overwhelming majority of bullies are repeat offenders.
• In most cases more senior managers say they are aware that the bullying took place.
• Bullying is responsible for around one resignation in four.

If you face bullying at work, why not use our anonymous comment feature at the Knowledge Worker website to share your experience?

See also:
Workplace bullying resources