Gathering and Analyzing Information

Make workplace behavior discussable, and use language that reflects the organization’s culture

Define the kinds of behaviours that you want to encourage

Determine what kinds of behaviours you consider to be cause for concern

Forms of workplace bullying include:

• ignoring
• verbal incivility
• blatant rudeness name calling, putdowns
• hazing
• discounting input or ideas
• withholding vital information
• shunning and exclusion
• gossip & rumours
• stealing credit
• undermining
• discrediting
• impossible deadlines
• impossible workload
• setting up to fail
• discrimination
• chilly climate
• public humiliation
• intimidation
• personal harassment
• psychological harassment
• sexual harassment
• abuse of authority
• imposing unsafe working conditions
• toxic workplace
• threats
• cyberbullying
• threats with weapons
• violence & assault
• murder
• mass violence
• acts of terrorism

Develop safe, confidential ways for people throughout the organization to report incidents of workplace bullying and harassment

These methods might include: an anonymous report form (paper or online),

• an anonymous survey (paper or online) conducted at regular intervals,
• a hot line or 1-800 number,
• designated contact people throughout the organization,
• a workplace ombudsperson,
• focus groups or interviews conducted by an external facilitator

Assess workplace culture/climate

Many organizations have statements of vision, mission, values, guiding principles. But how well are these understood and put into daily practiced? (Do we walk our talk?)

Some of the more subtle elements include:

• the tone of the workplace (formal or informal, competitive or collaborative, welcoming or unfriendly, supportive or hostile)
• its unwritten rules (“how we really do things here”)
• levels of trust and respect
• how people treat one another
• how valued and accepted people feel
• how the organization handles mistakes, conflict, and negative workplace events
• how engaged employees feel in their work and in the organization
• how actively employee feedback, suggestions, and ideas are encouraged
• employee job satisfaction
• investment in people’s learning and development
• loyalty, commitment, and sustainability planning

Pinpoint the types of workplace incidents that are occurring

Bullying and harassing behaviours include such things as:

• berating someone in front of others
• making fun of someone’s accent
• blocking someone’s career advancement
• withholding information & resources
• deliberately encouraging inappropriate attire
• sexist, racist, & homophobic remarks or graphics
• unpredictable, explosive outbursts
• inflammatory remarks in e-mail or blogs
• tampering with someone’s work station
• imposing unsafe working conditions
• setting impossible deadlines & expectations
• hiding someone’s personal belongings
• refusing to provide a job description or performance evaluation criteria
• taking credit for someone else’s ideas
• rudeness & abusive language
• scapegoating, unfairly blaming
• micromanaging & constant fault-finding
• withholding formative feedback
• abusing personal information
• discrediting someone’s skills & qualifications
• hounding staff outside of office hours
• spreading rumours, gossip & innuendo
• threats & intimidation
• blatant favouritism
• unnecessarily harsh & hurtful feedback
• ridiculing or destroying someone’s work
• undermining professional or personal reputation
• taking away the satisfying parts of a job without just cause
• making someone feel useless by giving them only meaningless/trivial tasks to do
• scapegoating & constant fault-finding
• blocking access to training, leave, or promotion
• hounding staff outside of office hours
• unwelcome comments on personal appearance

Track patterns and trends over time

One of the current problems is that many workplaces lack a comprehensive overview of harassment and bullying across the organization. Managers may be aware of incidents occurring within their particular area of responsibility, but a bird’s eye view of the entire workplace over time is often lacking.

To help address this, an interactive workplace bullying grid is provided which you can customize to your workplace. You can select from the menu the types of bullying that you need to monitor, and identify the areas of your workplace in which you wish to chart these behaviours. You can then enter comparative data on this grid representing whatever time interval you wish (monthly, quarterly, annually) to monitor patterns and trends over time. Reviewing the grid might help you choose to focus your energy and time on areas of particular need.

Examine presenting problems to look for contributing factors and root causes

Look at when these incidents take place (time of day, time of week, time of month, time of year, which years). Consider what else has been going on within the organization, the community, and the economy at those times.

Presenting problems

The “presenting problems” are the immediate situations that attract attention and generate concern: for instance, high rates of absenteeism, bickering among employees, harassment complaints. Responses that focus at this level will be band-aid solutions.

Contributing factors

These are elements that aggravate the situation: for instance, deadline pressures, high-stress decision making, competition to maintain market share, fear of job cuts. This level of problem solving begins to address the factors that motivate behaviour.

Root causes

These are larger issues that exist at a deeper level: for instance, unreliable supply sources that create production bottlenecks, a workplace culture that encourages and rewards bullying behaviour, concerns about organizational sustainability. Problem solving at this level requires systemic review and change.

Examine impact on employee well-being

HEALTH

Physical

• headaches
• gastrointestinal problems
• back pain
• high blood pressure
• shortness of breath
• chest pains
• panic attacks
• nightmares
• disrupted sleep/sleeping too much
• substance abuse
• loss of appetite
• binge eating
• severe weight loss/gain

Psychological

• erosion of self-confidence
• anxiety
• loss of energy
• burnout
  • loss of enjoyment in work
  • inability to relax
  • loss of enjoyment in leisure activities
  • exhaustion
  • short temper, irritability
  • volatility, explosive anger
  • feeling overwhelmed
  • cynicism, negativity
  • suspiciousness
  • sense of helplessness/hopelessness
• post traumatic stress disorder
  • fear
  • flashbacks
  • reliving painful events
  • recurrent nightmares
  • always on edge, anxious, watchful
  • loss of hope for the future
  • emotional numbing
  • withdrawal
  • avoidance of intimacy
  • feelings of guilt
  • insomnia
  • diminished concentration
  • aggression
• depression, despair

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

• strained friendships
• marital stress
• compromised parenting
• social withdrawal and isolation
• thoughts of harming self or others

FINANCIAL HARDSHIP

• unpaid leave
• medical expenses
• legal fees
• uncertainty of future employment
• costs of relocation

Estimate impact on the organization

Cowie, H., Naylor, P. & Rivers, I. (2002). Measuring workplace bullying. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 7(1), 33-51.

Notelaers, G., Einarsen, S. & De Witte, H. (2006). Measuring exposure to bullying at work: The validity and advantages of the latent class cluster approach. Work & Stress, 20(4), 289-302.

Turmanis, S.A. & Brown, R.I. (2006). The stalking and harassment behaviour scale: measuring the incidence, nature, and severity of stalking and relational harassment and their psychological effects. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 79(2), 183-198.

Launching a Respectful Workplace Initiative

Create safe, confidential reporting channels

Get broadly based employee buy-in

Encourage involvement at all levels of the organization. Identify where there are likely to be pockets of resistance. Who are the reluctant, hard-to-reach, or outsider groups, and how will you invite them in? How will you create a climate of safety?

• Be clear about what you’re asking participants to do
• Let them know how you plan to use their input.
• Set some safety boundaries around confidentiality.
• Be clear about how you will report back to them.
• Set honest and realistic expectations.

Find out how they see the situation

• Never assume that you know either the problem or its solution.
• Explore the positive first.
• Use active listening skills.

What do they seem the most eager to discuss? What themes or ideas keep surfacing? What isn’t being said? What topics are being avoided? What points of view are being held back? Create safe, confidential reporting channels

Create safe, confidential reporting channels

Identify barriers to reporting Consult broadly on how to make reporting safe Communicate clearly any limitations placed on confidentiality

Create a workplace awareness campaign

This needs to be tailored to the specific workplace. Its development would need to take into account the language (jargon) of the organization, the educational level of the target audience, and the current level of sensitivity to this issue. Materials need to be attention-grabbing, and presented in a variety of ways (which might include: electronic bulletins, live and online information sessions, posters, questionnaires, messages from the CEO or other workplace champion of the campaign, speaker series, information sheets, FAQ sheets).

If you can identify groups or key individuals who are already on board, that gives you a base from which to build. It’s also important to identify likely pockets of resistance.

Develop and deliver appropriate training

Different levels of training will be needed for the general work force, supervisors and middle managers, human resources personnel, union reps, respectful workplace contact people and informal helpers, counseling and coaching staff, and senior management. Each workplace will need to define the competencies that each of these levels will need to have.

• Establish and integrate a sound diagnostic flow chart

• Ensure an appropriate range of intervention strategies

Provide appropriate support services

Counseling

Dealing with workplace harassment is emotionally exhausting, and rethinking one’s own behaviour can be very painful. Counselling needs to be available to targets, harassers, bystanders, supervisors and managers, and those in informal and formal helping roles. Sometimes it can be provided in-house, and sometimes referral to an outside EAP provider is more appropriate.

Coaching

Both individuals and groups may need ongoing supportive coaching to help them replace unhelpful behaviours with more appropriate responses. To ensure that change takes root and that people don’t backslide into old habits, it’s valuable to have a trained person on hand who can rehearse and role-play with them, debrief about their attempts at implementing the new behaviours, and provide encouragement, fine-tuning, and troubleshooting throughout the change process.

Legal information

A frequent problem is that a highly placed bully will have greater access to legal resources than a target does. It is important that someone within the organization, who is both well informed and neutral, be available to help all parties to understand their options and support them in making informed choices about how to proceed. See: New Brunswick Courts Website, Legal glossary of terms

Union representation

The role of the union is to ensure that union members are made aware of their rights, understand the options available to them, and are provided with information and support in preparing their case. See RESOURCES Section, CUPE Equality Branch, Stop harassment: A guide for CUPE locals

Encourage and support early identification and early intervention

Intervention Strategies

There is a continuum of intervention strategies. Beginning with the most informal and moving up the line in terms of formality:

One-on-one conversation

The target discusses the matter with the other party. Preparation for this conversation might include: jotting down key points, preparing an outline or script, rehearsing it in front of the mirror, role-playing it with a third party.

Conversation chaired by a third-party

In cases where the target feels too intimidated to have this conversation one-on-one with the aggressor, it may be appropriate to have a neutral third party be present to chair the meeting. This chairing role is used to safeguard air time for each of the parties, to paraphrase where needed, and to manage the stress of the situation in a way that enables them to engage in honest dialogue.

Third party intervention

At this level, the target chooses not to be present, and to let the third party speak on their behalf. In this process, the third party becomes a go-between.

Facilitation

This approach acknowledges that bystanders are also impacted by the conflict, and opens up the conversation to include them. The facilitator may use a variety of techniques (inviting certain kinds of individual reflection, sharing in pairs, and small group discussion, for instance) to bring the issues to the surface. There may be training components. Participants may be invited to analyze and problem solve short scenarios based on the issues that have arisen in the workplace. The group may be invited to brainstorm and build consensus around ground rules for their future interactions.

Mediation

The first phase of this is a diagnostic process, entailing interviews with each of the parties to determine whether mediation is a viable strategy. Next, the process is explained to all of the parties, and they are asked to confirm their willingness to enter into mediation in good faith. Only then is mediation carried out. Mediation is not possible where a significant power differential exists or when violence has been involved.

Formal complaint and formal investigation

Formal investigation is usually requested on one of the following grounds:

• Personal harassment
• Sexual harassment
• Abuse of authority
• Poisoned work environment
• Discrimination
• Some jurisdictions also recognize psychological harassment

Tackle longstanding workplace bullying issues

See FAQ’s: What about difficult-to-resolve situations?

• Two or more opposing versions of the story, without any witnesses
• Allegation of bullying in the upper ranks of the organization
• Allegation of bullying by a board of directors
• Allegation of bullying by an elected official
• Allegation of bullying by an externally contracted employee
• Addressing bullying by clients or members of the public

Clear the air and rebuild healthy workplace relationships

It is a common problem that the aftermath of a workplace bullying or harassment situation goes unaddressed.

Until the situation is appropriately debriefed, it will be remain “the invisible elephant in the room”, and it will be difficult for the parties involved to let go of what has happened and to find a way forward. The people who have been affected by the situation need a structured and carefully facilitated opportunity to voice their concerns and have them acknowledged. The group as a whole needs to explore how to move forward.

See Corporate Circles (link here)