Whether you know it or not, or even realize it or not, workplace bullying and workplace violence can be, and is, a real problem in may office environments. In my last post, I addressed the realities of this topic and a couple of amazing statistics about this by-product of a toxic workplace. First, 75 percnt of Canada labor-union members reported in a recent poll that they had been victimized by workplace bullies or violence. That is three of every four union workers in the entire country who have been bullied at least once.
[Photo from Wikipedia via a Creative Commons license]If a toxic situation is developing in your workplace, there are steps you can take to keep the environment from devolving into violence, like this. Or worse.
As the labor-union poll suggests, workplace violence and bullying is very prevalent, so the possibility of every worker being a target is quite high. And on the reverse side of the coin, the chances that you have a bully among your ranks is also quite high – and fo course not only does the odds go even higher he bigger your company is, but the odds become good that you have more than one such individual. and when you have a bully, you may have multiple targetts, and thus multiple bystanders who may not know what to do when he or she sees a bullying or violent situation in the workplace.
Fear can lead to a lot of silence on this issue. Fear by the victim that reporting an incident could lead to repercussions, and of course reporting by a bystander or witness might lead to that witness being a target himself or herself. And fear can be the most toxic substance in any workplace. So what might be the best approach to conquering this cancer if it lodges in your workplace?
One of the first things to do is to implement a zero-tolerance policy of the issue, if you have not already done so. If anyone lodges a complaint about bullying or violence, the supervisor or manager who takes the report should go with the assumption that it is a legitimate complaint and take it seriously, conducting a full investigation. Do not let is slide as just a “peronality clash” between two workers. Letting it slide without at least looking into the claim is not a zero-tolerance policy. And the less seriously the complaints are taken, the more emboldened the bully will become, and thus perhaps the more brazen and disruptive he or she could be to the workplace as a whole.
As the zero-=tolerance policy is implemented, have a series or meeting with senior management, supervisors and the ran-and-file and go over workplace bullying and violence, how to define it, spot it and the proper procedure to handle it. Each level will handle it differently, so it’s good to speak to each audience separately as how the issue should be handled at their specific level of the company.
And most of all, just like being a parent, it’s one thing to say what you will do, but it’s another to actually do it. The most important thing is when there is a policy in place and a zero-tolerance stance, there need to be follow-through and there needs to be accountability. and thi can also apply to those who end up filing a false or invalid bullying complaint. Your company policy about bullying should also address this and that an invalid complaint can waste time and resources and affect productivity just as much as a bully could. Stress the importance of having documentation or bullying behavior before filing a complaint and have consequences if the complaint is deemed invalid.
One of the best deterrents to bullying or violence is communication. Open, honest communication between workers, supervisors and senior management can keep a workplace from being toxic because that open communication can quickly and decisively reveal where the toxic situation is before it festers. This can lead to quick removal and sparing the workplace from degrading into a selfish, unproductive mob.