April 1st, 2007
I was bullied at work. It was a long time ago but I still remember it as a pretty miserable experience. For months, I would trudge to work every day for another eight hours of being undermined and belittled. I was young, inexperienced and didn’t want to complain in case I was seen as a troublemaker so I kept my head down and put up with it.
Eventually a more senior staff member realised what was going on and put a stop to it, whereupon the office became a much nicer place. Still, it was horrible while it lasted so I have sympathy for Louise McCormack, who claimed at the Employment Appeals Tribunal recently that she was bullied by the management of St Michael’s House, the Dublin-based disability agency, over an 18-month period.
I’m sure McCormack also has the sympathy of the almost 8% of Irish employees who say they have been bullied in the past six months. This figure emerged in an Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) survey on bullying in the workplace. When that figure is extrapolated to the whole working population, it equates to 159,000 employees.
It’s a lot of people, isn’t it? If you believe survey results, it seems that a large proportion of those people are primary school teachers. Two weeks ago, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation survey found 44% of its members had been bullied.
I’m sceptical. Perhaps it’s because I’ve become desensitised by years of working in newspaper offices, where blue jokes, bad language, back stabbing, exaggerated gossip and shouted insults are not so much entertained as expected. But I find it hard to believe that almost half of all Irish teachers have been bullied. Perhaps schools are particularly vicious places to work. Or maybe some of these teachers don’t understand what it means to be bullied.
There are a lot of thin-skinned people out there. It may not be very politically correct to say it but we’ve all worked with people who get in an almighty huff at the slightest perceived slight.
There is a tendency now to centre the definition of workplace bullying on perception. If you think you’ve been bullied, then you’ve been bullied. I’m not sure that is true. There is a firm distinction to be made between being bullied and just having the misfortune to work with someone who isn’t always particularly pleasant.
The new code of practice on the prevention and resolution of bullying at work from the Health and Safety Authority will address this issue, albeit somewhat obliquely. The code is due to be launched on Wednesday and is expected to mirror the draft version published in December. It makes clear that it’s not just bosses who bully juniors but that managers or supervisors can be bullied by those who report to them and co-workers can bully each other. Even customers, clients and business contacts can bully, or be bullied by, a company’s employees.
The new code also gives a more detailed definition of what constitutes bullying. In addition to the more obvious types of bullying, it cites behaviour such as excessive monitoring of work, withholding work-related information and blaming victims for events beyond their control.
But here’s the rub. Unlike the old code, the new code introduces definitions of conduct not considered to be bullying. These include “reasonable and essential discipline”, actions taken to protect the safety, health and welfare of employees and “normal, acceptable supervision”.
In a culture where the individual’s rights are prized above all others, it can be hard for people to accept direction. Being told what to do can be galling, particularly when the person doing the telling isn’t all sweetness and light about it. That doesn’t make it bullying.
The code also states: “A once-off incident of bullying behaviour may be an affront to dignity at work but is not considered to be bullying”. In other words, just because someone once shouted at you in the office doesn’t mean you’ve been bullied. Bullying is persistent and cumulative.
This more nuanced code is to be welcomed. It reduces the possibility of easily offended whingers making allegations of bullying. Every allegation of bullying must be thoroughly investigated, of course, but if every moaner is allowed present themselves as a victim of bullying, then there is a risk that genuine victims could be dismissed as moaners.
Furthermore, it means that the camaraderie and banter so vital to team-building can still happen, as can the black humour that keeps co-workers together in times of crisis.
Bullying is unquestionably a destructive practice that harms both the victims and the organisations concerned and is indicative of deep-rooted inadequacies on the part of the bully.
Bullies are weak and often sneaky. Their actions and words can have awful consequences, with victims sometimes needing protracted sick leave. Many simply choose to walk away from their jobs, rather than make an official complaint.
It’s precisely because bullying is so awful that the reported levels of it should be questioned and that the definition of bullying should be fine-tuned. The clarification given by the code should help to reduce abuse in the workplace because the demarcation of unacceptable behaviour is so much clearer. Anyone can have a bad day but ongoing mistreatment of a colleague is bullying. Managers and supervisors must do their jobs but in a fair and balanced way.
Once the new code is in place, employers should ensure that everyone who works for them is aware of its precepts. They should not only know what is considered bullying, but also what is not.
