How to Handle Workplace Bullying Peacefully
Workplace bullying involves acts that make someone feel mentally hurt or isolated. These acts are often verbal comments but can also include negative physical contact. They involve repetition and will humiliate either a person or a group of people. It can be perpetrated by one or many people and can also hurt one or many people.
Workplace bullying can come in a variety of forms. It could be spreading malicious gossip, intimidation, physical abuse or threats of it, belittling someone’s opinions, withholding necessary information, intruding on privacy, undermining someone or taking away their responsibilities for no reason.
If you are the victim of workplace bullying, what can you do? What are the laws in place to help you deal with this situation? Sadly, there are very few laws that deal solely with workplace bullying. However, there are measures that you can take at work to solve your situation, including a workplace investigation to document the evidence against your bully. Should that fail, you can use harassment laws to pursue legal consequences.
Here are six ways on how to handle workplace bullying peacefully:
1. Seek Help with Workplace Bullying
You should seek help with a workplace bullying problem. One of the worst ways to handle workplace bullying is simply ignoring it. Dealing with workplace bullying is critical as its effects can endanger both the health and career of those affected.
It’s also surprisingly common, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute 37% of employees have faced bullying at one point or another in their careers and women are more often the targets with 57% of those bullied being women. It was also found that bullies are more likely to be those in a position of authority than they are to be peers.
2. Understand the Bully
Empathy is an important tool when learning how to handle workplace bullying. This does not mean that you should sympathize with them. In order to deal with the situation, you need to know what kind of person you are dealing with.
Bullies come in many shapes and sizes: they can be subtle, abusive, controlling, echo, opportunistic, critics. They will also tend to recruit other people to help them with their bullying. Men often use other members of management to help them, while women often recruit from social networks.
Identifying the methods that your bully is using will help you to form a plan of action that is best suited to your particular situation. Knowing why the bully is acting in this way can also help you to solve the situation.
3. Make a Workplace Bullying Plan
You should come up with a plan on how to handle workplace bullying. This plan should involve: telling the bully that what they are doing is not okay and potentially seeking help from a superior or pursuing the situation legally. These things all require planning. You should not delay taking action, but you should make sure that you are well prepared before doing so.
First, identify the type of bully you are dealing with. Then, keep a journal and records of the bullying (of every incident) and find allies who can help you confront your bully or/and a superior. If this does not work then you will have to pursue justice at a higher level, either with senior management or on a legal level.
4. Speak to Your Workplace Bully
Firmly tell the person bullying you that what they are doing is not alright. If you are uncomfortable approaching them alone have someone come with you. This could be a superior or a colleague that you trust.
Remember though, confrontation may not work in all situations, so take some time to consider the person and situation you are dealing with as well as the potential repercussions. Completing step number 1 will help you determine which approach should work best in your situation.
5. Keep a Journal
You may just want to forget these events, but keeping a record of them is important. There are few laws against bullying, but there are many against harassment. One of the key characteristics of harassment is repetition, so you need clear proof that these acts are not isolated.
You should keep a factual diary of all of these events. Make sure to include the date, time and what happened as well as the names of any witnesses to the event. Further, if you are being bullied via email or in memos (etc..) keep copies of these. These will provide solid proof that you are being harassed.
6. An Employer’s Role
If you are an employer, it is important that you have a policy on workplace bullying. If you do not already have a policy make sure to set one up. Even if you already have one, take the time to review it, to make sure that it is up to date. Don’t forget to run it by your employees and get their feedback. As this policy affects them it is also important that it accurately reflect their concerns.
In your policy, make sure that you define workplace bullying and set guidelines on what is and isn’t acceptable. Don’t forget to apply the policy: make sure that you give punishment to those who behave in ways that are unacceptable and help those who are bullied. If an employee approaches you because they are being bullied in the workplace, make sure that you take action both against the bully(ies) and to help those approaching you.
