Yet again the Prime Minister is in the headlines. Not for the way he is running the country, but this time for the way he is allegedly running his support office. They say don’t believe all you read in the press and so far the anecdotal evidence produced (Andrew Rawnsley End of the Party and Christine Pratt via the National Bullying Helpline) seems to me to be nothing more than what one could expect to find in any organisation under severe pressure.

Now, I am not for one minute suggesting that bullying is something to be swept under the carpet, far from it. What I am suggesting is that bullying is more than one incident, that it is sustained over a period of time. Take the example where Gordon Brown is reputed to have shoved a secretary aside because they were not typing fast enough. In isolation I would suggest this is not bullying per se, but is an example of an impatient and insensitive style, albeit inappropriate. If, however over a reasonable period of time that individual is continually moved aside and they and their work is denigrated without any attempt through a performance appraisal system to help them improve then this would constitute bullying.

Everyone needs to strike a balance and ACAS in their leaflet clarifies bullying as “something has happened to them that is unwelcome, unwarranted and causes a detrimental effect.”

An example where I had to deal with a number of individuals who were picking on a female colleague was discovered by accident. We had become aware that the individual was going through a period of increased absences to which there was no apparent pattern. Her performance as a Call Centre operator was beginning to drop away from her usual high level of accuracy, but not too dramatically. On this occasion her absence was being covered by an operator who used her workstation. Out of the blue, the relief operator received what could only be described as offensive correspondence which referred to the absent operator’s personal hygiene and physical appearance, asking the relief operator if they had been offered disinfectant! Fortunately, the relief operator reported this and when we forensically examined the e-mails sent to the individual we were horrified to discover that she had been the subject of this type of correspondence for at least 7 months. Suddenly the reasons for her absences and fall off in performance became apparent. I can assure the readers that the perpetrators were dealt with in no uncertain manner. And I am pleased to say that with a little help the lady concerned returned to her usual reliable level of performance.

What I learnt from this was:
• Despite having in place all the appropriate policy documents the individual was still reluctant to come forward, preferring instead to see if by doing nothing they would get bored and leave her alone, moving on to someone else. As a strategy this did not work for her.
• The policies should be thoroughly briefed to everyone by the senior management team to ensure total understanding of the procedures and the consequences. Reassurance is given that anyone who raises and issue will be properly treated.
• That there can be no obvious reasons as to why someone’s sickness absence increases and that it is very important that managers do not jump to the wrong conclusions, but do treat the situation with sensitivity to establish the true reasons.
• Everyone has a responsibility to keep an eye out for their colleagues. If that individual had not reported the e-mail then I shudder to think where this would have ended up.
• As managers it is not enough to deal with the perpetrators and feel that is the end of the matter. The affected individual needs very positive help in order to settle back in the work place as they often have unrealistic feelings of guilt at having reported it. Something akin to ‘Survivor’s Syndrome’.
• The manager must also be aware of the ‘tribal effect’ amongst the perpetrators colleagues and be aware that they may have more sympathy and thus ‘take it out’ on the complainant as a form of misguided loyalty.

The advice from ACAS is “If employees complain they are being bullied or harassed, then they have a grievance which must be dealt with regardless of whether or not their complaint accords with a standard definition.”

Is all bullying bad? An interesting question and I would base the answer on my own experiences. When I started work for a well known high street bank in the 1970’s there was no such thing as bullying policies or awareness training. The Assistant Manager was a well known bully. His method of stamping his authority was as follows: If female, he reduced them to tears within the first week of their arrival. If male he would quickly falsely accuse you of some clerical error and then proceed to give you a verbal dressing down in front of everyone. If you tried to defend yourself you were a ‘Barrack Room Lawyer’. His reputation was well known but management did little about it. I learnt that most office juniors used to just walk out and never come back and I was all set to do the same thing (my attitude being just out of school was that no one was going to talk to me like that etc., etc.) and I remember my father saying to me ‘Go ahead, but he wins. Is that what you want him to do?’ No chance so I stuck it out for 16 months, 27hours 19 minutes and 31 seconds which is when my transfer to another branch took effect. On leaving I stayed behind to thank him (which no one else had ever done) for two things. Firstly, for teaching me the right way to do the job so that if I took a short cut after that then I knew it was a shortcut and any repercussions were on my head alone. Secondly, for being a bastard, because if I could work for him then I could work for anybody. And believe me that second lesson was the THE most valuable lesson anyone could have taught me. It has stood me in good stead ever since.

Here is my strategy for dealing with a bully…..

Well, to find out why not come on our training session ‘Harassment and Bullying’? Or if you would prefer, our guaranteed confidential mentoring programme can help you on a one to one basis.

Finally, ACAS again “It is not possible to make a direct complaint to an employment tribunal about bullying. However, employees might be able to bring complaints under laws covering discrimination and harassment.” For free information follow this link and download as a .pdf the information booklet:
ACAS Bullying and Harassment in the workplace booklet

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