Bullying, no matter where, is exactly that; throwing stones in a glass house. Recently we’ve seen the glass house of Natalia Kills, the notorious X-Factor bully, shatter around her in the wake of her abusive comments. Her career has been shredded, and her reputation ruined across the world in response to the public incident.
Unfortunately the fact is, most bullying, especially in the work place is not public at all. It’s hidden, neither seen nor heard by the majority and in turn, nothing gets done about it; which is why it is a huge problem in New Zealand, and the rest of the world.
Bullying in the workplace has become so bad that the New Zealand Government’s newly formed guidelines identify bullying as “a significant workplace hazard that affects employee health and business productivity”.
A study carried at AUT University showed that as many as one in every five New Zealanders have experienced workplace bullying and further research shows that this same issue could be costing our neighbouring Australian government as much as NZ$6.4B per year. Bullying in the workplace affects both the employee and the business itself.
The employee may be left feeling unmotivated, withdrawn and undervalued – this may cause significant damage to the business environment, efficiency and productivity; which is then reflected in the reputation and profits.
Bullying in the workplace often goes unrecognised by management, in fact it’s not uncommon for the victims themselves to be unaware they are even being targeted. The tactics of a bully are sly, they set the conditions away from authority and choose the time and place. It may not be much at first, an unnerving glare, an occasional snide remark but over time these small things amount to a concerning matter.
It’s long been said that bullies do so because of their own insecurities, that it is often not arrogance, rather a form of verbal or physical intimidation brought on by their own issues and the need to assert their dominance over someone (in most cases their subordinates).
X-Factor judge, Natalia Kills, chose to pick on a contestant, Joe, for something as petty as his clothes and haircut, labelling Joe as ‘disgusting’ and ‘atrocious’ and then her husband, Willy Moon continued to liken Joe to serial killer, Norman Bates.
What to do:
Joe Irvine was undoubtedly slated on live television by two ‘famous’ individuals, yet we’ve seen the whole time, he kept his head up and nodded at the comments, he brushed it off and smiled at all the support he received when really, he could have withdrawn completely and left the programme.
Chances are that in the workplace, the bullying may not be as humiliating as this but we could all learn a thing or two from Joe Irvine’s reaction. The bully is looking for a negative reaction, otherwise the attraction to pay the victim any attention would be minimal. Even though you may feel like just retreating, withdrawing into your own safe-zone, this is not the way to go
- Stand up
Confronting the bully may be the least likely thing they’d expect, doing so may halt the harassment immediately just because the bully knows you cannot be walked all over like they were intending.
- Speak up
Alert the manager or a higher authority to the problem, document the issues and occurrences and tell them about it. Most of the time they will be very understanding and helpful and will have had no idea it has even been going on. Remember that being bullied is nothing to be ashamed of, it happens to many people and the only way to stop it is to be proactive about it.
I was bullied at my previous workplace for a number of things, including my clothes. I was looked very obviously up and down on a daily basis and the comments would come flying in my direction. At first I was so shocked at the audacity of this that I remained silent.
After a while I felt it had been going on too long for me to say anything at all. I used to spend hours at night thinking of all the things I’d say to the person the next day and how to make them stop but as usual, the next day I remained silent.
I finally told my manager in a very casual way what had been going on and they were appalled, but I was still too nervous for the person to know it affected me so I requested that my complaint stayed silent. It turns out that after I complained, a very close eye was set upon the bully and sure enough, more complaints appeared from separate people.
A formal written warning was given and from then on, the problem was gone. Looking back now, if I had been proactive about the incident and said something on day one, the issue may have been resolved long ago and I wouldn’t have spent all that time stressing about going to work the next day, I would have been a happier and more positive person in my workplace.
Workplace bullying is not a topic to be taken lightly; it’s a problem that desperately needs fixing, for the benefit of everyone. It’s a problem that has the potential to be easily fixed, if it’s dealt with properly, in the very beginning.
This article was kindly supplied by Haystack Jobs.