It is the silent epidemic that claims billions of dollars in revenue each year, but the biggest cost by far for a company that hires a bully is the trauma experienced by staff in the firing line.
Workplace experts say that if bullies are not dealt with appropriately, low productivity, absenteeism and even physical illness can eventually seep through into the company’s brand name, goodwill and bottom line.
While bad managers can come in many guises, bullies have one thing in common: they deliberately use repeated, continued behaviour that is designed to make a staff member feel bad, said conflict resolution consultant Joe Moore of Kimber Moore and Associates.
This is the legal definition of bullying used by the Occupational, Health and Safety Association (OHSA), Moore said. “It’s important to understand this as we tend to use the term loosely in everyday language. Bullying is intentional and harmful.”
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The Beyond Bullying Association in Australia estimates between 2.5 million and 5 million people experience some aspects of bullying at work.
I agree with most of what is said in regards to the impact of bullying, whether the position is either a contract or a fulltime position. The bully on gets away with it as he/she is the boss favourite, and that even when the victims speak up their feelings and thoughts are often just brushed off as it is easier that way. I believe that within any company tolerance to bullying is set by management and how they deal with staff members. As that is the way that other staff will treat each other.
I was a victim of a workplace harassment campaign for four years in Australia’s largest Telecommunications corporation! I did everything in my power to have it stopped and for the corporation to learn from it, so as it could not happen again. I even went to the extreme of contacting the corporations CEO directly! Ironically, the then CEO and every other senior manager put their heads in the sand – something I was to learn first hand was a corporate practice, so as to deny knowledge and liability. Even though this campaign clearly breached the corporations own Code of Conduct, which the then CEO had been banging on about. On every occasion I was systematically denied representation at meetings – even though the corporation would employee an army of their HR. So not was I being bullied, intimidated and slandered, so to was I being denied my basic and fundamental rights of representation. My union sold me out. In the end I was mentally and physically exhausted. My career completely destroyed. My wife was at her wits end. I elected to leave the job and career I had once loved so much in the realization that the corporation utilized workplace harassment and intimidation as an everyday management tool to achieve productivity, and I as an individual who had officially stood up and complained about my abuse meant nothing! Sadly my attempts to have Industrial Relations Laws brought against the corporation were fraught by the fact that “I had left the employment of the corporation” and that the new Fair Work Australia and the Fair Work Ombudsman, would not be able to take action against the corporation because I was bullied under WorkChoices legislation and that they could only act and enforce under the new FairWork Australia legislation.
So it is, my life, my self esteem and the strong and self driven and motivated person that I once was, is only a hazy memory that people tell me I once was!
I have since found it very difficult to maintain work.
I have tried to retrain myself in a new career!
I have even attempted university – but the pressure and loss of my ability to ak basic and fundamental questions through fear, has lead me to defer after 2 years of a 4 years course.
Oh and as for the corporation in question?
The same supervisors and managers are still at large! Their use and employment of workplace harassment and intimidation still exists. The fear of my fellow colleagues to stand up or come forward to official complain came to an end, when the corporation made it clear in my case that they will not tolerate any such complaint, regardless of its merits or legality. And if you do! You will be systematically crushed, as was the case of I!
Willy