Former England Rugby Union international, Ben Cohen, has called for people to make a stand against bullying in general and homphobia in particular.
To this end, his Foundation is calling for the creation of an annual ‘Standup Day’ to take place on 14 November each year.
Although the aim of the Day is to encourage people to stand up to bullying across all aspects of society and not simply in the workplace, it does serve as a timely reminder to consider whether your organisation is doing enough to combat such behaviour.
A policy is not enough
The vast majority of employers already have detailed anti-harassment or dignity-at-work policies in place. These differ from grievance policies by taking a more nuanced approach to issues such as credibility and motive when a complaint is being analysed.
But policies are only a starting point in tackling workplace bullying. Although they are essential in terms of making a written commitment to take the issue seriously, on their own they are simply pieces of paper.
After all, policies are primarily concerned with how an issue is investigated once a complaint arises and, as such, are primarily reactive rather than proactive. But tackling the bullying issue effectively involves a more strategic approach that must be led by management.
Before looking at the practical steps that organisations can follow to stand up to it, here is a brief summary of the concept of both bullying and harassment and what the implications are respectively in legal terms:
What is bullying and harassment?
Bullying can take many forms, from a simple misunderstanding to allocating work in such a way that employees are set up to fail. While the terms ‘bullying’ and ‘harassment’ tend to be used interchangeably, from a legal perspective harassment normally occurs if a person shares a particular protected characteristic – ie they are targeted because they are female or suffer from a disability.
The legal definition of harassment is "unwanted conduct which violates someone’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment".
Bullying, on the other hand, normally arises because of personal weaknesses in managers or colleagues, which mean that they behave in a particular way towards an individual. Of course, in real life, elements of both factors may be present.
A recent addition to the mix, however, is cyber-bullying, which refers to employees who post comments on social media sites such Facebook or on blogs, which are offensive to other colleagues.
Bullying and harassment can give rise to legal complaints, which can be both expensive and reputationally damaging for employers. In one instance several years ago, for example, a claimant called Ms Green succeeded in winning more than £800,000 in damages after withstanding a campaign of bullying that had a significant impact on her health.
The variety of legal remedies available to individuals, which include constructive unfair dismissal; discrimination complaints; personal injury complaints and complaints under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, all serve to highlight the significant risks that can arise if the matter is not properly managed.
Practical steps to tackle the issue
Aside from ensuring that suitable policies are in place, how can HR directors ensure that workplace bullying is tackled effectively?
Commitment from the top: There needs to be a commitment from senior management that people will be treated with respect and that any breach of policy will be taken seriously and dealt with. Bullying often occurs because people are too scared to stand up to the person doing it. This situation is exacerbated in a work environment due to issues of power and hierarchy.
Open culture: Create a culture where employees feel able to contribute their views and feedback is welcomed rather than one in which everyone is told what to do in a hierarchical way.
Surveys: Conduct annual staff surveys in which employees are asked if they have been subjected to bullying and harassment or whether they have witnessed it. If this is the case, action must follow in order to demonstrate a commitment to change.
Communication: Make it clear that inappropriate behaviour will be challenged and steps taken to deal with complaints, which includes appropriate disciplinary action.
Adequate support: Ensure that policies refer to support mechanisms for those who are feeling bullied. Such measures should include talking to HR or communicating externally with professionals working for an Employee Assistance Programme.
Training: All staff, and managers in particular, should receive training in the following areas:
- Equality and diversity issues at a practical level
- Understanding the organisation’s harassment policy and what it means in practice ie don’t air sexist or religiously-offensive views in the workplace. Tribunal complaints can also arise if somebody does not share a particular protected characteristic but finds a given comment offensive. For example, a heterosexual male could make a complaint against a colleague who they felt made homophobic remarks to them
- Developing the people management skills necessary to prevent bullying arising in the first place
- Being able to identify bullying and harassment when it arises and deal appropriately with it.
Bullying complaints relating to management style often fall into two categories:
- Junior managers who have perhaps been over-promoted and behave over-zealously towards their staff, which is taken as bullying
- Senior staff who are high enough up the ranks that people are scared to tell them that their behaviour is inappropriate.
Where difficulties arise with a particular person, there are further steps that can be taken that do not constitute formal disciplinary action. These include:
- Management training
- Using confidential 360-degree feedback surveys depending on the size of the team, which enable staff to report any concerns
- Mentoring from a trusted colleague of the employee’s choice
- Mediation
As an HR director, one of the most difficult issues to deal with is the fact that these types of complaints relate to impact rather than intent. In the vast majority of bullying and harassment cases, the person accused does not think they have behaved inappropriately at all.
They may simply have different views to the person who raised the complaint or have a more robust constitution themselves. Quite often, they have been managed in a similar way in the past and, by virtue of learned behaviour, act that way too.
Breaking the chain is then often left to HR to deal with. A popular means of trying to do this at the moment is unconscious bias training, where participants are asked to challenge their established perceptions of given issues.
Although Ben Cohen’s campaign to encourage people to stand up to bullies is a great concept, it can be tricky in a workplace context if the person concerned pays your wages. This is why it is important that employers not only have policies in place to tackle the matter, but also implement strategies, training and a culture that is simply not prepared to tolerate such behaviour.
Gemma Hay is a solicitor and Val Dougan, a professional support lawyer in the employment team of UK law firm, Dundas & Wilson.
