Workplace Bullying: The Silent Poison Affecting Managers

By James Adonis

Need proof that workplace bullying is secretly damaging your organisation and costing you millions of dollars? Consider this. Workplace bullying costs Australian businesses up to $13 billion every year, according to ACT Workcover.

What's worse is that the biggest victims of workplace bullying seem to be managers. A study I conducted this year found that out of 238 managers, over 50% had been the victims of workplace bullies. Imagine for a moment the negative flow-on effect this has on their direct reports, on the completion of critical projects, and on effective decision-making...

But first let's examine the financial impact further. According to research from Queensland's Griffith University, the average cost of serious bullying is $20,000 per employee whilst 10% of employees say they have been bullied over the past 12 months.

The Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute define workplace bullying as "the repeated mistreatment of one employee targeted by one or more employees with a malicious mix of humiliation, intimidation and sabotage of performance."

Certainly bullying can be physical, involving direct bodily contact like pushing, sexual harassment, even attacking. Yet workplace bullying is more often psychological in nature, taking the form of verbal abuse, social isolation, harassment, intimidation, constant criticism and insults, setting unrealistic targets, and creating work impediments.

Aside from the psychological impact upon the manager being bullied, the business repercussions are significant as well. When managers are the victims of workplace bullying, this results in:

• Reduced team effectiveness: Exhausted, battle-weary, and distressed, managerial victims of workplace bullyling are left with very little energy. This means less attention to the quality of their team's work and a lesser focus on productivity since their minds are preoccupied. Results inevitably suffer.
• Failed projects: Missed deadlines, rushed work, and ineffective decision-making, are symptoms of a bullied manager. Considering their heavy involvement in key projects, such behaviour can lead to the derailment of a major project.
• A breakdown in team and individual work relationships: One of the keys to employee engagement is relationships. A study by Flex Executives revealed that employees don't leave jobs, they leave managers. So when managers themselves are victims of workplace bullies, their attention is diverted away from their employees and as a result, their employee relationships fracture. At this point, the negative effects of bullying snowball and affect others.
• Litigation: Often more acutely aware of their rights under the relevant legislation, managers are more likely to raise the issue with external regulatory bodies or their solicitor.
• Increased staff turnover: Typically, bullying only ends when the manager being bullied leaves his or her job. That is, the bully is left behind to find another victim. The cost of managerial turnover is at least double the manager's annual salary, so the financial impact of bullying within your workplace is further exacerbated. Add to this the hassle of finding a new manager in a market that is an employee's dream and an employer's nightmare, and you're up for some serious time-wasting and cost-spending.
• Increased rates of unplanned absenteeism: One of the easiest ways of temporarily escaping a bully is by calling in sick. It's similar to a school kid faking a fever so he can stay at home away from a schoolyard bully. But in the workplace, the danger is that this could set a precedent for the manager's employees, and before you know it, they're taking sickies as well.

Your organisation is also likely to be at risk - without you even being aware. This is because many cases of workplace bullying go unreported. A WorkSafe Victoria survey found that only 25% of employers had received a report of workplace bullying. Contrast those findings with my 2006 survey where 50% of managers admit to be being bullied, and it's clear that more incidences occur than employers realise.

Why would managers not tell you if they've been bullied? They may be embarrassed or worried about how you'll perceive them, afraid of retaliation by the bully, or simply lack confidence that anything will be done about the problem. If it's an ambitious manager that's being bullied, they're probably concerned that by reporting their victimisation, they'll be conducting a 'Career Limiting Move'.

There are a handful of events at an organisational level that create an environment which makes it easy for workplace bullying to foster, and if not dealt with, to prosper. These events include:

• Recent organisational change, such as restructuring or shifts in technology. Change creates stress and uncertainty, causing some individuals to respond negatively.
• Staff shortages, poorly defined jobs, or a lack of policies and procedures. This is a high pressure item for your organisation's managers. Workplace bullies often increase the intensity of their bullying in direct relation to the amount of pressure they're under.
• A diverse workforce. Minority employees, or indviduals who are very different from other employees, are at greater risk.
• Poor management practices. Managers without a high degree of emotional intelligence or who haven't had adequate management training may be less likely to spot bullying and to deal with it effectively. Some bullies may be even unaware that they're committing an act of harassment.

Even at an Executive level, there are ways you can spot bullying when you're not closely involved with the people in question. Look out for these signs:

• Sudden spikes in unplanned absenteeism, whether in the department as a whole or with specific managers. If you notice a sudden increase in absenteeism across a department, it could be that the department's manager is a workplace bully. Conversely, if you notice that it's one of the managers that's taking an uncharacteristically high number of sick days, he or she may have fallen victim to a bully.
• A large number of employees requesting transfers out of a department.
• An increase in staff turnover. If you're noticing that all of a sudden you have an exodus of great managers, analyse how much contact they've had with a particular individual.
• An increase in stress-related workers' compensation claims.

Even though the Occupational Health & Safetey Act (OHS) is designed to help prevent employees from harm in the workplace, the problem is that many organisations' OHS initiatives are geared towards maintaining and improving safety related to physical harm. They often don't take into account the psychological effects - on the individual and on the organisation's effectiveness - of workplace bullying.

Here are steps you can take at an organisational-wide level to minimise the incidences of workplace bullying:

• HR Accountability: Create a structured process for preventing workplace bullying, including policies and procedures for handling occurrences.
• Training: Provide managers and supervisors with training on preventing bullying, and identifying and handling incidences. Employee engagement workshops are especially useful.
• Code of Ethics: If it's not in there already, include a bullying policy in your Code of Ethics.
• Communication: Make sure your employees understand your bullying policy; what to do if they are bullied, and what will happen if they demonstrate unsatisfactory behaviours.
• Exit Interviews: Conducting exit interviews is one thing, but collating and presenting the results back to management is another. See that this happens regularly and look out for bullying signs.
• Workers' Compensation: Monitor workers' compensation data to identify trends and investigate their root causes.
• Feedback: Proactively seek feedback from employees via confidential surveys.
• Easy Processes: Make it easy - and safe - for employees to report complaints. Encourage employees to come forward, and deal with complaints in a sensitive and empathetic manner.

Workplace bullying is bad enough when the victims are your front-line employees. But if it's your managers that are suffering, you can bet that it won't just be the manager that's the victim. Their employees and the entire business unit will be impacted as well. It can eventually cripple your organisation through reduced productivity, increased absenteeism, higher turnover, and poor team effectiveness.

In an environment where costs have been cut as much as they can, it's time to look at the hidden killers - the silent poisonous costs which whittle away at your profits. Workplace bullying is right up there.

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