Bully for overdue policy effort-McHenry County Business Journal

Date: March 30, 2012

There is an epidemic rampaging through businesses around the country and it has nothing to do with keyboard hygiene or worker’s compensation claims. I’m referring to bullying, baby.

A quarter of employed Americans have reported bullying at work, more than 30 million people. And there is no indication the problem is waning. Shari Bland, a licensed clinical social worker with Advantage EAP in McHenry, said she currently is dealing with bullying issues at more than 30 McHenry County companies.

“What do you think happens to those childhood bullies. Where do they go?” Bland said. “They start at your place of employment and things start to happen. … This is basically playground bullying times 10.”

Thirty-five percent of American workers report being bullied at work, according to a 2010 Workplace Bullying Institute survey conducted by Zogby International. The Institute, based in Bellingham, Wash., defines workplace bullying as the “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms: Verbal abuse; offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating; or work interference (sabotage) which prevents work from getting done.”

At a recent Shah Center breakfast program in McHenry, Bland recommended looking for patterns. Are there performance issues. Is there a lot of turnover? Do meetings get unruly? How is the teamwork, the communication?

Bullies like to micro-manage, Bland said, and they are very good at deflecting blame. It is never their fault.

Symptoms include unreasonable work assignments, sudden changes in a person’s workload, a lack of promotions or transfers, and divisive behaviors. Bland said you’ll hear co-workers reference the “queen bee” or “alpha dog.”

Cliques are common.  “Just like in school, they get their gang on their side,” Bland said.

Sounds like reining in this type of behavior should be easy, right? In fact, it is anything but. Often the symptoms are not overt or consistent.

“That is what makes it so hard, so unpredictable,” Bland said. “There is not a lot of black and white. There is just gray.”

Also, illegal discriminatory harassment occurs in just 20 percent of bullying cases. Bullying differs from harassment and discrimination in that the focus is rarely based on gender, race, or disability. Rather, the bully targets the alleged lack of competence of the bullied person. In reality, Bland said, the bully is aggressively projecting his or her own inadequacies onto their target. And that behavior will occur over and over again.

Should the victim leave, within two weeks a bully will find someone else to push around.

But there are efforts underway to change that. Illinois was the 15th of 20 states to introduce some version of the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. According to advocates, House Bill 942 is “parked in the Rules Committee indefinitely,” based on what Sean Lunsford, office coordinator at the Workplace Bullying Institute attributed to misinformation and scare tactics that the Healthy Workplace Bill is anti-business. In fact, Bland noted that an anti-bullying policy offers business leaders protection by more accurately framing the issue and minimizing frivolous complaints.

Catherine Jones, executive director of Shah Center programs, said the key to controlling bullying is to acknowledge the problem and respond pro-actively. Objectives should include identifying who the “problem employee” really is and equipping employees with effective strategies to combat bullying behavior. That includes developing policies to aid in prevention of workplace bullying.

“When drafting a policy, most organizations take an approach that likens bullying to incivility and fail to give the topic sufficient gravity,” Lunsford said. “When the effects of bullying on the individual and the organization are downplayed, employees aren’t compelled to cease the bullying behavior or take action to stop it when observed. Some even believe – mistakenly – that their current policies against violence or harassment are sufficient. But these types of policies are worded in such a way that bullying outside those narrow definitions continues with impunity.”

Bland said keys to any effective anti-bullying policy are a clear standard of expected behavior, a definition of what bullying is and its psychological effects, an effective reporting and grievance process, confidentiality, and well-defined penalties for those who persist in bullying others.

“The bottom line is there are consequences for your behavior,” Bland said. “This not just a trend or fad. This is really affecting people.”

Any process needs to work on multiple levels. Seventy percent of bullies are bosses, Bland said, so there is very real threat of intimidation and retribution – for the employees lodging complaints and for the human resource professionals caught in the middle. Even worse, an H.R. professional and alleged bully might be in cahoots. That is why any bullying policy should have multiple channels to ensure integrity.

“Management can delay addressing issues of workplace bullying,” Lunsford said, “especially if it engages in bullying or supports the bully. That’s often the toughest nut to crack, and the most important. If upper management doesn’t support the effort to eliminate bullying, anti-bullying efforts go nowhere.”

For ideas in crafting a policy, visit www.workdoctor.com or www.workplacebullying.org. or www.kickbully.com.

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