Bullying by work colleagues - understanding the effects and your postion!

Most experts agree that bullying by work colleagues usually follows a two-phase procedure.  

Phase one is control which is exercised through constant trivial daily nit-picking, criticism and the like. Eventually there's a defining moment when the target realises that the criticisms have no validity and that they constitute bullying; the target asserts their right not to be bullied, perhaps by initiating a grievance, and the bullying moves into phase two. 

 

Phase 2 involves elimination of the target, which is achieved by dismissal on false charges, ill-health retirement, forced resignation, redundancy, or death from suicide or heart attack due to prolonged negative stress.

The reasons why the target of bullying (note the deliberate omission of the word victim) might fail to assert their right not to be bullied are the result of highly complex and justifiable fears - details of these can be found on Tim Field's website Bullying On-line.  

The response that targets are usually encouraged to take is to initiate a grievance.  However, there are a variety of significant reasons why grievance procedures are inappropriate and ineffective in dealing with workplace bullying:

• bullying is equivalent to rape (it is psychological and emotional rape because of its intrusive and violational nature) and grievance procedures force the target of this rape to have to relive the trauma repeatedly - this could be a breach of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act: no one shall be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment
• the person who normally handles the grievance is usually the bully, or a friend of the bully
• if the bully is a co-worker, the manager who would handle the grievance has already failed as a manager for allowing the bullying to occur and for failing to deal with the bullying before it got to the grievance stage
• the bullying manager has lots of friends in Human Resources and management and will blacken the target's reputation before grievance procedures even begin or the results of any investigation have to be implemented
• most bullies will successfully lie, cheat and deceive their way through a grievance
• the bully will make sure the grievance lasts as long a possible, possibly a year or more
• the bully will deny the target access to records, sometimes even rifling the target's desk and stealing notes
• the bully will ban the target from having contact with fellow employees
• the bully will threaten fellow workers into withdrawing support for the target
• the bully and the employer will limit representation to a union representative (unfortunately, many representatives are untrained, unsupported, and some are part of the problem) or co-worker (all of whom may be too frightened to stand up for a fellow worker)
• plus, of course, all the reasons noted at Bullying On-line. 

Have you been bullied? Does this sound familiar?

I welcome any thoughts, ideas or comments you might have. 

*I am indebted to the work of the late Tim Field and the Tim Field Foundation for much of the content of this article.