What is bullying?
Bullying is repeated unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety. In most cases, this behaviour is persistent and happens over a period of time.
Bullying can take many forms, such as publicly humiliating someone, verbal abuse or spreading malicious rumours or gossip.
Bullying can be verbal or in writing, including online. It can be carried out by more than one person and be experienced by individuals as well as groups of people.
Bullying can be directed downwards (from supervisors/managers to workers), sideways (between workers) or upwards (workers to supervisors/managers).
In assessing whether behaviour is unreasonable, you should consider if an impartial person observing the situation would think it’s acceptable to behave that way.
Examples of bullying
a) Over a number of months, Mark consistently tells his co-worker Brian that his work is not up to scratch. Mark continually threatens to get Brian sacked, tells him that he and his family will end up in the gutter and makes insulting comments about Brian’s wife in front of other workers. Brian also heard that Mark posted rude comments about him on his Facebook page. Brian is humiliated and intimidated by Mark’s behaviour.
b) Martin manages a small team in a busy firm. Joan, the new office manager, gives Martin unrealistic deadlines and targets above those of other team leaders. His productivity suffers when he fails to meet her expectations. Joan criticises Martin’s performance in front of others, including his team. Martin’s attempts to discuss his concerns with Joan are continuously ignored, as are his attempts to discuss them with senior management. He becomes nervous and miserable at work.
