To celebrate anti bullying week added to all the media surrounding mental health at work. I felt very compelled to publish this article, which I hope you will find somehow informative.
Bullying at work is the driving factor and the main contributor that fuels the recent increase of poor mental health in the workplace. Did you know that according to the NHS Trust and other mental health charities, 5 in 10 people have witnessed bullying in the workplace and that 47% of mental health issues directly relate to bullying at work? Although, bullying is not always obvious, there is a sinister and dark underlining message to this occurrence. The sinister message is one which suggests that it is OK to have a culture in our work environment that allows bullying. The dark message is the one that suggests that you will be made to look unprofessional and rather silly if you happen to talk about or report it.
People committing these acts of bullying often benefit from being highly credited and awarded for work that they never completed. Like scavengers, they feed from someone else's hard-earned work and through their devious bullying methods, they have managed to retrieve it and made it their own. Just so they can unnecessarily and not to mention inappropriately, exercise their power over them. Coincidentally, People behind these bullying acts often take good credit for works that they have neither produced nor understood the technical value of what it represents. Surprisingly, they are in most cases awarded for driving the business improvement. This is false analysis. Bullying is simply counter-productive, shatters lives and it has no place in today's society. It just has to stop!
Company Directors and Senior Managers should be held accountable for the implementation of robust directives as well as delivering health and well being strategies that define the organisation position, when dealing with mental health in general and bullying in particular. They should also introduce strict methods by which, bullying in the work environment is identified and categorically eradicated, with the same robustness those budget cutbacks are made, when those financial deficit reports are being circulated.
Preventing bullying at work can also be exercised by other means, such as actively encouraging transparency within departmental and corporate communications, thus allowing all employees to express their creativeness and openness when finding workable solutions for the benefit of all. Engage freely with customers and colleagues, when delivering the service they were hired to deliver, with no ambiguities or misunderstandings. This is surely far more productive than exercising a vigorous micromanagement regime, that undermines employee’s confidence.
Bullying can also occur when the people behind this degrading act, are constantly casting the blame and voicing their non constructive criticism for the work others have produced, when themselves have less or no knowledge in the field. Work bullies, or so they called, feel the need to treat other employees in such a villainous way, because it gives them the sense of satisfaction and reassurance that their work status allows them to behave in such a way and subconsciously, show gratitude to those that cover up for them, their accomplice. Bullying has to be supported and be fuelled by other individuals behind the scene for it to continue and it is more often carried out by one or more people.
Bullying at work is not and never will be considered as an isolated incident, it is deeply rooted in the organisation cultural make up and only exists for the simple reason that it is allowed to happen. With insufficient or no efforts being made by Senior managers and Directors to stop it from happening. According to the NHS trust and other charities supporting mental health £99bn per year this is the exorbitant amount spent to address mental health at work. This amount only represent the top of the iceberg and it is bound to increase exponentially over the years to come, for reasons of recklessness and lack of awareness surrounding the effect of bullying and the repercussions of this human behaviour, often misinterpreted by the need to drive the business forward. To this, I say there are much better ways to improve business operations with better planning, clear communication and accurate projections.
The good news is that mental health at work can be addressed and be rectified. The not so good news, we wont be able to to see the benefits of this in the next few days. This is journey to recovery and a long healing process, one that requires much more trust and healthy relationship amongst employees, from the top all the way down the organisational chart. This is essentially the duty of Senior Managers and Directors to constantly look for better ways to improve and promote a safe and healthy behaviour within their organisations, promptly initiate a radical and unequivocal change of cultural direction and mindset, make lessons out of those who bully others. Introduce initiatives and workshops that support this need to improve healthy behaviour at work. This will undoubtedly demonstrate a great desire for the company to change for the better and send out a loud and clear message, which spells out transparency at work and adequate performance management to work in a healthy work environment, not in an environment that undermines and negatively impact employees' moral, from fear of being intimidated and discouraged.
The message of change will undoubtedly echo the conscious decision made by the senior team, that the organisation is serious about transformation and albeit, employees' Health & Wellbeing programmes do not generate a revenue in a same way Operations or Commercial Services do, it does however show that the Employer and duty holders are keen to invest in all their employees and not just the chosen ones. The workforce that one time or another decided to apply for a job vacancy, to serve its company with pride and have hoped that it will succeed at uncovering its true potential through the company core values, increase productivity and enjoy a friendly climate where they can earn their living. Only to be reduced to a group of individual that have to find the time and confidence to go on onto searching for another work opportunity, or go on a long term sick for those that are less fortunate.
This article was written in the spirit of Health and Wellbeing at work and raise awareness on the consequences of Bullying. What I aimed to achieve whilst writing it, is that it will awake those who are committing these act of bullying, make them realise the negative impact the consequences of their actions have led to and the harm and pain they have caused. Tell them to Stop their bullying methods and seek some mental health help with your degrading habits. Most importantly, I wanted to reassure those that have been constantly bullied at works and kept silence from fear or from being in denial that they have been submitted to this type of treatment, from fear to carry an etiquette and be known as that person they do not want to relate to. You need to speak up and stand up to people that are causing this bullying, as you remember the day you took on your role to work for your company, this was not exactly part of the deal or was certainly not what you have signed for.