Technology

Bully-free zone

By Mark Scott

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Bullying in the workplace is more serious than getting your books dumped in the hallway at school or getting shoved into a mud puddle at recess.

It’s a problem that affects as many as 33,000 American workers every week, says Timothy Dimoff, but employers aren’t treating it as a major issue.

“Companies are allowing bullying to take place, and they are viewing it as a minor issue, so they are not giving it the proper attention,” Dimoff says.

Bullying is defined as anything you do to intimidate someone, short of physically harming them, says Dimoff, a nationally renowned expert on workplace violence and founder, president and CEO at SACS Consulting & Investigative Services Inc.

“It’s ignoring them, excluding them, yelling at them, making fun of them, mocking them, downgrading them in front of people,” Dimoff says.

Part of the problem with stopping bullying is that the behavior is not always easy to identify.

“You can have employees who bully other employees with very subtle things,” Dimoff says. “They exclude the employee from going to lunch with a group of other employees. They convince other employees to ignore another employee. That affects a worker because they start to think no one wants to work with them.”

And that can lead you to lose a valuable employee, because an employee who is being bullied is much more likely to quit.

“A victim needs and wants to get away from it and has a hard time coming back to that environment,” Dimoff says.

And that is often the goal of those doing the bullying.

“They want to break that person down and eventually, if they can drive that person out of the job, they do,” Dimoff says.

How can you prevent bullying in the workplace? Talk openly with your employees about what bullying is and provide them with training programs that make it clear what constitutes bullying. That training can be in the form of formal programs conducted by experts or through more informal group discussions during lunch.

Then make it clear that bullying and harassment will not be tolerated in any form. Post notices, distribute messages that state your position on bullying and talk to employees about how to keep it out of the work-place.

You also need to promote an open environment that gives employees a sense that they are not alone in your organization. And make yourself accessible and willing to engage employees in conversation, both about work and nonwork topics.

But you can’t monitor everything yourself. Dimoff says you also need to train supervisors to recognize bullying and work-place harassment. And create a system for reporting incidents of bullying by designating a person whom employees feel comfortable approaching to discuss the problem.

“Over 40 percent of the cases are never reported because the employee doesn’t feel like anybody is going to take them seriously,” Dimoff says. “The CEO has to be strong. They need to implement a strict anti-bullying policy, and they really need to say we’re serious about this, and then they need to carry it out.”

But even after you’ve implemented all these steps, some employees still may not feel comfortable talking to a supervisor about being bullied, especially if it’s the supervisor who is doing the bullying. To overcome that, create alternative reporting mechanisms — such as hiring a company that fields complaints — so that employees being bullied can report it anonymously.

By doing everything you can to eliminate bullying in the workplace, you’ll create an environment where everyone is respected and where employees want to be.

Do your part

Employees who are leaving their jobs no longer have a reason to fear repercussions over accusations of bullying, making the exit interview a perfect time to gauge what’s going on at your company.

People who have quit their jobs have nothing to lose, so take the opportunity to find out why they are leaving.

“People don’t leave companies they are happy at,” says Timothy Dimoff, founder, president and CEO at SACS Consulting & Investigative Services Inc. “Price becomes very low on the totem pole if someone is happy with their work environment. The indicators are there. You just need to stop and listen.”

Gathering information on what is going on can keep you from making a mistake with an employee who you may view as a poor worker.

“Companies are terminating people that potentially are victims of workplace bullying,” Dimoff says. “They don’t realize the reason their productivity is down and absenteeism is up and their attitude has been hampered is because they are being abused. When you ignore bullying, all it does is encourage the perpetrator to do more because you’ve now trained them that they can get away with it.”

HOW TO REACH: SACS Consulting & Investigative Services Inc., (330) 255-1101 or www.sacsconsulting.com