Source: People Management
Date: Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Being bullied is a horrible, isolating experience – and worse still if the person you would normally go to for help was the culprit. But that kind of thing wouldn’t go on in an HR department… would it?

It was when the journalist said: “Your boss gave me your home number,” that Liz Jones, then a junior personnel manager, felt the final straw had come. Jones (not her real name) was due to give birth that day – and, no, she had not agreed to take press enquiries for the office.

“I was furious,” she recalls. “The bullying from this one middle manager had been going on for 18 months. I’d gone on maternity leave as early as possible to escape it and I knew I would have to take action before returning.” (See below)

Bullying happens in HR departments just as it does everywhere else. As with all bullying, it’s hard to quantify, because the vast majority of cases go unreported. But when PM recently published a news story about bullying in HR, the magazine was flooded by emails from readers sharing their experiences of being bullied within the profession.

Tracy Walters, head of diversity at Brent Council, thinks the function is bad at facing up to bullying in its own ranks. “HR doesn’t like being the patient,” she says. “We have a role in telling other people what to do, and we’re not very good at taking our own medicine.”

What this means is that if HR professionals are being bullied, they can feel even more isolated than other victims. “They are more likely to think they should be able to solve the problem themselves,” says Charlotte Rayner, professor of HRM at Portsmouth Business School, who has just completed a study on workplace bullying on behalf of the DTI and union Amicus. “HR people are habitually inward-looking when solving problems because they are guardians of confidentiality.”

On a practical level, there’s often nowhere for an HR person to go if the bullying occurs within the department, because anti-bullying policies are usually channelled through HR. Rayner, who has seen dozens of anti-bullying policies as part of her research, says very few offer multiple channels for people to go through. The advice is usually to contact your line manager or HR manager, formally or informally.

A consultant in this field, recently mediated in a bullying case where the alleged bully was a senior HR executive and “great mates with the head of HR”. The company policy simply “didn’t work for HR”, “Most anti-bullying policies don’t have a range of options that are low-level, informal and people-friendly,” she adds.

Rayner agrees that informal approaches are the way forward. Describing the DTI/Amicus research, she says: “We had gone into the exercise expecting to find that if an issue reached tribunal, everyone would feel it had been a failure. But what we actually found was that people felt it was a failure if it went to formal grievance. Changing the perception of the complaints system is difficult, so organisations need to find other, informal ways of tackling bullying.”

One problem, says Rayner, is that some HR practitioners believe complaints have to be made formally before they can be investigated. “HR people come from a careful culture, and for many the constant thought is: what if this ends up in court? HR as legal guardian is a classic role, and one it is highly valued for.”

The threat of legal action is, of course, a real one (see panel, above). Last summer Deutsche Bank in the City of London was ordered to pay £800,000 in damages for psychological injury and loss of earnings to an employee who had been bullied. Ben Willmott, CIPD adviser, employee relations, points out that if a legal case were ever brought against an HR professional, the courts might take an even dimmer view.

Ironically, says Rayner, the fear of legal action sometimes stops organisations probing the scale of the problem. “Organisations are sometimes told by their lawyers not to ask on the staff survey whether people have been bullied, because you will be more liable if you know there is a problem. The best companies receive that advice and ignore it, because they feel it’s more valuable to know.”

Rayner believes that while HR does have a role as legal guardian, the profession must not let that determine its thinking. “A legal mindset is not necessarily conducive to solving a human problem,” she explains. And bullying is very much a human problem. “Respondents to the DTI/Amicus survey said they thought 80 per cent of bullying was down to miscommunication that escalated into real interpersonal problems,” says Rayner.

This is the main reason why informal approaches are often so successful – because most alleged bullies don’t intend to be nasty. “Very few people deliberately go out of their way to make others’ lives a misery,” says Herbert. “Most people don’t realise how hurtful they are being. In a case I dealt with recently, when the woman found out the impact she was having on this man’s life, she burst into tears. Actually, she simply had a poor management technique and didn’t know how to handle someone who was driving her nuts, because he was very old-fashioned.”

Rayner says it’s often useful to make a first approach without using the “B” word – which is very loaded and ups the emotional ante before you’ve even started. “You can talk to someone off the record about management style or diffusing conflict, without mentioning bullying. The idea is to pop the balloon, not to blow it up further, to take the emotion out of it. None of us need to like each other, we just need to be able to work together,” she argues.

The experts also say it’s important to tackle the issue as early as possible, so that bad behaviour doesn’t become entrenched and end up defining the relationship between the people in question. As Herbert puts it: “If you talk to someone after the first time they have behaved unacceptably, it’s easier than after the twenty-fifth time. Apart from anything else, their first question will be: ‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’”

Charlotte Coupe, founder of Personnelise, a consultancy that helps people with problems at work, is a good example of why early action is so valuable. After being bullied herself for several months, Coupe eventually decided to keep a diary, and confronted her manager in a private meeting with chapter and verse on their unacceptable behaviour. “At first, my manager was outraged, but when they realised I had evidence, they admitted everything,” Coupe recalls. “They even apologised. I asked them why they had done it and they said it was because I had everything they wanted.”

Although Coupe was successful in putting an end to her boss’s bad behaviour, it was a hollow victory. “After the confrontation, my manager’s behaviour improved dramatically and everyone in the department benefited. But I just felt I had to get away. It had drained me so much, I was a wreck. I had gained little from the confrontation,” she says.

Coupe advises individuals who are being bullied to keep records of incidents. Despite her own experience, she believes relationships can be rebuilt after an allegation of bullying if the complaint is handled properly. “Often, a bully is misunderstood. They may have more insecurities than the person being bullied,” she says. “Throwing disciplinary action against people is usually a substitute for spending time getting to the root of the problem.”

Tracy Walters, who oversees Brent’s anti-bullying strategy as part of the authority’s Dignity at Work policy, says a huge effort has gone into changing the culture at Brent and setting up a series of avenues for individuals facing a problem. She says that since the introduction of Dignity at Work four years ago, most allegations of bullying have been sorted out at a low level, by talking to the harasser. “Usually the harasser doesn’t realise they’ve caused offence, or else it’s a line manager who is having problems managing someone,” she says.

Brent has trained advisers who can talk to both parties and facilitate. Anyone with a problem can pick an adviser, who is a member of staff combining the role with their day job. Since the system was introduced, says Walters, the number of formal grievances has fallen, although the number of people coming forward with issues has gone up.

“We don’t have a problem with bullying now, and I say that advisedly. We’ve put a lot of resources into it. The culture of the organisation has changed and morale has improved,” she says. “In my experience, people will only raise a formal grievance if there is no alternative.” And people in HR are perhaps the most reluctant to do so.

One person’s experience

“I was bullied for a couple of years as a junior personnel manager, by one of the middle managers in a public-sector organisation,” says Liz Jones (not her real name).”She did all sorts of things, some of which were very subtle and difficult to name – because they were done with such apparent reasonableness. She would watch me very closely; literally stand over me as I was working. She would put red lines through things I had written like a teacher at school. She would move goalposts. She removed some of my lines of authority without informing me and made inappropriate personal comments about my appearance that I found intrusive. She was just very destructive.

“It wasn’t only me,” Jones continues. “She was bullying two of us, but the other person left. We tried to raise the issue with her together once, but she just blanked us.

“As part of my job, I even sent her on harassment training and she came back and said: ‘Liz, I realise that all those behaviours they were talking about, I do them to you.’ I thought, great, now she knows. But she just carried on.

“I raised it with the HR director, but he was reluctant to do anything because she was his appointee. It did occur to me to speak to someone else, but the person I would have been happiest approaching was PA to the chief executive, and she would have told him and all hell would have broken loose. Plus, by that time I had developed a victim mentality.

“It was quite a long time before I really decided I had to do something. She gave a journalist my home number while I was on maternity leave, without warning me, on my due date. I was furious. I knew I couldn’t go back without doing something about it. I contacted my union rep and we went through mediation.

“The mediator was very skilled. I found it really upsetting to recall events and to listen to this manager defending herself. She thought it was just ‘robust management’. I spent a lot of time crying. She did acknowledge that she had hurt and upset me and I had a lot of forgiving to do. Mediation is hard. You have to go into it being prepared to make yourself vulnerable, and you have to be prepared for resolution.

“Things were better after the mediation, but it was too late: the damage had been done. I stayed on for 18 months and she left before me. I was determined that she would go first because, apart from her, I loved my job.”

Bullying and harassment: where the law stands

Bullying claims are often complex both to bring and defend. Although “bullying” is not defined by statute, discrimination law sets out a legal definition of harassment. It is unwanted conduct that violates an individual’s dignity, or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for an individual. The motive is irrelevant.Employees can resign and claim constructive dismissal on the grounds of bullying or harassment under the Employment Rights Act 1996, but they must establish the employer has breached a contractual term for example, the duty to provide a safe place of work. Those subjected to harassment and bullying can also bring claims in the civil courts, the most common being for personal injury.

Employees have also used the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which applies to “a course of conduct” causing anxiety or distress in the workplace, rather than a single incident.

Remedies vary depending on the statute and type of court involved. Awards for breach of contract will be capped at £25,000 in employment tribunals, but there is no limit on damages in the civil courts, or under the discrimination legislation.

Ranjit Dhindsa is an employment partner and head of the Midlands practice at Reed Smith

What does bullying cost your business?

Use the following information to calculate the direct and indirect costs of bullying and to make a business case for tackling the problem in your organisation.Direct costs
Cost of people leaving:
Research suggests that 25 per cent of people who have been bullied and 20 per cent of witnesses leave the organisation. So first calculate the average employee replacement cost, including HR and management time before, during and after interview, plus training costs and time before a new recruit becomes fully effective. Bullying rates are likely to be similar throughout the hierarchy so use an average replacement cost.

Now consider the incidence of bullying in your organisation. Estimate a “normal figure” of 10 per cent if you have no data. Then multiply the total number of people in the organisation by the estimated incidence rate of bullying and by 0.25 (the typical proportion of people who leave) to get to the cost of replacing employees who have been bullied. Add to this witness replacement costs, based on a conservative estimate of two witnesses per situation.

Take, for example, an organisation with 1,000 employees, 10 per cent bullying incidence and £10,000 average replacement costs.

Cost of replacing targets of bullying:�
1,000 x 0.1 (incidence) x 0.25 (proportion who leave) x £10,000 (replacement cost per person) = £250,000

Cost of replacing witnesses:�
1,000 x 0.1 (number of targets) x 2 (witnesses per target) x 0.20 (proportion who leave) x £10,000 (cost per person) = £400,000�
Targets + witnesses = £650,000 in totalOther direct costs include early retirements and severance payments of other types that can be tracked back to bullying. Investigations and legal action are also costly. The largest component will usually be management time, followed by HR time and legal costs.

Indirect costs

Bullying has a ripple effect on employees’ commitment and morale and therefore reduces productivity. Putting a number on this can be difficult, but if you are making a business case, anecdotes can be as effective.

Bad publicity from legal cases damages an employer’s reputation and makes recruitment harder. Customers and buyers may also be affected. In the voluntary sector, funding may be jeopardised.

Charlotte Rayner is professor of HRM at Portsmouth Business School

How can organisations deal with bullying?

• Define the problem – Bullying comes in many guises, so consult widely with the workforce and trade unions and define bullying. Create local or organisation-wide statements about what is and is not “okay behaviour”, and make sure everyone understands them. Update these statements annually.
• Povide managers with appropriate skills – Give managers the skills to deal informally with bullying before problems escalate. They must understand that they must not bully others. Do not appoint managers who have no people management capability.
• Overhaul organisational systems – Monitor levels of bullying, complaints, sickness and exit rates and the activities of support groups, including harassment advisers and union reps. Get a team together to create objectives, such as reductions in the incidence of bullying. Look at the data annually and use it to inform training and coaching. Watch out for hot-spots of leavers and carry out further investigations – for example, via exit interviews – but recognise that even ex-employees may be reluctant to mention anything negative. Have a formal anti-bullying policy, but try to use it as little as possible. It needs to include ways of dealing with malicious complaints and of reintegrating employees who complain about bullying, as well as a route for HR staff to take complaints.
• Provide individual support – Offer as many forms of support as possible, both for victims and anyone accused of bullying. If your organisation is unionised, give reps time to develop informal relationships with local managers and HR staff. That way, all three will be able to deal with situations early and informally.
• Support the supporters – Ensure everyone concerned is aligned to the anti-bullying strategy, and gives and receives feedback, while at all times protecting identities.

Compiled by Charlotte Rayner, professor of HRM, Portsmouth Business School | charlotte.rayner@port.ac.uk. | See www.port.ac.uk/workplace bullying for the full Amicus/DTI report on bullying.