How To Deal With Workplace Bullying: Employer’s Guide
Unfortunately, bullying will likely happen in most work environments. Experiencing bullying at work can have severely negative effects on mental health, enjoyment, and work relationships.
As an employer, it’s important to know how to handle bullying behaviour to ensure your employees feel safe and supported in their place of work, as well as to follow best practice.
Our HR experts have curated this guide to help you understand what workplace bullying is, how you can deal with it as an employer, and how HR can assist you in a smoother process.
What is workplace bullying?
Workplace bullying can be described as negative behaviour from a person or group in the workplace. This includes behaviour that is offensive, intimidating, insulting, malicious or degrading, and it can happen in front of customers, clients, or co-workers. It’s an action that causes physical or emotional harm to someone.
What constitutes workplace bullying?
Bullying can be a range of actions that happen anywhere, at any time, however often, whilst in the workplace or work-related spaces.
For instance, bullying might be:
- Spreading malicious rumours
- Regularly undermining co-workers
- Unfair treatment – denying training or promotion opportunities
- Excluding someone from team events
- Constantly criticising or putting down someone and their work
It can also be:
- A regular pattern
- A one-off incident
- Face-to-face, by email, letter, or phone
- On social media
Bullying has all sorts of forms, including targeting senior staff. This can look like workers:
- Showing disrespect
- Undermining authority
- Refusing to complete work
- Spreading rumours
Examples of harassment:
Bullying is not against the law, but harassment is. In the Equality Act 2010, the law states that bullying behaviour can be classed as harassment if it relates to the following characteristics:
- Age
- Sex
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sexual orientation
- Marriage and civil partnership
To understand more about workplace harassment, read our article about ‘Discrimination and harassment in the workplace and how do you stop it?’
How to deal with workplace bullying as an employer
Receiving a complaint about workplace bullying or harassment should be dealt with seriously and with the utmost care.
If you fail to deal with an employee complaint appropriately, the employee may be more likely to claim an employment tribunal, considering how you handled the complaint.
As the employer or manager, you are responsible for preventing bullying and harassment in your place of work. So, if your employees face any case of harassment, you are liable.
It’s important to be aware of the following factors to ensure you react properly if you receive a complaint of workplace bullying.
Understand what bullying is
Knowing what bullying is and understanding how the type of behaviour experienced by your employee has affected them can help you deal with the situation compassionately and orderly.
Please refer to the above sections for more information.
Know your bullying and discrimination policy
Your workplace policy should explain who should handle this type of complaint and what procedure to follow.
If you do not have a policy, or your current one needs updating, consult HR and put plans in place to develop these procedures.
Looking for help with workplace policies? Trusted HR offers a free, 45-minute, no-obligation consultation on any HR issue to help you get started.
Talk to you’re the person who raised the issue
Talk to the person who filed the complaint. This can help you understand their perspective. It’s important to listen to what they say and not involve any personal feelings. Don’t make assumptions and try to keep an open mind.
Inform HR
Make a formal complaint to HR. If you haven’t managed to resolve the issue informally, the next step is to make an official complaint to HR. As an employer, you are responsible for preventing bullying and harassment, and this includes the responsibility that HR must ensure legal compliance and the welfare of employees.
What can HR do about workplace bullying?
Here are some ways HR can prevent and deal with bullying and harassment in the workplace…
Policy development
Having a policy that outlines the company’s stance on bullying and harassment sets a tone for how employees should act towards one another. It sets clear parameters for what behaviour is acceptable and what is not acceptable within your organisation. Plus, if an employee comes to HR with a complaint, it’s easy to refer to the anti-bullying policy to know what action to take.
Have a plan
Knowing what to do in the case of a bullying complaint can make the difference between a smooth, stress-free experience compared to a disorganised hassle that overwhelms everyone involved. There should be a process for filing complaints, as well as a plan for if anyone has violated company policy. HR can assist in developing these procedures for different circumstances.
Provide proper training
Providing training to all employees is crucial to ensuring a positive work environment. By making them aware of company policy and what is expected of them as employees, it holds them accountable for their actions and how they choose to behave in the workplace. It’s hoped that by giving training, workers are discouraged from acting negatively towards others and begin to behave as the training encourages.
Creating a zero-tolerance police for bullying and harassment can help reduce the number of negative experiences with it. It might be worth creating an employee handbook to consistently remind employees.
Take appropriate action
Most importantly, if an employee complaint escalates to HR, it must be dealt with seriously. HR is responsible for defusing the situation, highlighting wrongdoings while remaining neutral, and ensuring that appropriate disciplinary measures are put in place.
This can often begin with a face-to-face meeting with the alleged bully and the individual who filed the complaint, as well as separate meetings to understand both perspectives. If the situation is still unresolved or the incident is more serious, this can escalate to a tribunal or court level, involving legal action if necessary.
How Trusted HR Can Help
If your business needs assistance with recognising, understanding, or tackling bullying in the workplace, our team of professional HR consultants can help. Whether it is an HR issue, problem or project, such as creating a harassment policy or writing an employee handbook, we’d be happy to assist you.
Please get in touch for a consultation. Trusted HR offers a free, 45-minute, no-obligation consultation on any HR issue to help you get started.
Whether you need short, medium or long-term support, our service is the perfect solution. We provide valuable, professional consultancy to a range of organisations across the UK.
We can help with:
- Managing Conduct
- Management and Leadership Development
Request a consultation to learn more about how our consultancy service can help your organisation succeed.
