1 in 5 feel bullied by boss
More than one-fifth of workers admit to feeling bullied by their boss, despite ever-increasing legislation and guidance designed to tackle intimidation in the workplace, new research suggests.
A poll by HR consultancy Reabur has found that 21% of UK employees feel bullied by their boss and 28% feel picked on by a peer in the workplace.
But only 8% admit to reporting the incidents, although 24% tell a colleague about their experiences and almost three-quarters (73%) tell their spouse.
The study of more than 1,250 individuals also reveals that women are more likely to feel bullied at work, with 31% of the women surveyed admitting to having felt victimised in their workplace at some point, compared with just 17% of men.
Nearly half (48%) of respondents feel that they are bullied because of their appearance, while 41% thought the culprit was "intimidated by their abilities" and 29% said the bully was "jealous of their status within the office".
A further 29% feel their manager dislikes them - 22% of those asked think their manager is "under qualified" for their role and 32% said their manager is "incompetent".
Of the 21% of employees who admitted to feeling bullied, the survey found that more than half of them (57%) are actively seeking other employment and 37% "dread work" every day. More than one-third (36%) admitted their personal life is affected by their unhappiness at work.
Are managers properly equipped to recognise and then tackle bullying? Alarming that 22% think their manager is under qualified (only 20% of practicing managers actually have a management qualification!) and 32% think their manager is incompetent.
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
51,377 people viewed the community in October
Interesting set of stats. I'd be wary, though, about reading to much into people thinking their manager is under qualified and/or incompetent - if someone feels they are being bullied, it's unlikely they'll have nice things to say about their manager!
There is also often an element of "I know the job better than my manager" which contributes to the "incompetency" charge. It's not the manager's role to be better at every aspect of the job than the people actually doing it - it's their job to get the best people, and if these are 'better' than the manager, then the manager is doing their job.
On the bullying aspect, I wonder how many of these bullies' managers are aware that they are personally accountable in law for the actions of their subordinates in this regard?
As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent".
Interesting topic of discussion and an emotive one. Stats are interesting but how much can we rely on them for accuracy, what has been included in the data to create these stats and what has been left out that perhaps is relevant?
Whilst in part I agree with Mike's quote there are instances when someone can be bullied/intimidated and it's impact is such that it is not noticeable over a short period of time...only over a long period of time and perhaps a long time after the event does someone realise something is wrong and because of that the issue of consenting to this behaviour is fuzzy as the person may not realise it is happening.
Interesting story here about a manager in Aberdeen being sacked for bullying staff.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-10870804
With regard to the above entry it does not appear clear to me that what appears to be a statement of fact by the contributor about an individual being 'sacked' is in fact accurate. I am no better sighted on this issue than the contributor. However, I am not certain that this sort of apparent 'leap' of understanding (unless the contributor is more informed on this particular issue) based on a very light BBC news page report is a helpful exercise ?
http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/news/release.asp?newsID=1715
I would like to offer a couple of comments.
I would like to see a definition of bullying within a business context of supervision. Can anyone here offer a precise set of behaviours that can be observed and in fact should be observed to identify a bully that would stand up in a grievance process?
My second comment is that surveys like this are intentionally meant to be provocative so that they generate free publicity, credibility and ultimately business for those who publish them, so watch out for the deliberate "shock" findings.
I think the definition for legal purposes is:
Harassment in the workplace is regarded as any conduct related to sex, race, colour, disability, sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic that is unwanted by the recipient.
This essentially covers everything from phyical/emotional bullying down to 'touching' a work colleague in a way that he or she does not want. So, basically, if you have told the person harassing you that their behavious is unwanted, and they continue to behave in the same way, they are effectively breaking the law. The following is an extract from one organisation's Anti Bullying and Harassment Policy:
Society also takes bullying and harassment very seriously including that which occurs in the workplace. Members of staff should therefore be aware that, notwithstanding any sanctions employed by (organisation), those perpetrating bullying and harassment could also find themselves facing penalties prescribed by law. These include a fine and/or imprisonment and the powers of the courts in this regard are set out in the:
Criminal Justice Act 1994
Protection from Harassment Act 1997
Sex Discrimination Act 1975
Race Relations Act 1976
Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
Fairly clear-cut, I would say.
I'm not sure that I can agree with your assertion that the facts are, to use the term of the Intelligence Community when referring to WMD dossiers, sexed up - how does that make the people behind these statistics feel and I think we must always remember that there are real people with real lives behind this topic of discussion.
From what I can gather, bullying is treating someone detrimentally regardless of the reason. Therefore if I have 2 staff performing to the same level but I don't like one of them and therefore treat them detrimentally, I am bullying?
Jim raises a good point - you need to make it clear to the "bully" that their attention of behaviour is unwanted or unwarranted and that can be a very difficult conversation to have with someone whom you find intimidating.
I know a number of organisations have external supports that employees can use to raise concerns or seek advice from.
I wonder if there's been an upsurge in the number of people who perceive they've been or are being "bullied" as a result of the current economic climate, especially if ill prepared managers are given targets or assignments which push their abilities?