Preventing a Toxic Workplace Culture training
Workplace abuse and bullying: the hidden epidemic
The cost
Abuse in the workplace probably costs the economy more than all strikes and all absences through sickness. Workplace abuse, also known as bullying at work, has been called the hidden epidemic. It’s hidden because it’s unacknowledged; very few know about it, talk about it or recognise its huge importance in our society. It’s an epidemic because it’s widespread and there are serious, harmful consequences.
The harmful consequences to targets are not difficult to imagine: the stress induced physical and emotional problems up to and including admission to psychiatric hospital and suicidal thoughts. But the wider harmful effects are less obvious. Workplace abuse costs. It cost us all a fortune. We pay for it every day. Those not motivated to do something about this epidemic will almost certainly become motivated once they realise the enormous financial costs. These include: high turnover of staff, high sickness levels and the loss of efficiency, creativity and energy in organisations soured by abusive behaviour. Organisations that don’t tackle this epidemic can lose their best staff and those that remain can become demoralised and uncommitted.
Some figures
A Unison survey in 2011 found 35% of respondents had been bullied at work in the previous six months. 27% had witnessed someone else being bullied - a total of 62%.
A 2010 Workplace Bullying Institute survey in America came up with exactly the same figure - 35% of workers had experienced bullying first hand.
Charlotte Rayner of Portsmouth University and Loraleigh Keashly of Wayne State University estimate that abuse and bullying costs an organisation with 1000 employees around $2 million a year.
The Stanford business professor Robert Sutton quotes an organisation that calculated the exact cost each year of the behaviour of one abusive employee - $160,000
If such figures are applied to an entire economy the cost is enormous. The psychologist Ray Williams quotes an estimated cost to the American economy of workplace bullying as $200 billion a year.
The figure for Britain will be less as we are a smaller country but is still likely to be larger than the CBI/Pfizer 2011 estimate of the cost of sickness absence in Britain as £17.6 billion. It is probably a safe assumption that workplace abuse and bullying costs more each year than sickness.
Abuse in the workplace probably costs the economy more than all strikes and all absences through sickness. Workplace abuse, also known as bullying at work, has been called the hidden epidemic. It’s hidden because it’s unacknowledged; very few know about it, talk about it or recognise its huge importance in our society. It’s an epidemic because it’s widespread and there are serious, harmful consequences.
The harmful consequences to targets are not difficult to imagine: the stress induced physical and emotional problems up to and including admission to psychiatric hospital and suicidal thoughts. But the wider harmful effects are less obvious. Workplace abuse costs. It cost us all a fortune. We pay for it every day. Those not motivated to do something about this epidemic will almost certainly become motivated once they realise the enormous financial costs. These include: high turnover of staff, high sickness levels and the loss of efficiency, creativity and energy in organisations soured by abusive behaviour. Organisations that don’t tackle this epidemic can lose their best staff and those that remain can become demoralised and uncommitted.
Some figures
A Unison survey in 2011 found 35% of respondents had been bullied at work in the previous six months. 27% had witnessed someone else being bullied - a total of 62%.
A 2010 Workplace Bullying Institute survey in America came up with exactly the same figure - 35% of workers had experienced bullying first hand.
Charlotte Rayner of Portsmouth University and Loraleigh Keashly of Wayne State University estimate that abuse and bullying costs an organisation with 1000 employees around $2 million a year.
The Stanford business professor Robert Sutton quotes an organisation that calculated the exact cost each year of the behaviour of one abusive employee - $160,000
If such figures are applied to an entire economy the cost is enormous. The psychologist Ray Williams quotes an estimated cost to the American economy of workplace bullying as $200 billion a year.
The figure for Britain will be less as we are a smaller country but is still likely to be larger than the CBI/Pfizer 2011 estimate of the cost of sickness absence in Britain as £17.6 billion. It is probably a safe assumption that workplace abuse and bullying costs more each year than sickness.
The image problem
The enormous financial costs of workplace abuse are a particularly well hidden aspect of this epidemic because workplace abuse suffers from an image problem.
First, a lot of people think workplace abuse is only about discrimination, about people verbally abused, or harassed, or denied opportunities because of gender, disability, sexuality, race or religion. This is an important problem and should be stopped but it is a tiny part of the problem. There’s a lot more to workplace abuse than discrimination. We need to tackle what is now referred to as 'status blind’ abuse, the abuse of people who don’t fit into one of the categories above.
Second, most people use an inappropriate label. The most common term used to describe the problem is workplace ‘bullying’. Bullying does occur in the workplace but it’s only part of the problem. Bullying implies someone strong taking advantage of someone weak, someone forceful being over vigorous in their encouragement of someone
not up to the job. (The Concise Oxford dictionary defines a bully as ‘a person who deliberately intimidates or persecutes those who are weaker’.)
This gives a false impression. Ray Williams writes: ‘Contrary to conventional wisdom, the targets of office bullies
are not the new, inexperienced and less confident employees. The targets, according to research, are the highly competent, accomplished, experienced and popular employees.’
There is also a problem with the word bullying being associated in most people's minds with schools and children, not adults.
For these reasons we prefer the term workplace abuse, as this implies a lot more than simply bullying, but we acknowledge that the literature more commonly uses the word bullying.
First, a lot of people think workplace abuse is only about discrimination, about people verbally abused, or harassed, or denied opportunities because of gender, disability, sexuality, race or religion. This is an important problem and should be stopped but it is a tiny part of the problem. There’s a lot more to workplace abuse than discrimination. We need to tackle what is now referred to as 'status blind’ abuse, the abuse of people who don’t fit into one of the categories above.
Second, most people use an inappropriate label. The most common term used to describe the problem is workplace ‘bullying’. Bullying does occur in the workplace but it’s only part of the problem. Bullying implies someone strong taking advantage of someone weak, someone forceful being over vigorous in their encouragement of someone
not up to the job. (The Concise Oxford dictionary defines a bully as ‘a person who deliberately intimidates or persecutes those who are weaker’.)
This gives a false impression. Ray Williams writes: ‘Contrary to conventional wisdom, the targets of office bullies
are not the new, inexperienced and less confident employees. The targets, according to research, are the highly competent, accomplished, experienced and popular employees.’
There is also a problem with the word bullying being associated in most people's minds with schools and children, not adults.
For these reasons we prefer the term workplace abuse, as this implies a lot more than simply bullying, but we acknowledge that the literature more commonly uses the word bullying.
What is workplace abuse?Workplace abuse and bullying are so much more than discriminating, or being inappropriately forceful.
In their book, 'The Bully Free Workplace' Gary and Ruth Namie describe this type of abuse as, ‘a lazer-focused, systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction – one of warlike dimensions’. The Namies are also clear what this type of abuse is not. It is not conflict. It is not friction between two equal or similar individuals. So mediation and the techniques of conflict resolution have no place in resolving this unequal struggle. |
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Who are the abusers?
The Stanford University professor Robert Sutton was asked to contribute an idea to the Harvard Business Review’s list of ‘Breakthrough Ideas’ of 2003. He thought his suggestion would be rejected because he wasn’t prepared to compromise on a word he wanted to use. He didn’t want his word substituted by watered down variations like, ‘jerk’ ‘weasel’ or ‘bully’. The only word he felt carried the ‘ring of authenticity or emotional appeal’ was – ‘asshole’.
These are the people who spoil it for the rest of us, Sutton writes in his book, ‘The No Asshole Rule’. They demean, deflate, insult and suck energy and creativity out of organisations. They produce an atmosphere of fear
and distrust. They cost organisations millions every year.
While his word might not be polite enough for some it does make an impact and describe the sort of people we’re talking about.
Some ‘assholes’, or ‘workplace abusers’ (we’re going to try and be more polite here) are inadequate people with poor social skills. Most would score very low for ‘Agreeableness’ in personality tests: they are self centred and don’t care much about other people. Bob Sutton describes the effect of such people. They leave their targets, 'oppressed, humiliated, de-energised, or belittled.' These people shout, swear, inappropriately criticise, undermine, demean and make others feel worse about themselves. They drain energy out of the entire organisation. They make others dread going into work, perform poorly when at work and get another job as soon as they can.
But workplace abuse can go way beyond this. The most extreme workplace abusers might have no conscience and no regard at all for how other people feel. In their book, ‘Snakes in Suits,’ the psychologists Paul Babiak and
Bob Hare describe extreme workplace abusers. The label Babiak and Hare use might surprise some even more than the word, 'asshole'. The snakes in suits are psychopaths, they say. But Babiak and Hare remind us that around one in a hundred people is a psychopath. That’s over half a million in Britain. Most are not criminals. Most are not in prison. These are people who live amongst us. And these are people who might work with us.
The psychologist Martha Stout explains how these extreme workplace abusers can operate in her book, ‘The Sociopath Next Door.’ (Stout prefers the term, sociopath to psychopath. The words sociopath and psychopath are used almost interchangeably by psychologists.)
‘Most invigorating of all . . . . is to bring down people who are smarter or more
accomplished than you, or perhaps classier, more attractive, or popular or
morally admirable. This is not only good fun; it is existential vengeance.
And without conscience, it is amazingly easy to do. You quietly lie to the boss
or to the boss’s boss, cry some crocodile tears, or sabotage a coworker’s
project . . . . bait people with promises, or provide a little misinformation
that will never be traced back to you.’
These sorts of behaviours are real. They happen in the workplace. This is why we think the word, 'bully' is inadequate. But we would like to help you, and your organisation, whatever the scale of your problems, whether the abuse you are suffering concerns discrimination and harassment or a sociopath attempting to hound you out of your job for raising concerns over practice.
These are the people who spoil it for the rest of us, Sutton writes in his book, ‘The No Asshole Rule’. They demean, deflate, insult and suck energy and creativity out of organisations. They produce an atmosphere of fear
and distrust. They cost organisations millions every year.
While his word might not be polite enough for some it does make an impact and describe the sort of people we’re talking about.
Some ‘assholes’, or ‘workplace abusers’ (we’re going to try and be more polite here) are inadequate people with poor social skills. Most would score very low for ‘Agreeableness’ in personality tests: they are self centred and don’t care much about other people. Bob Sutton describes the effect of such people. They leave their targets, 'oppressed, humiliated, de-energised, or belittled.' These people shout, swear, inappropriately criticise, undermine, demean and make others feel worse about themselves. They drain energy out of the entire organisation. They make others dread going into work, perform poorly when at work and get another job as soon as they can.
But workplace abuse can go way beyond this. The most extreme workplace abusers might have no conscience and no regard at all for how other people feel. In their book, ‘Snakes in Suits,’ the psychologists Paul Babiak and
Bob Hare describe extreme workplace abusers. The label Babiak and Hare use might surprise some even more than the word, 'asshole'. The snakes in suits are psychopaths, they say. But Babiak and Hare remind us that around one in a hundred people is a psychopath. That’s over half a million in Britain. Most are not criminals. Most are not in prison. These are people who live amongst us. And these are people who might work with us.
The psychologist Martha Stout explains how these extreme workplace abusers can operate in her book, ‘The Sociopath Next Door.’ (Stout prefers the term, sociopath to psychopath. The words sociopath and psychopath are used almost interchangeably by psychologists.)
‘Most invigorating of all . . . . is to bring down people who are smarter or more
accomplished than you, or perhaps classier, more attractive, or popular or
morally admirable. This is not only good fun; it is existential vengeance.
And without conscience, it is amazingly easy to do. You quietly lie to the boss
or to the boss’s boss, cry some crocodile tears, or sabotage a coworker’s
project . . . . bait people with promises, or provide a little misinformation
that will never be traced back to you.’
These sorts of behaviours are real. They happen in the workplace. This is why we think the word, 'bully' is inadequate. But we would like to help you, and your organisation, whatever the scale of your problems, whether the abuse you are suffering concerns discrimination and harassment or a sociopath attempting to hound you out of your job for raising concerns over practice.
Help to prevent and manage workplace abuse and bullying
At NJP Consultancy we can help organisations avoid the waste and enormous financial cost of workplace abuse. We can provide training for employees and managers but go beyond this by helping organisations implement
a system to try to eliminate workplace abuse. This system helps organisations set standards and declare that certain behaviours are not going to be acceptable at work.
a system to try to eliminate workplace abuse. This system helps organisations set standards and declare that certain behaviours are not going to be acceptable at work.
