Freedom Week: The Time to Break Silence About Workplace Bullying

http://www.workplacebullying.org/2011/10/17/freedom-week/

Bullying at work is a dirty little secret. Though it occurs with epidemic frequency (experienced by 35% of all adult Americans), it is a silent epidemic because it is too rarely discussed. Why the silence?

- personal shame by targets (who would brag about being humiliated?)
- coworkers frozen by bullies into not helping their bullied colleagues
- executives covering up for bullies they sponsor/support
- bullying is the American style of managing

Over time, fear paralyzes us all. Overcoming the inertia of inaction is difficult. We know.

But the most successful personal change plans are the ones triggered by events that suggest karma is working — a sign from above, a coincidental omen. That event becomes the excuse, the rationale, for doing something out of the ordinary.

WBI’s Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week is the reason to change how you are dealing with your bullying situation.

- City and County executives can formally recognize Freedom Week by proclamation. At the start of Freedom Week 2011, over 30 municipalities have issued such proclamations. Visit the gallery of proclamations.

- Bullied individuals and their families can take stock of the extent of the psychological injuries sustained from bullying. It sneaks up on everyone. High blood pressure goes undetected until the family physician asks what is stressful in your life. Use Freedom Week as the excuse to schedule an appointment to have your blood checked and to look for the onset of stress-related diseases. Ignoring your personal health is not a good idea. Bullying can kill. Please give your health as high a priority as keeping the salary to keep a roof over your head. If you die, no salary will have been worth it. Family members: please give your bullied partner or spouse the support she or he requires. They can build up credits that can be repaid when the bullying situation ends. Read the book The Bully At Work.

- Managers and executives need to calculate the financial losses attributable to preventable bullying. Bullies are actually too expensive to retain. However, the truth is that you are too loyal to bullies who have conned you over the years. When you acknowledge that “Bob” is a jerk, you are admitting the problem. But when you consider Bob indispensable, regardless of costs to the organization or his effect on others, you are condemning everyone to a living hell. Balance the needs of the business (profit making or budget balancing) with the narcissistic needs of Bob. Do the math. Talk to your Risk Manager. Bob is a liability. Stay friends if you must, but cut Bob loose for the sake of many. Honor your fiduciary responsibility to the organization. Bob will live on (elsewhere). Read the book The Bully-Free Workplace.

- Insurers and attorneys should warn your employer clients to prevent and correct costly bullying for their own self-interest and cost savings. Whether or not the employer has employment practices liability insurance (EPLI), bullying is costly. Premiums rise when liability increases. Bullies pose increasingly costly risks. Attorneys: you have been writing in recent years how your clients need to squelch bullying even though no specific laws exist. Continue this advice. Use Freedom Week to bolster that message. Visit The Work Doctor website to assure clients that something can be done about bullying.

- State lawmakers should enact legislation to curb bullying in the workplace. The Healthy Workplace Legislative Campaign has been around since 2003. It exists to help sympathetic lawmakers of all political parties to address health-harming abusive conduct at work (no need to call it workplace bullying). The Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) has been introduced in 21 states. In 2011, the HWB is alive in 11 states, including Massachusetts and New York. During Freedom Week, Wisconsin state Rep. Kelda Roys and Sen. Spencer Coggs are introducing the HWB in both legislative chambers.

Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week 2011: October 16th to 22nd

http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/freedom-from-workplace-bullies-week-2011-october-16-22/

Oct16 by David Yamada

“Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week,” an annual observance sponsored by the Workplace Bullying Institute, runs from October 16 through 22. It is an important opportunity for supporters of the workplace anti-bullying movement to educate the public and rally others to the cause.

In the U.S., this movement is reaching the point where workplace bullying is a recognized phenomenon. Although there always are new audiences who haven’t named or labeled this hurtful and destructive behavior, these days we’re having to explain ourselves a little less than before. Within wider circles, the term “workplace bullying” is used and understood. Our educational work is far from over — the need will endure — but we’re seeing progress in terms of public comprehension.

For today, I want to center our attention on action. Toward that end, I’m re-posting my article “Ten ways to stop workplace bullying,” from December 2010:

Ten ways to stop workplace bullying

When people talk to me about workplace bullying, they often ask, what can I do to help? The following list is hardly exhaustive, but it’s a starting place:

1. Don’t — Don’t be a workplace bully. It starts with each of us.

2. Stand up — Stand up for someone who is being bullied. Silence equals permission.

3. Support — Similarly, support friends, colleagues, and family members who are experiencing bullying at work. Validate their concerns and, where appropriate, guide them to coaching, counseling, and legal assistance. (For some resources, go here.)

4. Ask — Ask your employer to educate employees about workplace bullying and to include an anti-bullying policy in the employee handbook.

5. Post — If you read an article on workplace bullying, post a comment to it online, voicing your support for taking this problem seriously. Help to generate momentum for the anti-bullying movement.

6. Talk — Yes, just talk about it with others. Without making a pest of yourself to your friends, family, and associates, discuss bullying as part of the workplace experience for many employees.

7. Law reform — Support anti-bullying legislation. For readers in the U.S., get active in the grassroots campaign to enact the Healthy Workplace Bill in states around the nation (link here). (Full disclosure: I’m the author of the Healthy Workplace Bill, so I do have an interest in seeing it enacted!)

8. Unions — If you are a member of a union, lobby your union leaders to educate members about workplace bullying and to negotiate an abusive supervision clause in the collective bargaining agreement, as discussed here.

9. Faith — If you are a member of a church, synagogue, or mosque, encourage your congregational leaders and fellow members to include workplace bullying among their social action concerns.

10. Connect — We must connect workplace bullying to other forms of interpersonal abuse, such as school bullying, cyber bullying, and domestic abuse. There are many unfortunate similarities between them, and helping others to understand this will serve as a powerful consciousness raising mechanism.

Words of caution

Some of these actions carry personal risks. There is something very threatening about this topic to certain individuals and organizations. Furthermore, when someone is suffering due to workplace bullying, they may be in a difficult place psychologically. Thus, please consider:

1. Those who stand up for bullying targets may find themselves next on the firing line. This is a very real possibility.

2. A bad employer may consider you a troublemaker simply for asking that the organization oppose these behaviors.

3. Posting a comment online about workplace bullying may lead to some people to ridicule your concerns.

4. Providing homebrewed psychological counseling or legal advice is not only unwise, but also illegal if you are not licensed to provide such assistance.