Latest posts

Last week we interviewed Philip Carroll about workplace bullying. He talked about what it is – and isn’t

This week, Philip shares his insights on preventing workplace bullying.

To begin, Philip said, the leader needs to model the behaviour he or she wants to see and then require every single person in the workplace – not just the managers – to model the same behaviour. Fundamentally, he told us, it’s an issue of respect.

A leader must create a good culture within their organisation and follow through on that culture, irrespective of the size of the organisation. Philip says that you can’t assume workplace bullying won’t happen, even in small organisations, because it happens in real life.

Philip believes that organisations of every size can and should address the issue of bullying, though this would be done in different ways. The essence is for the leader to create, model and promote good cultural values.

The next thing to do is to recruit to that culture. Philip noted in last week’s interview how much bullying can cost an organisation. It has also been found that, “A mistake in the recruitment process that leads to an early employee resignation or dismissal can cost an employer between half and two-thirds of the employee’s annual salary.” This means that an organisation needs to set their culture and ensure their recruitment process is robust enough to allow them to appoint people who will support and promote that culture.

Once you have done this, he says, you need to manage to the culture. A leader can do this by:

• Developing a behavioural standards framework;
• Communicating that framework to all the employees;
• Demonstrating that the leader knows the framework applies equally to them;
• Ensuring new staff are made aware of the organisation’s behavioural standards framework;
• Making the behavioural standards framework part of the contract of employment; and
• Embedding the behavioural standards framework as part of every employee’s day-to-day workplace experience.

Philip says the next step is early intervention. Leaders and their managers should watch out for warning signs, such as general behaviours which are not aligned to the cultural values of the organisation; or poor behaviour in stressful situations. Philip says you should act early without over-reacting. “I’m a big believer in early, appropriate and proportionate intervention.” He notes that this doesn’t have to be a manager; a peer who sees things starting to go wrong can simply ask, “Are you OK?”

However, despite everyone’s best efforts, workplace bullying may still occur. We asked Philip what people should do.

He told us it’s essential for every workplace to have a procedure for managing workplace bullying. For a small organisation, it might be a very simple document while for a large corporation, it could be a set of workplace policies and procedures. The important thing here is that it is fit for purpose. If someone is subject to or aware of bullying, these procedures should be the first things they refer to, in order to find out what to do and who to go to. They should form part of the behavioural standards framework.

The next step, he believes, is to seek advice from an appropriate source and this kind of information should be in the procedure. Philip says places people can look to for advice might include:

• A designated complaints handler within the organisation;
• A respected, experienced colleague;
• A union representative;
• A member of the organisation’s human resources staff; or
• An external expert.

People then need to make a careful and informed decision about what to do based on that advice, because the next step is often a formal investigation.

Philip believes workplace bullying is a high enough order issue to form an integral part of an employment relationship, so that a breach of the relationship may lead to dismissal.

He believes that, fundamentally, the key to addressing workplace bullying is to prevent it in the first place and the link here is to leadership. A leader who sets the right cultural values and follows through with these is far more likely to act swiftly and appropriately when bullying does happen and to lead a harmonious workplace where bullying scarcely, if ever, occurs.

Philip spoke to Catherine Burrows, a Sydney-based executive coach and our current featured member.

Philip Carroll is the Founder and Principal of Philip Carroll and Associates. He has over 19 years’ senior executive experience in large and complex government businesses. He is also an experienced Non-Executive Director and Chair within international, commercial and not for profit organisations. Philip has extensive experience in People and Culture, Workplace Reform and Industrial Relations. We asked him to talk to us about an important current issue – workplace bullying.

To begin, we asked Philip to talk to us about what workplace bullying is. He told us that it is repeated, unreasonable and unwanted behaviour and that the concepts of its being both repeated and unreasonable are particularly important to the definition. Philip referred us to Safe Work Australia, which defines bullying in the following way:

“Workplace bullying is repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety…because it may affect the mental and physical health of workers. … Bullying can take different forms including psychological, physical or even indirect — for example deliberately excluding someone from work-related activities.”

Philip said that while workplace bullying most commonly occurs when a more senior person bullies a less senior one, this is not always the case. Bullying can also occur between peers or when a less senior person bullies a more senior one, although he said the latter is much less common on account of the power imbalance which generally exists in this relationship. In Philip’s experience, freezing people out most commonly occurs between peers, while bullying by subordinates may take the form of vexatious complaints or aggressive attention-seeking behaviours. It’s important to remember these behaviours must be repeated and unreasonable to be bullying.

Philip does not believe that intention is critical to a definition of bullying, because the impact of abusive behaviour is the same, whether it is purposeful or not: “In my opinion, intent is a distraction,” he said.

We then asked him what bullying is not. He gave several examples of interactions between managers and their staff which may involve difficult conversations but which are not bullying. These include:

• Setting someone’s KPIs and planning their work with them;
• Discussing someone’s performance based on their established KPIs;
• Discussing someone’s failure to meet their agreed KPIs or other targets; and
• Raising an issue with someone.

Philip told us that all these activities are appropriate management activities, as long as they are undertaken in accordance with proper procedures.

He also said that while sexual harassment and discrimination may accompany or form part of bullying behaviours, they are not necessarily bullying. Rather, they are serious issues in their own right and are so serious that, unlike bullying, they do not need to be repeated behaviours. (We have added some links to sites where you can find out more about these important topics.)

We asked Philip to talk about the cost of bullying, from an organisational perspective. He mentioned:

• Loss of productivity;
• Loss of workers and the resulting cost of recruitment;
• Legal costs;
• Fines and other legal penalties; and
• Payments to staff whose claims are accepted.

For example, Safe Work Australia reports a “…$22,600 median cost for accepted bullying and/or harassment claims in 2013-14”; while the Australian Human Rights Commission states, “A recent impact and cost assessment calculated that workplace bullying costs Australian employers between $6–$36 billion dollars every year when hidden and lost opportunity costs are considered.”

He then spoke about the impact on individuals, linking it back to Safe Work Australia, which says:

“Workplace bullying can seriously harm worker mental health with depression, psychological distress and emotional exhaustion common outcomes for bullied workers.”

Philip believes that workplace bullying can have a significant negative impact on an individual, the people around them and the whole organisation. He has himself been asked to investigate allegations of bullying and has noted the cost on everyone involved. He said, “If you get to the point of a formal investigation, everybody loses. That’s why I believe that prevention really is the key to addressing bullying.”

Philip spoke to Catherine Burrows. Next week, Philip talks to us about preventing bullying and what to do if occurs.