Six out of ten people have been bullied or have witnessed bullying in the last six months.

If you don't stop it you are supporting it

This difficult topic was addressed by Caroline Crowe and Catherine Smith at the VPMA/SPVS Congress on Friday. As businesses we have a duty of care to identify and intervene if we discover bullying or harassment among our workforce.

Bullying is difficult to define, especially as there is no legal definition for it, but essentially it is intimidation and exposure of vulnerability. It can take many forms and be oral, physical, written and of course via social media.

There is a legal definition for harassment and three types are defined: behaviour related to a persons characteristics (i.e disability gender etc), sexual harassment causing an adverse effect and sexual harassment where when the harassment is rejected, and when an employee is sacked or demoted or receives a poor work report.

Caroline presented figures showing that six out of ten people have been bullied or have witnessed bullying in the last six months, 40 per cent of employees expect incivility at work, 21 per cent feel that are set impossible deadlines, 27 per cent feel their views are ignored and 23 per cent have been shouted at.

This makes uncomfortable reading and shows just how important it is to have a bullying and harassment policy set out for the practice. Bullying not only causes harm and distress to the individual, it also results in time lost, poor incentive and resourced performance from those staff affected.

The question is often asked, 'what is bullying?' The answer to this is that it is what the 'bullied' person perceives it to be. So it is true that what one person might see as bullying another may not. Add to this the fact that the 'bully' may not always be aware of the effect they are having on another individual and it makes dealing with bullying situations a difficult issue for the manager.

The legal advice from Catherine was to treat any complaint seriously, ask the person involved how they wish the situation to be dealt with and always do so in strict confidence. Consider disciplinary action if bullying is shown to be happening, suspending the bullying individual on full pay. The maintenance of a good paper trail is essential here .

Her advice was also to have a comprehensive bullying and harassment policy that all staff read so that you can show if necessary that you have put in place reasonable steps to prevent bullying. This will aid your defence in any claim that made be made against the practice by an individual who considers that they have been bullied and takes legal action.

Bullying is an unpleasant and difficult part of staff management and the basic message that came from Caroline and Catherine was - workplace bullying, if you don't stop it you are supporting it.