Update

Aug 17, 2023

Company owners and CEOs can do a lot to eradicate bullying and harassment in the workplace. This should be a key mandate given to the Human Resources department. If upper management makes it very clear to everyone that this is one of top priorities for the company, then it can be possible to develop and maintain a bully-free positive work environment.

Most professional HR personnel have training and expertise in this area. If the CEO/Owner of the firm gives a mandate to the HR team about making sure the organization creates and maintains a positive bully-free environment, the professional HR team can typically achieve that goal. They just have to put in appropriate processes and procedures in place so employees are able to openly address any issues that might come up.

If the employees know that if they face any bullying or harassment at work they can approach the HR department and if the HR department follows through with appropriate investigations, most employees will feel good about the company. Maybe the HR department will need to put together some mandatory training for all employees and supervisors so everyone is aware of the company mandate and the associated processes and procedures. But the bottom line is that it all starts with the upper management (i.e., CEO/Owner) making it clear to everyone that bullying/harassment in the workplace will not be tolerated and asks the HR department to make sure the processes are implemented appropriately.

Aug 10, 2023

Parents have a key role in making sure that their children are not acting out as bullies at schools. This requires a lot of coordination between school staff and the community of parents. Schools that have a stronger connection with the parents are able to do a better job of maintaining a safe and positive environment for all children.

Parents can be helpful in a number of ways. First of all, it is important for parents to make sure their child does not feel bullied at home. When I had my encounter (in adult years) with my worst bully from school days, one of the things he had said was that he felt bullied at home, by parents and by siblings. Children who feel bullied at home can often turn into bullies at school. As I travel around the country for my speeches, I have now come to know many individuals who had turned themselves into bullies at schools simply because they had felt bullied at home.

Secondly, parents should try to make sure the children do not grow up with the “boys will be boys” attitude. They should not take the issue of bullying lightly and directly or indirectly communicate to the children that bullying is not a big issue. In fact they should try their best to make sure their children understand that bullying can have significant psychological impact on victims for many years of their lives and can cause enormous disruption.

And finally, parents should work closely with school staff to make sure a safe environment can be maintained at schools for all children.

Aug 02, 2023

Bullying in the workplace will continue as long as employees continue to decide not to fight back. If the workplace bullies never face any opposition then they start to believe that their oppressive ways are working and they continue their irresponsible behavior. That is why I had decided to fight back.

Fighting back is hard and there is always the risk of getting terminated. However, the risk is much less if one takes small steps in the process. One of the first steps is to talk to the Human Resources Department about this. If nothing changes and bullying continues, then go back to the HR department again and put in another complaint. And the most important thing is to document all the steps along the way, including copies of email exchanges and other communications. If there are other witnesses who might have watched the bullying, then one needs to make sure to identify those people in the complaints to HR.

If after 2 or 3 such requests to HR, there is still no change in the bullying behaviors, then it will be important to report this to the state’s Human Rights Department or to the Equal Employment Opportunity department. At any of these steps, if the company decides to terminate the employee, that can make their situation even worse with the government departments. It is true that a company can fire an employee at any time, but if there is a trail of documentation that shows that the company has not been taking any steps in correcting the problem and instead decided to get rid of the employee, the company will have a difficult legal situation on their hands.

Jul 28, 2023

Bullying in the workplace happens for a variety of reasons. But it all comes down to the bully (in most cases the manager or the supervisor) needing to feel in full control of the situation. In my case the supervisor clearly had an unpleasant personal life that she talked about a lot at the workplace. She felt that bullying employees at the workplace gave her the power she did not have in her personal life.

It is true that there are many people out there whose personal lives are not always happy and well settled, but they all do not end up bullying other people at work. However, if the person is someone who needs to have control of all aspects of his or her personal life and feels unable to achieve that control, it is likely that the unfulfilled “need to have control” will spill over on to the workplace.

My supervisor used to talk about her ‘not so positive’ personal life issues in front of all employees on a very regular basis. It was very clear to all employees that she was not happy with things at home and needed to have an outlet. By nature she was not an easy person to communicate with – but I believe her personal issues had made things even worse. I believe that if she was getting help from a therapist for her personal issues and if she had received training at the workplace about how to communicate with the employees, she could have been a decent manager without having to depend on bullying others.

Jul 20, 2023

Before the pandemic I had an opportunity to speak at the Utah School Counselors Association conference in Ogden, UT, on the topic of “PTSD from bullying triggers obsessive compulsive disorder”. This was another opportunity to make the point to a group of school counselors that bullying during school years can lead to devastating mental illness for victims.

Many school counselors do understand the possible significant long term impact of bullying. However, I am aware that there are still some school staff members who do not believe that bullying can cause any significant long term damage. They believe that once you are out of school, whatever happened during the school years fade away quickly. Unfortunately that is not the case for many victims of bullying.

Every child has his or her unique personality. There are some children who can ignore the bullying and can move on without allowing it to impact themselves. They are the lucky ones. But there are many others who are not able to ignore it, and consequently, have to live with the long term impact. It’s not their fault that they are not able to ignore the bullying. The responsibility does not fall on them. The responsibility of maintaining a safe school environment falls on all school staff and the parents. It is critical that ALL school staff understand that ALL children deserves a non-threatening school environment.

Jul 13, 2023

Many employers do not do anything about preventing bullying and harassment in the workplace because they believe that employees have no rights and that if employees do not like the environment, they will just leave. This is why it is important for employees to learn that there are things one can do to fight back against bullying and harassment.

I wrote the book titled “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer” primarily to make the point that there are things an employee can do to fight back against bullying and harassment in the workplace. Many employers simply do not want to take the trouble involved in trying to prevent bullying in the workplace and maintain a peaceful work environment. They just hope that if someone is not able to survive in their workplace environment, then they would just quit and go somewhere else.

And a lot of employees do end up doing that – they leave a hostile work environment and try to find a more acceptable workplace. This is what many employers count on. But employers do have the responsibility to maintain a safe environment for all employees. Most successful organizations take this responsibility seriously and establish and follow appropriate processes and procedures to handle complaints of bullying and harassment in the workplace. These employers realize that employees do have rights and that it will not be good for the organization if one or more employees decide to fight back.

Jul 06, 2023

It appears to me that most schools still are not able to get the parents involved whole-heartedly in their bullying prevention process. Over the last few years some of the schools I spoke at had arranged for me to speak to a group of parents. Interestingly in most of those cases only a few parents attended.

This is an extremely important factor because without the cooperation and assistance of the parents it is very difficult for school staff to maintain a safe environment at the school. In my book “A Life Interrupted – the story of my battle with bullying and obsessive compulsive disorder” I have included a whole chapter describing my interactions (in adult years) with the worst bully from my school days. From that most revealing encounter I came to understand that this specific bully had a very negative home life and was taking out his frustrations by bullying me and other kids.

Since then I have now come across several situations where bullies have shared with me their thoughts about why they end up bullying other kids. In many cases it is the negative family situation that drove them to act this way.

I am glad that most school staff try their best to get the parents involved in their programs. It may not be an easy thing to accomplish, but I certainly hope that they will continue their efforts to get the support they need from the parents to minimize bullying in schools.

Jun 28, 2023

I have discovered that there are a lot of things that employees need to learn regarding the rights they have in dealing with situations involving possible wrongful termination. Most employees seem to believe that they don’t have any rights at all. What I have learnt is that that is not true.

It is true that most states allow at-will employment – that allows an employer to terminate an employee at any time. But the point is that the employers cannot be irresponsible about this and cannot just get rid of an employee simply because he or she was bringing up some difficult issues that needed to be handled properly.

What can happen at times is that an employee brings up an issue that the organization needs to look into. But instead of looking into the matter, the organization fires the employee. It is clear to see that the organization did that simply because they were not truly interested in handling the issues brought up by the employee. That is why it became a wrongful termination.

This is the main reason why documentation is extremely important. If there is a trail of documentation (prior to the termination) that shows that there have been some conflicts between the employee and the employer, then termination could be perceived as a wrongful act.

That is why good employers make sure that all complaints and issues brought up by employees are handled according to an established process.

Jun 22, 2023

As schools around the country start to think about planning for the 2023-24 school year, I hope that parents and school staff around the nation remain diligently focused on preventing bullying at their schools. We simply cannot afford to allow any young person to have to deal with difficult psychological issues triggered by bullying. Let us allow everyone to enjoy school life in a safe environment.

Ideally every child should look forward to going back to school again at the end of their summer vacation. After a gap of three months, many typically enjoy getting back to the routine, meeting up with old friends, and making new friends. However, there are many for whom this is not at all a positive event – and that is not because they hate the teachers, or they don’t like meeting old friends, or making new ones. In most cases, these children simply do not want to go back to school again because they do not want to face bullying again.

For these children, the school is like a prison – it is not at all a safe environment to go into. I believe that many parents and school staff still do not understand how traumatizing bullying can be for some children. Every child has the right to get an opportunity to learn in a safe environment, and in my opinion, we as adults are failing miserably if even one child has to tolerate bullying when he/she is in school.

Jun 15, 2023

It is clear that many organizations around the nation are starting to focus on this issue of handling bullying and harassment in their work settings. Currently there are many webinars, trainings, and workshops available to help organizations deal with this issue. This is a good thing and we hope that the trend will continue in this right direction.

I have several presentations on this topic – the title of one of my presentations is “Employees’ guide to responding to workplace bullying and harassment”. This presentation is based on my book titled “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer”. This book provides ideas and suggestions for both employees and employers. One of my other presentations on this subject focuses on what employers should know about dealing with workplace bullying and harassment.

Most successful companies understand that their success is highly dependent on how satisfied their employees are. That is why they make it a policy to make sure that bullying and harassment in the workplace is not tolerated. That is also the reason why they have appropriate training for both employees and management personnel to minimize incidents of bullying and harassment, and to be prepared to handle incidents appropriately utilizing a well-defined and well-publicized process.

© 2017 - Sumi Mukherjee
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