Are you a Victim of Workplace Bullying?

People who are bullied find that they are:

·         Constantly criticised and subjected to destructive criticism, nit-picking and trivial fault-finding

·         Undermined in front of others due to false and unsubstantiated concerns or doubts expressed over a person’s performance or standard of work

·         Overruled, ignored, sidelined, marginalised, ostracised

·         Isolated and excluded from what’s happening

·         Singled out and treated differently

·         Belittled, degraded, demeaned, ridiculed, patronised, subject to disparaging remarks

·         Regularly the target of offensive language, personal remarks, or inappropriate bad language

·         The target of unwanted sexual behaviour

·         Threatened, shouted at and publicly humiliated

·         Taunted and teased where the intention is to embarrass and humiliate

·         Set unrealistic goals and deadlines which are either unachievable or which are changed without notice or reason whenever they get near achieving them

·         Denied information or knowledge necessary for undertaking work and achieving objectives

·         Starved of resources in complete contrast to others

·         Denied support by their manager

·         Either overloaded with work (to make it harder to achieve targets) or have all their work taken away (and sometimes replaced with inappropriate menial jobs, e.g. photocopying, filing, making coffee, etc.)

·         Have their responsibility increased but their authority removed

·         Have their work plagiarised, stolen and copied to be presented by the bully as their own

·         Are given the silent treatment (the bully refuses to communicate except via email, memos, or a succession of post-it notes)

·         Subjected to excessive monitoring, supervision, micro-management, recording, etc.

·         The subject of written complaints by other members of staff (most of whom have been coerced into fabricating trivial and bizarre allegations)

·         Forced to work long hours, often without remuneration and under threat of dismissal

·         Find requests for leave have unacceptable and unnecessary conditions attached, sometimes overturning previous approval, especially if the person has taken action to address bullying in the meantime

·         Denied annual leave, sick leave, or – especially – compassionate leave

·         When on leave, are harassed by calls at home or on holiday, often at unsocial hours

·         Receive unpleasant or threatening calls or are harassed with intimidating memos, notes or emails with no verbal communication, immediately prior to weekends and holidays

·         Do not have a clear job description or have one that is exceedingly long or vague

·         Are invited to “informal” meetings which turn out to be disciplinary hearings

·         Are denied representation at meetings, often under threat of further disciplinary action; sometimes the bully abuses their position of power to exclude any representative who is competent to deal with bullying

·         Encouraged to feel guilty and to believe they’re always the one at fault

·         Subjected to unwarranted and unjustified verbal or written warnings

·         Facing unjustified disciplinary action on trivial or specious or false charges

·         Facing dismissal on fabricated charges or flimsy excuses, often using a trivial incident from months or years previous

·         Coerced into reluctant resignation, enforced redundancy, early or ill-health retirement

If you find that you are a victim of Workplace Bullying, read our tips.