Lurking in the shadows - Management - includes related articles on workplace bullying

HR Magazine,  Oct, 1999  by Rudy M. Yandrick

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A 1998 study by Christine Pearson, a management professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who surveyed 775 targets of rudeness, insensitivity and disrespect, found that tar gets may penalize their employer rather than seek retaliation against the bully.

For example, 12 percent of victims changed jobs, 12 percent intentionally decreased the quality of their work, 22 percent decreased their work effort, 28 percent lost work time avoiding the bully and 52 percent lost work time worrying about the person and the interaction.

Pearson's profile of the "instigators" of "incivility" - terms analogous to perpetrators and bullying - found that they:

* Were an average age of 41 with eight years of service in the organization. (The average target was 34, with six years of service.)

* Were more than twice as likely to be male (70 percent male, 30 percent female).

* Were more likely to be of higher status in the work organization than the target (60 percent of higher status, 20 percent of equal status, 20 percent of lower status).

* Were generally viewed by targets as "sore losers" but good at "kissing up" to superiors.

Gender proved to be a significant factor in Pearson's study. Men were seven time as likely to instigate uncivil behavior on someone of lower status than on someone of higher status. Women were equally likely to behave uncivilly toward their superiors as toward their subordinates, but they were less likely to be uncivil toward their peers. Finally, both male and female instigators showed only a slight preference for same-sex targets.

What HR Professionals Can Do

When employees face a bullying situation, hopefully, they will turn for help to HR managers. A variety of prevention and early-intervention strategies are available. James Scaringi, employee relations specialist for the Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Human Resource Management, says the first step is to educate supervisors about how inaction costs the organization money.

"Managers spend an estimated 20 percent of their time trying to resolve conflicts and disputes. With that much time, they are not doing a very good job," he says. "Think how much that is costing an organization. We need to give supervisors the skills they need to manage people, such as training on conflict resolution and defusing and managing aggression."

Second, educate employees on how to cope better with organizational change, a cause of bullying borne of insecurity and loss of control. Some employers use resiliency training, which helps employees to accept and be motivated by change, rather than feel threatened by it. Employers also can provide more lead time in advance of organizational change and talk candidly with employees about the impact, allowing them to better prepare mentally for it.

Third, review the physical layout of the work site and be aware of the interactions between an alleged bully and target. "Are the two people isolated? It is easier for a bully to harass the other person if they are," explains Scaringi.