Bullies at work, UK, illness statistics

Hum, while we are on the topic of bullies at work, try this one.

Bully at Work

Interview with Tim Field

By: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

Also published by United Press International (UPI)


Malignant Self Love.

In 1994 Tim Field was bullied out of his job as a Customer Services Manager which resulted in a stress breakdown. Turning his experience to good use he set up the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line in 1996 and his web site Bully Online in 1997 since which time he has worked on over 5000 cases worldwide. He now lectures widely as well as writing and publishing books on bullying and psychiatric injury. He holds two honorary doctorates for his work on identifying and dealing with bullying. He is the Webmaster of Bully Online.

Question: What is workplace bullying?

Answer: Workplace bullying is persistent, unwelcome, intrusive behaviour of one or more individuals whose actions prevent others from fulfilling their duties.

Question: How is it different to adopting disciplinarian measures, maintaining strict supervision, or oversight?

Answer: The purpose of bullying is to hide the inadequacy of the bully and has nothing to do with "management" or the achievement of tasks. Bullies project their inadequacies onto others to distract and divert attention away from the inadequacies. In most cases of workplace bullying reported to the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line, the bully is a serial bully who has a history of conflict with staff. The bullying that one sees is often also the tip of an iceberg of wrongdoing which may include misappropriation of budgets, harassment, discrimination, as well as breaches of rules, regulations, professional codes of conduct and health and safety practices.

Question: Should it be distinguished from harassment (including sexual harassment), or stalking?

Answer: Bullying is, I believe, the underlying behavior and thus the common denominator of harassment, discrimination, stalking and abuse. What varies is the focus for expression of the behavior. For instance, a harasser or discriminator focuses on race or gender or disability.

Bullies focus on competence and popularity which at present are not covered by employment legislation.

Bullies seethe with resentment and anger and the conduits for release of this inner anger are jealousy and envy which explains why bullies pick on employees who are good at their job and popular with people. Being emotionally immature, bullies crave attention and become resentful when others get more attention for their competence and achievements than themselves.

Question: What is the profile of the typical bully?

Answer: Over 90% of the cases reported to the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line involve a serial bully who can be recognised by their behaviour profile which includes compulsive lying, a Jekyll and Hyde nature, an unusually high verbal facility, charm and a considerable capacity to deceive, an arrested level of emotional development, and a compulsive need to control. The serial bully rarely commits a physical assault or an arrestable offence, preferring instead to remain within the realms of psychological violence and non-arrestable offences.

Question: What are bullying's typical outcomes?

Answer: In the majority of cases, the target of bullying is eliminated through forced resignation, unfair dismissal, or early or ill- health retirement whilst the bully is promoted. After a short interval of between 2-14 days, the bully selects another target and the cycle restarts. Sometimes another target is selected before the current target is eliminated.

Question: Can you provide us with some statistics? How often does bullying occur? How many people are affected?

Answer: Surveys of bullying in the UK indicate that between 12-50% of the workforce experience bullying. Statistics from the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line reveal that around 20% of cases are from the education sector, 12% are from healthcare, 10% are from social services, and around 6% from the voluntary / charity / not-for-profit sector.

After that, calls come from all sectors both public and private, with finance, media, police, postal workers and other government employees featuring prominently. Enquiries from outside the UK (notably USA, Canada, Australia and Ireland) show similar patterns with the caring professions topping the list of bullied workers.

Question: Could you estimate the economic effects of workplace bullying - costs to employers (firms), employees, law enforcement agencies, the courts, the government, etc.?

Answer: Bullying is one of the major causes of stress, and the cost of stress to UK plc is thought to be between £5-12 billion (US$7-17 billion). When all the direct, indirect and consequential costs of bullying are taken into account, the cost to UK plc (taxpayers and shareholders) could be in excess of £30 billion (US$44 billion), equivalent to around £1,000 hidden tax per working adult per year. Employers do not account for the cost of bullying and its consequences, therefore the figures never appear on balance sheets.

Employees have to work twice as hard to overcome the serial bully's inefficiency and dysfunction which can spread through an organisation like a cancer.

Because of its subtle nature, bullying can be difficult to recognise, but the consequences are easy to spot: excessive workloads, lack of support, a climate of fear, and high levels of insecurity.

The effects on health include, amongst other things, chronic fatigue, damage to the immune system, reactive depression, and suicide.

The indirect costs of bullying include higher-than average staff turnover and sickness absence. Each of these incur consequential costs of staff cover, administration, loss of production and reduced productivity which are rarely recognised and even more rarely attributed to their cause. Absenteeism alone costs UK plc over £10 billion a year and stress is now officially the number one cause of sickness absence having taken over from the common cold. However, surveys suggest that at least 20% of employers still do not regard stress as a health and safety issue, instead preferring to see it as skiving and malingering.

The Bristol Stress and Health at Work Study published by the HSE in June 2000 revealed that 1 in 5 UK workers (around 5.5m) reported feeling extremely stressed at work. The main stress factors were having too much work and not being supported by managers. In November 2001 a study by Proudfoot Consulting revealed the cost of bad management, low employee morale and poorly-trained staff to British business at 117 lost working days a year. At 65%, bad management (often a euphemism for bullying) accounted for the biggest slice of unproductive days with low morale accounting for 17%. The study also suggested that in the UK 52% of all working time is spent unproductively compared to the European average of 43%.

The results of a three-year survey of British workers by the Gallup Organization published in October 2001 revealed that many employers are not getting the best from their employees. The most common response to questions such as "how engaged are your employees?" and "how effective is your leadership and management style?" and "how well are you capitalising on the talents, skills and knowledge of your people?" was an overwhelming "not very much". The survey also found that the longer an employee stayed, the less engaged they became. The cost to UK plc of lost work days due to lack of engagement was estimated to be between £39-48 billion a year.

Question: What can be done to reduce workplace bullying? Are firms, the government, law enforcement agencies, the courts - aware of the problem and its magnitude? Are educational campaign effective? Did anti-bullying laws prove effective?

Answer: Most bullying is hierarchical and can be traced to the top or near the top. As bullying is often the visible tip of an iceberg of wrongdoing, denial is the most common strategy employed by toxic managements. Only Sweden has a law which specifically addresses bullying. Where no law exists, bullies feel free to bully. Whilst the law is not a solution, the presence of a law is an indication that society has made a judgement that the behaviour is no longer acceptable.

Awareness of bullying, and especially its seriousness, is still low throughout society. Bullying is not just "something children do in the playground", it's a lifetime behaviour on the same level as domestic violence, sexual harassment, and rape.

Bullying is a form of psychological and emotional rape because of its intrusive and violational nature.

Selfish People Make Nice People Sick

I just got this in my email. The article calls selfish people narcissists...but it's the same thing. Selfish is just easier for everyone to identify with. Because I have been surrounded by selfish people throughout most of my life, and because I have been sick a lot, I can relate to this well. Read this and see if it sounds like someone you know. Then read what I have written at the bottom of the page.

Career Watch: Dealing with 'It's All About Me' syndrome
August 4, 2008 (Computerworld) This feature originally appeared in Computerworld's print edition. The 'It's All About Me' Syndrome
Five years ago, Jean Ritala had never heard the term narcissism. Then someone described her as having been "stung by a narcissist" and shared books and Web sites with her on the topic. Now, besides being the IT support services manager at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minn., Ritala educates and coaches others on how to deal with narcissists.

Narcissists show a pervasive need for attention and admiration and a lack of concern for others. But are they dangerous in the workplace?

"The cost to organizations from narcissism in the workplace is staggering," as the narcissist's co-workers become ill with stress, teamwork deteriorates, projects fail and turnover rises, says Ritala.

"Up to one-third of a narcissist's victims in the workplace will quit the company or transfer to another department if nothing is done" to address the behavior, she says.

Once she had become educated on the topic of narcissism, Ritala began to recognize narcissistic traits in the workplace. Feeling that it is a problem that is pervasive but too often ignored, she and management consultant Gerald Falkowski wrote a booklet on the topic, called Narcissism in the Workplace (Red Swan Publishing USA, 2007).

Ritala, former president of the IT Service Management Forum - U.S., spoke recently with Computerworld about dealing with narcissism in IT organizations.

Is narcissism prevalent within IT organizations? I think IT is more competitive than some parts of the business, so yes. But people are getting educated. Five years ago, few people knew about narcissism. Now there are online discussion groups which deal with the topic. And the dynamics of the workforce have changed so that narcissist personalities are standing out more.


Traits of the Narcissist
Some of the characteristics that identify narcissists:

They are successful and goal-oriented but show no empathy or concern for others.
They are charismatic, well spoken and funny.
They disrespect boundaries and others' privacy.
They patronize and criticize others.
They can be cruel and abusive toward peers, but charming in front of their managers.
They expect special treatment and privileges.
They are manipulative and pit co-workers against one another.
They abhor criticism or disagreement.
They are anxious or paranoid, reacting with rage when they can't control a situation or their behaviors are exposed.


What steps can IT managers take to address these issues? You need a health care professional, like a psychologist who specializes in employee counseling services, to get involved. Managers need to document behaviors and not be afraid to go to HR and say, "This is what I'm seeing and what people are telling me."

Once narcissistic employees are identified, how do you deal with them? HR should encourage them to use an employee-referral service such as counseling. Some narcissists, when confronted, can see how their behavior is impacting staff and their own performance. If they can't, HR has to calmly play back what they did. And you must establish firm boundaries, with timely, progressive consequences. You need to follow up to see if behaviors are improving or getting worse. But people's behavior patterns typically don't change unless they get help or become enlightened. And once a narcissist's behaviors are observed and documented, they can become even more cruel and offensive, since they no longer can hide their behaviors and rationalize them away.

Susan again: If you are surrounded by selfish people like I used to be, start asking God to surround you at work and at home with only people who are as unselfish. loving and giving as you are. I did this, and within a year, my life and the people around me had totally changed. If I did this, you can do it too ;-)

Inspiration: this is my husbands' and my personal saying: It's never too late to start a great tommorrow!