Workplace Bullying
- Ruth Pettengell
- Apr 4
- 2 min read
Have you experienced workplace bullying and what can be done about it?
If you have experienced workplace bullying you are not alone. New Zealand has one of the worst workplace bullying statistics in the world. A Massey University study completed in 2023 resulted in a massive 90% of respondents reporting they had experienced workplace bullying over the previous year https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/higher-frequency-bullying-remains-significant-in-workforce/ Of these people, 24.6% said they were subjected
to workplace bullying monthly.
At Advocates at Work we commonly get enquiries from people stressed at work because of bullying and wanting to know what to do. The types of negative behaviours people are facing range from obvious bullying to more subtle undermining. The obvious bullying or direct attacks include being called names, being yelled at and threatened.
In one extreme case we heard from a plasterer whose workmates locked him in
a port-a-loo for 20 minutes and filmed while he tried to bash his way out. Clearly being on the receiving end of this type of behaviour is distressing. Our plasterer ended up with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and with the evidence we had in the form of video he had been kidnapped and bullied we took the case to mediation and achieved financial compensation for him.
Indirect bullying that is subtle but you know is going on can be just as difficult to deal with in your workplace.
Indirect bullying makes people question if they are going crazy because it can start slowly and build up. The bully is often a person who is jealous of their target’s work performance. The bully may be a manager who is threatened by their direct report and starts to pile on unrealistic targets, fails to tell the target important information that they tell everyone else in the team, undermines their target at every opportunity, and excludes the person from meetings and events.
One employee rang once and said she had been the only one in the work team her manager did not invite to a party at the manager’s house. This is an example of indirect bullying by exclusion.
If you think you are being bullied in your workplace, please contact us and we can work together.