Managing Stress
New website offers solutions for people suffering under workplace bullies.Coping strategiesAlthough she has never personally experienced a toxic workplace, Marilyn Noble knows all too well that the average Canadian office can be hell. CHRIS MORRI - The Canadian Press |
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The Canada Safety Council reports that 75% of workplace bullying victims leave their jobs. It also found that workplace bullying is four times more common than sexual harassment or workplace discrimination.
Noble, a veteran researcher of workplace bullying, says she braces for an onslaught from sad, troubled workers whenever she gives public talks about her findings.
After she has finished speaking, she says, they come up to her -- the bullied, the stressed, even the suicidal -- looking for solutions to a problem the World Health Organization has described as an international epidemic: job stress caused by workplace bullying.
"It's hard. The situation usually has deteriorated so far, really all you can do is give people coping strategies," says Noble, a researcher at the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research at the University of New Brunswick.
"What I really want to get at are the systemic problems that let these things happen."
Noble and her co-researchers are hoping a new website they have launched, entitled Towards a Respectful Workplace, (http://www. unbf.ca/towardarespectfulwork place/) will give employers and employees the information they need to deal with workplace bullying.
"There aren't a lot of happy endings out there," she says.
"It's very clear that most corporate policies don't kick in until the problem has already escalated way out of bounds and by that point, it's very hard to reel it back in. If we could train everyone in organizations to recognize it early and to intervene early . . . we could probably stem a lot of this."
Noble describes workplace bullying as personal diminishment.
She says it is hugely stressful for individuals, their families and even co-workers.
Over the past decade, there has been growing recognition of the problem worldwide.
In 1999, the International Labour Organization declared physical and emotional violence to be one of the most serious problems facing the workplace in the new millennium.
In 2000, a Canadian poll of labour unions revealed that more than 75% of those surveyed reported incidents of harassment and bullying at work.
The Canada Safety Council reports that 75% of workplace bullying victims leave their jobs. It also found that workplace bullying is four times more common than sexual harassment or workplace discrimination.
Noble has collected hundreds of stories over the years.
She remembers one middle-aged woman who had retrained and re-educated herself for better opportunities in the workforce only to land in a job where her supervisor shouted at her, belittled her and went out of his way to make her job impossible.
'EAGER BEAVER'
"Then there was this poor guy who was new in a workplace and was trying really hard to fit in -- an eager beaver," she recalls.
"Maybe he annoyed people because he was so eager. He went into a restaurant one day and everyone else from his workplace was there. He backed out the door, but the door didn't shut before he heard this great burst of laughter."
She also remembers one bullied worker who used a long drive home every evening to help him calm down from his stressful workplace.
But she says that every now and then, when he was crossing a bridge on his route home, he would think about driving off it.
Gerry Smith, vice-president of organizational health and training for Shepell.fgi, recalls dealing with many cases over the years where those being targeted became extremely stressed.
"They're still productive and they still do their job, but they go home at night, they don't sleep, they don't eat," says Smith, whose company provides support around mental, physical and social health to some 8.5 million employees at 6,000 Canadian companies.
"They develop an obsession around it, mainly because they have to face the same kind of behaviour every single day in their workplace. It's relentless."
Noble says she has discovered that a great deal of workplace bullying is done by people who don't think of themselves as bullies.
"Most haven't got a sweet clue how they affect other people," she says.
"It's really only about 5% who are malicious and intentional. The others are just bumbling idiots who are quite lacking in interpersonal skills. Because they are forceful people or have positions of authority or clout, they are very difficult to approach."
Noble says the new website offers individuals and organizations ways to recognize bullying and address it.
She says the key is to act quickly, before the situation deteriorates beyond repair.
"Much of our work is focused on catch it early and fix it early," she says.
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