New HR approach needed to eliminate bullying risk

An over-reliance on traditional methods of dealing with workplace bullying could be exposing employers to significant risk according to a health and safety development organisation.  

Workbase’s manager-Health and Safety Solutions, Brent Sutton says many employers still treat bullying as an employment issue.

“This is no longer acceptable under the Workplace Health and Safety Act since the regulator (Worksafe) issued its Preventing and responding to workplace bullying best practice guidelines earlier this year.”

The onus is now on employers to treat workplace bullying as a health and safety – rather than an employment relations – issue.  

Sutton says there are significant differences between the way most employers have traditionally dealt with workplace bullying, and what they are now required to do. To date most organisations have aimed to minimise bullying risk through administrative controls such as policies, procedures, processes (e.g. bullying help lines) or Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP).   

“Continuing with a risk minimisation approach opens employers up to litigation if it can be shown that more could have been done to prevent bullying,” says Sutton.

Rather than simply taking steps to minimise the risk of bullying, employers now need to identify and address the root causes of unsafe practises and take all practicable steps to identify and eliminate possible causes.  

For example, it is no longer enough to provide the bullied employee with access to counselling services such as EAP. Instead, steps have to be put in place to identify and eliminate the cause, such as providing leadership and/or communication coaching to a manager identified as a bully.

In the past it has been up to the aggrieved employee to prove that they have been bullied. Now the focus is on employers proving that they had taken all practicable steps to prevent it.

Sutton warns that legal sanctions now apply because workplace bullying is a criminal procedure under the Health and Safety in Employment Act, which carries potential penalties for employers and management of up to a $500,000 fine and up to two years imprisonment.  

The penalties for failing to prevent bullying will become even heavier once the proposed Health and Safety Reform Bill becomes law (most likely in April next year). Under that proposed Act, maximum fines will rise to a maximum of $3 million for a health and safety breach such as bullying and up to two years imprisonment. Boards and senior managers will be held to account for failing to be aware of and resource appropriate management of bullying, including monitoring and reporting.  

“Once this bill becomes law, employees will be able to take a personal grievance on both health and safety, and employment relations grounds.  

Sutton says employers can take the following steps to help eliminate workplace bullying:

 

1. Undertake analysis to identify bullying risks and causes, and then develop a long-term strategy to eliminate identified risks. Monitor and regularly evaluate the strategy, and review or realign aspects that are not gaining the desired results.

2. Develop anti-bullying policies, processes and procedures that have clear bullying elimination accountabilities for employees at all levels. 

3. Train leaders and managers how to recognise and deal with bullying.

4. Support leaders and managers to become more self aware of inappropriate behaviours.

5. Ensure spoken and written communication engenders a positive workplace culture.  

6. Treat workplace bullying as a hazard and record all incidents in the hazard and thoroughly investigate all bullying incidents to identify the root cause.

7. Increase communication about how bullying is unacceptable, and provide employees with simple and easily understood information about what to do if they are being bullied.    

 

He notes that actively striving to eliminate bullying achieves more than simply avoiding legal action; it can make employees happier and more engaged in their work, increase productivity, decrease absenteeism, improve employee relations and most importantly reduce the risk of harm to employees.   

“These factors alone make it well worth the time and effort involved in treating bullying as a health and safety issue.”

 

 

Research shows that New Zealand has greater rates of reported workplace bullying than many other countries. 

WorkSafe defines bullying as “repeated behaviour which is unreasonable and creates a risk to health and safety” and typically take the form of intimidation, belittling remarks, ignoring and/or excluding the target, and setting the target up to fail.  

Bullying can be devastating for those on the receiving end, with common outcomes including decreased ability to cope at work, increased absenteeism and staff turnover, increased risk of health and safety incidents, and decreased productivity.

Research conducted by WorkSafe's Australian equivalent suggests bullying costs Australia billions of dollars a year and there are likely to be a similar level of costs, relative to our population, here.