University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

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By LAUREN NEWKIRK MAYNARD

Published: May 3, 2010

With campus demand high for information about bullying—a hot-button topic affecting people and productivity at organizations throughout the country—UB’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) last week presented a one-hour workshop on the topic.

The seminar, Bullying: Confronting Hostility in the Workplace,” drew a record number of registrants, EAP officials said, with approximately 60 attendees from schools and units across the university. It was developed by the Work-Life Services unit in the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations, and is part of the NYS Balance program, a negotiated benefit for all state employees that offers a variety of worklife-balance resources and referrals.

The goal of the workshop was to help attendees better identify bullying in the workplace, and provide specific ways that employees and managers can work together to mitigate its effects. Although the session was geared toward office situations, several participants brought up the topics of bullying between students, and between students and teachers during the question-and-answer periods.

Presenter Brande Newsome, a social worker and sexual assault response coordinator for the 914th Airlift Wing at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, has “worked on either side of the coin” in human resources and employee assistance capacities. Bullying, she says, is first and foremost about power and control.

She defined bullying as “groups or individuals engaging repeatedly in unreasonable actions with the intention to intimidate.” Examples she cited included threatening an individual’s work status, public humiliation, making inappropriate references to age or gender, spreading untrue accusations, withholding important information or setting individuals up to fail in their job responsibilities.

Acts of bullying can be overt or covert (passive-aggressive) and can include non-verbal forms of communication, which account for 85 to 90 percent of our social interactions, Newsome said.

She noted that bullying and other types of intimidation affect employees mentally and even physically. Stress and anxiety from inter-personal conflicts at work have been shown to increase rates of depression, lack of self-esteem and anxiety-related health conditions that result in increased absenteeism and lost productivity, she said.

Many of the examples of bullying Newsome described during her presentation came from her own experiences on the job.

In one example, someone she worked with took an aggressive posture with her after a meeting, standing over her and “spewing” threatening, insulting and unprovoked language.

Newsome explained that she diffused the situation by staying calm and “not fighting fire with fire, which almost never produces a positive outcome.” Instead, she took a deep breath and asked her coworker, “Are you alright?” The woman burst into tears and later apologized, proving Newsome’s point that, in many cases, bullying is not about who is being bullied, but the bullies themselves.

She noted that a bully can take many forms; it can be an individual who is in a position of power, or an entire group or organization. A key distinction between bullying and harassment, she said, is that harassment is a legal term reserved for intimidation of an individual or group’s protected status, including gender, race and religion. Bullying does not discriminate.

An intimidated worker must keep in mind that feeling powerless is natural, Newsome added, but that “we all do have some power, no matter what our job status.”

She also stressed the importance of identifying whether or not a situation is actually a case of bullying. A common misperception by employees receiving feedback—especially if they have changed positions, jobs or careers, or are being evaluated for the first time—is that they are being bullied if they are told they must improve their performance.

“A tough but fair supervisor who gives clear expectations and regular feedback is not a bully,” Newsome says.

The workshop outlined steps for employers or supervisors to take when intervening in cases of bullying. An organization must act quickly and fairly to investigate the case, identify the inappropriate behavior and follow up after action has been taken to mitigate further risk.

For the bullied employee looking for relief or an employer responsible for reducing risk factors, documenting incidents of bullying is crucial in order to establish patterns of behavior. Organizations should develop policies that are tailored to their business and employees’ needs, and review them regularly. Bullied employees should see their supervisor as soon as possible or contact their human resources office for further assistance.

Interest in the problem of bullying in the workplace has been building across the university. “My first day on the job, I got three calls about it,” noted Deborah Hard, director of EAP, adding that bullying received a top vote from EAP’s advisory board when it was trying to determine new employee assistance programming. The Buffalo Center Chapter of United University Professions, possibly in conjunction with other local UUP chapters, expects to sponsor a bullying seminar within the next few months. And a university-wide workplace violence prevention policy is being developed that includes language about bullying, according to Donna Scuto, assistant vice president for policy and internal control.

Other offices and units at UB, in addition to EAP, can assist employees dealing with bullying, harassment and other inter-personal issues, including University Human Resources, Employee Relations, UB-affiliated unions, the University Police Department and the Office of Equity, Diversity and Affirmative Action Administration.