Being Bullied At Work

How widespread is bullying in the workplace? A total of 65.6 million people have been affected by workplace bullying based on surveys conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute. One in three employees experienced bullying at some point in their working lives.

If you are one of those employees please describe how you were bullied and how you handled it. How might your experience help another bullied employee? Workplace bullying has been called a “silent epidemic”. What can and should be done to bring this epidemic to light so it can be appropriately addressed and banished?

An estimated 50 percent of bullies who have been bullied at home by one or both of their parents and/or one or more siblings are the bullies in our schools. Unless there is early intervention many of these schoolyard bullies will become workplace bullies. Discuss how this continuum of bullying behavior can and should be eliminated.

The costs to businesses and professional organizations are well documented in the areas of absenteeism, depressed morale, decreased productivity, increased benefit costs, increased accident risk, poor customer service, and lack of employee continuity. Discuss what can be done to address these very serious problems.