Fear and loathing in the workplace

Bay of Plenty District Health Board has just launched a new programme aimed at tackling workplace bullying. Jamie Morton investigates the problem and what the Western Bay's biggest employers are doing about it.
Hadyn Olsen has met some monsters.
The former Bay consultant and leading workplace bullying researcher needs no reminding of the devastating effect workplace bullies can have on their victims, having encountered countless horrific cases - many of them here in the Western Bay.
Some of the victims, or "targets" as consultants refer to them, were left with high blood pressure, skin rashes, migraines, hair loss, panic attacks and depression.
Mr Olsen - the author of two workplace bullying books and the director of Workplaces Against Violence in Employment - knows of at least three cases in New Zealand where workplace bullying has driven victims to take their own lives.
In other cases, once strong and assertive managers were reduced to tragic states where it took years to regain their confidence.
"I've encountered some incredibly cold people who have taken pleasure in demoralising staff. I've even seen situations where the bully has been confronted by the victim in a mediative capacity, and told how their bullying has affected them, but with no penetration whatsoever."
At one Government department, which Mr Olsen could not name, more than eight personal grievances were filed against the same person. The bully remains employed there.
In another case, a female university professor was sacked on the grounds of "performance issues" after a three-year battle against a colleague tormenting her.
But amid the horror, there had been success stories.
One hard-nosed chief executive took the time to change the culture of her entire organisation to turf out one "cancerous" bully. After a year, she was finally in a position to dismiss the bully. By making that simple change, she turned the whole organisation around.
Slowly building an environment that turns organisations against its bullies is the key to combating the problem, he said.
It's all part of the work of another Bay-based expert on the subject, independent training facilitator and occupational therapist Kirsty Connell.
Ms Connell, of Tauranga-based Stress Solutions, helps organisations create bully-free environments by assisting staff and managers to develop strategies to beat bullying at individual, team and organisational levels.
She has left Western Bay organisations with improved reporting rates of bullying, reduced workplace stress, better performance, managers feeling more confident to address the issue with their staff and victims feeling empowered to bring a stop to their bullying.
Ms Connell is now helping Bay of Plenty District Health Board roll out its new programme Taking The Bully By The Horns, which all staff must take part in before the end of the year.
"Workplace bullying in New Zealand workplaces is a very real and costly issue, and one that has a significant impact on individual employees, as well as organisations and businesses," Ms Connell told Bay of Plenty Times Weekend.
"It's also a very complex and challenging issue to manage, and unfortunately it is significantly under-reported - and leaving employment is the most common method of managing bullying."
It was estimated that between 30 and 50 per cent of stress-related incidents in New Zealand workplace happened because of bullying. While bullies were equally male and female, women tended more to be the victims.
Ms Connell believed workplace bullying revolved around the idea of power. The bully might feel they need to compensate for a lack of self-esteem, for feeling threatened, anxious or jealous, or for their own incompetence and inadequacy.
Some bullies also believed they were better than everyone else and wanted to assert their own beliefs, while others needed a scapegoat or a means for gaining promotion, or just simply enjoyed the addictive rush they got from controlling others.
"Chronic bullies develop a pattern of behaviour over time, and bullying becomes their modus operandi to get their needs met - and in some cases become masters of manipulation, lying, and sabotage," she said.
"If a target leaves, research indicates that it will take on average approximately 11 days for the chronic bully to select a new target.
"A collusion of silence culture develops around the bully, which reinforces and protects the bullying - this is where the behaviour is accepted as normal, people are too scared to say anything, so they don't, and the behaviour continues. It's remarkably damaging to team relationships and functioning."
New Zealand reportedly has one of the worst rates in the world, however international comparisons are difficult because of several issues - bullying is significantly under-reported, measurement tools vary between countries, and previous studies have focused on particular occupational groups or cross-sections of employees, so accurate figures aren't available.
But it was known that workplace bullying resulted in absenteeism, presenteeism, reduced productivity, accidents and mistakes, task avoidance, low morale and poor communication.
Bullying also carried potential legal costs and caused significant damage to organisation's reputation.
In Australia, figures estimated one in four workers were bullied - at a cost of $12 to $36 billion per year.
Anti-bullying and harassment policies
Tauranga Chamber of Commerce chief executive Max Mason said that unless quickly resolved, bullying posed a "very negative impact" on workplaces.
"Low morale leading to high labour turnover and lost productivity is a common consequence. Bullying and other forms of workplace conflict get worse when the organisation is struggling or under pressure, such as in a recession."
Mr Mason did not believe Tauranga was worse than anywhere else for bullying "but I do know of incidents where it has occurred locally".
A survey by the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend found different organisations tackled the problem in a variety of ways.
At Tauranga City Council, staff members were trained to act as points of contact for bullying and harassment and often it was their job to try to resolve the issue between the alleged bully and victim.
The council's human resources department took over when a formal complaint was lodged and if the complaint could not be dealt with internally, an Auckland-based consultant had to be brought in.
Chris Woods, the council's safety and well-being adviser, said the outfall of that process usually either ended in resolution or disciplinary action depending on the severity of the complaint.
Western Bay of Plenty District Council had a wide range of policies and procedures to deal with bullying, but staff were encouraged to speak with their managers or supervisors first. The council's human resources department had an open door policy that was often taken up, although the council did not have issues with workplace bullying, council senior human resources manager Mary Forrest said.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council also had a robust anti-bullying and harassment policy and provided regular corporate training for all of its employees.
Bay of Plenty District Health Board had boosted its engagement with staff in recent years, and human resources general manager Gordon Mackay believed this had contributed to a downward trend in bullying since 2007.
"The key from my side is ensuring we are addressing those issues in the organisation that are preventing them from doing our jobs."
In a recent survey completed by 1703 DHB employees, 3 per cent named bullying as the one thing they would like to change.
Last month, a national forum on burnout in the medical profession was told support among doctors was lacking and there was instead a culture of bullying in the country's hospitals, while a major 2009 study by Massey University researchers found high levels of bullying occurred across all parts of the health sector, with several health workers reporting that bullying was "endemic".
Mr Mackay believed there was a combination of factors why the health sector was singled out alongside education and hospitality as at risk areas for bullying, among them the constrained financial environment health workers operated in.
At Tauranga Hospital, workers' first port of call was their manager, and if necessary, complaints were escalated to the human resources manager.
Strengthen the environment

Zespri International's Dignity at Work policy gave workers at the Mount Maunganui-based kiwifruit company a clear path to follow.
Their first step was to complain to alleged bully, requesting that the offensive behaviour stop. If it continued, the employee could seek informal intervention by raising the matter either their manager, the next-level manager or with the manager of the bully.
Failing that, the employee could either approach one of the company's designated harassment officers or the human resources department, or make a detailed written complaint to their manager or to human resources.
Zespri human resources manager Holly Brown said what type of action taken following a complaint depended on the type of harassment and the risk to the complainant and other employees.
If an investigation found a complaint to be justified, the company might attempt to resolve the complaint through mediation or reconciliation between the employees. But if the seriousness or circumstances of the complaint meant mediation was not appropriate, the company could then take formal disciplinary action against the bully - including dismissal.
However, Ms Brown said the policy seemed to be working, and Zespri had received no formal complaints about bullying in her two years there.
It was not just large organisations that bullying plagued - rather, Hadyn Olsen said, it could happen anywhere that allowed it to.
"The antidote is to strengthen the environment, to make it more resilient, and to have that group process where people begin to speak - where they're actually taking charge of the culture and they own it and manage it."
Further information on workplace bullying prevention can be found at Workplaces Against Violence in Employment's website, www.wave.org.nz.