What is Workplace Bullying?
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Workplace bullying is defined as “abusive behaviour that creates an intimidating/humiliating work environment with the purpose or effect or harming others’ dignity, safety and well being.
Workplace bullying can attack anyone, in any career, at any level, within any organization, at any time.
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Examples of behaviour, whether intentional or unintentional, that may be considered to be workplace bullying if they are repeated, unreasonable and create a risk to health and safety include, but are not limited to:
- abusive, insulting or offensive language or comments
- unjustified criticism or complaints
- deliberately excluding someone from workplace activities
- withholding information that is vital for effective work performance
- setting unreasonable timelines or constantly changing deadlines
- setting tasks that are unreasonably below or beyond a person’s skill level
- denying access to information, supervision, consultation or resources to the detriment of the worker
- spreading misinformation or malicious rumours
- changing work arrangements, such as rosters and leave, to deliberately inconvenience a particular worker or workers.
Statistics:
- More than one in five people are bullied at work; in some industries, such as health, welfare, education and government and semi–government services, the figure is far higher, ranging from 25%, 50% to 97% (Duncan and Riley study).
- About one in three employees are affected by workplace bullying.
- Bullying places their health, well-being, safety and career at risk, interferes with job performance and creates a toxic working environment.
- The financial cost of workplace bullying to business in Australia is estimated to be between $6 billion and $13 billion a year.
- Between 400,000 and two million Australians will be harassed at work, while 2.5 to 5 million will experience workplace harassment at some time during their career.