Bullying at Work

Workplace bullying can hurt company's bottom line
BY ANITA BRUZZESE | GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Here's the funny thing about bullying: It doesn't go away when you become an adult.

The not-so-funny truth is that while you may have believed you would not face bullying once you left the schoolyard, it is unfortunately alive and well in workplace cubicles everywhere.

Being a bullying target as an adult also feels much the same as it did as a kid. It's scary and humiliating.

You don't want to tell anyone because you suffer from a mixture of embarrassment, fear and shock. Eventually, you may get stomachaches, lose sleep, pull away from your family and friends and feel very angry, depressed and alone.

Fortunately, researchers like Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik are getting attention from employers worried about this problem. Her message to company brass is clear: Ignore bullies in the workplace, and it will impact your bottom line.

As anyone knows, that's a statement that can get some results.

"The turnover from bullying is horrendous," Lutgen-Sandvik says. "The most valuable employees often leave. So what you end up with is an impoverished workplace - the people who stay are the ones who have no other choice."

That's not exactly the kind of workforce a company needs to compete successfully in today's global marketplace.

That's why more managers are listening to people like Lutgen-Sandvik, an assistant professor of communication at the University of New Mexico and an expert in workplace bullying.

"The thing about workplace bullying is that it is a lot harder to describe than what happens when you're a kid," she says. "It's more politically masked, more subtle."

Many characteristics for bullies are still the same, however. In the workplace these people seek to isolate their targets, to make them ineffective by bullying them into submission.

Further, while we may have been counseled to stand up to bullies when we were younger, many adults in the workplace take just the opposite tactic and leave.

This practice is intended to send a "message" to higher-ups, to punish the organization for letting bullying take place. Lutgen-Sandvik says people quit to show their frustration and their anger at management, and those left behind hold it up as an example that there is "something very wrong in the organization."