WHY WORKPLACE BULLYING INVESTIGATIONS ARE INEFFECTIVE! THE ACAS GUIDE TO BULLYING AND HARASSMENT 

As mentioned in the video Cherie, there's a clear distinction between bullying and harassment so for example if it were to fit with your example of abuse on the basis of being a woman, a minority, disabled etc. then that would be within the remit of discrimination and harassment. Without a reference to /criticism on the basis of any of the protected characteristics however - and therefore an intention to identify the behaviours as bullying rather than harassment, there would be no basis on which it could go to court, nor would it be likely that any internal investigation would come to a clear decision, leading to frustration for all involved whether the person alleging bullying, the person accused or the person(s) investigating. It is ultimately an ineffective approach to use investigations into bullying and will always be while bullying allegations are responded to in the same way as harassment because the latter is legally defined and can be witnessed and evidenced, bullying is not objectively defined in law and is subjectively experienced and perceived so even while the behaviours involved are stressful, abusive, damaging to team morale and more, it is almost certain there will not be a conclusive outcome to an investigation into bullying.... as the video outlines, even in a situation where a more formal structure was put in place to do so in Australia there were only 3 cases out of 701 where a clear outcome was achieved. See this follow up video about situations where allegations of workplace bullying have been resolved... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--cGhkXFAuFo.html

It's so hard to get real details when you've got two team leaders Covert workplace bullying you to all new employees, spreading gossip to demean and defame you and elevate their status, and its gone on for 17 + years , and turned into community bullying. .

Hi @Cindy Buchanan- thanks for the comment - yep as a mediator I don't hold the label 'bully' or 'victim' when providing the process as it would mean I'm taking a partial stance, and so my role wouldn't be to 'change the bully' as that would also come from a partial pre-judgement of the person as 'guilty until proven innocent'. My role is to give two or more people the space to discuss the particular issues of concern with the stated commitment by them to try to create a resolution, rather than focus on whether the behaviour is 'bullying' or not. As the video details, it is that adversarial, investigative process that becomes a fruitless distraction from dealing with the actual issues involved and rarely does any useful conclusion come from that approach, leaving all dissatisfied - and by 'rarely' I would be inclined to say 'almost never' it is so rare. You mention one-to-many conflicts and where I've provided group mediations where one person is deemed at the start to be a 'bully' and that to be a significant factor in the dispute, it has, without exception been that out of perhaps 12 people involved, there would be around 4 who see the person as a bully, 4 who just wish all the others would 'get over it and move on because they just want to come in, do their job and go home' and 4 who see others as bullies towards the 'alleged' bully. Obviously it may be 3 or 5 but it's roughly a 3 way split. None of this is accepting or glossing over inappropriate behaviours because they get addressed directly by those personaly affected, unlike most adversarial approaches which will often be between 'representatives'....'about' the alleged behaviour rather than directly between the people involved so it is a more 'in your face' discussion about it but with their stated commitment to trying to resolve it if they are going to take part in the joint meeting to do so.

@@CommunicationandConflict thank you for that well thought out reply. I agree, with 12 people involved, you can probably find 12 totally different accounts of what happened and views on it. Resolution makes more sense than labeling. It’s a very tricky and sticky situation no matter which way your coming at it. It’s often hard to separate bad behavior from the person and a label is convenient. Stress, lack of skills or training, or sometimes people get full of themselves and need reigning in. Probably a million possibilities but to those on the receiving end feel hurt and angry and want something done.

@@cindybuchanan2218 Yep, in.any conflict situation, the use of labels for the person(s) rather than discussion of the actions and behaviours themselves, or the challenge being faced, perhaps about a project or planned action, distracts from that discussion. Instead people focus on defending themselves agains the label rather than discuss the action or behaviour about which the label has been applied. I'm guessing that you will have seen that when the label 'bully' appears in a workplace dispute, pretty much everything shuts down and discussion of the issues being dealt with at work are set aside while 'formal procedures' come into play. Those involved are kept apart, possibly allocated to different roles, a senior staff member is involved to 'investigate' whether the label 'bully' applies. Meanwhile the activities that people turn up for at work are distracted from and various other inconveniences occur. This isn't about suggesting that the behaviour/relationship issues should be ignored, but to spend the effort proving/disproving whether the label 'bully' is accurate or not, doesn't actually resolve the situation, which is more effectively dealt with by seeking to support a re-establishment of the relationship(s). This video says more about that aspect of things... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--cGhkXFAuFo.html Thanks again for the comment! Great to have the interactions on the topics being addressed and if of interest, please connect on linkedin at the link in the 'information' section.

@@CommunicationandConflict if you’re the target of the bully and everyone else gets the nice version it’s even more painful; another layer of exclusion. And the ultimate power move. The only way to deal with a bully that will only ever find more covert ways to bully is to leave. It’s not fair. It’s life. Try to work remotely. Or minimise time in the office. Keep your head down, do your job and keep everyone at a professional distance.

@@pettali5007 Yep, each person creates their own way of dealing with it....whether it works or not for them, but the main issue that rarely gets anywhere (and never in my experience but I'm not 'omniscient' only able to base on my own observations) is to focus on 'proving' someone is a 'bully' as the ambiguous interpretation of the word and the subjective experience of it means nothing conclusive is achieved......but that failure to achieve is 'blamed' on those investigating rather than recognise that subjectivity in the first place (and always note, I am NOT referring to harassment which is often conflated with bullying as outlined in the video)..Meanwhile, creating actions and decisions for how to deal with and improve the situation are put on hold, particularly by the person pursuing that proof and their lives can become a journey down into despair and frustration while other important, pleasurable, nourishing parts of their lives are also set aside in that 'quest'.

So obviously I was stuck in this job with him finding minor things to start disciplinaries over and increasingly making stuff up, the nadir was reached when he threatened to throw acid over me and I asked my union if I could take in a tape recorder in and they said no as it was against company policy to have recording devices. He then started one more disciplinary. This time for a split piece of pump tubing on a multipump on a fluridometer. His case being that I had damaged it negligently and of course I got yet another verbal warning, when the reality was, I had not been negligent it could well have been that the last person that set it up had accidentally cross threaded it or that it was simply wear and tear or even simply a manufacturing fault. So I started a grievance proceeding. The outcome. They simply said that it was a personality clash and they moved the guy to the next lab but put him in charge of both labs, so he just got his deputy to do his bidding. Until one day something was made up that was serious enough to get me fired. The only other way out was to resign without a job to go on to and no welfare benefits, some people who lived with parents or partners with good jobs did this and got a reference by doing voluntary work for charities. I was out of the door with nothing, so obviously I tried to get the union to fight my case, but as it was bullying the best they could do was get me my outstanding wages plus holiday pay plus a month's notice money and a neutral reference in exchange for signing a non disclosure agreement. About three and a half years down the line, the company found out what the guy was like. He was not like this with just me, other people suffered under him too. His section of the lab therefore had a much higher sickness absence rate, higher staff turnover and a lot of visits from HR carrying out disciplinary proceedings. Problem is with staff turnover is finding people with lab skills or training them up and having the staff to train them amongst current employees whilst keeping up the work flow rate up, this is stressful for staff and leads to further attrition rates affecting staff that are not directly bullied. One woman in one year had a total of 56 disciplinaries, I am sorry but HR really should have figured out that there was something going wrong with this guy way before they took action. In the end they had the daughter of one of the directors pose as a job candidate, she looked very young and he liked them teenaged, probably because he thought they were easier prey. She was sent in with a recording device and it was caught on tape him threatening other people and her and also quite funnily him boasting about how he had lied about other people to get them dismissed. That was the end of him in that workplace. As for after that he wound up working in a chain coffee shop, I can't tell you how tempting it was to go in dressed up and have him make a coffee for me. I didn't, because knowing him he would have spat in it or added a sprinkling of rat poison, although it made me laugh how frequently people used to write reviews of how rude, unfriendly and abrupt he was to customers, no surprise that he no longer works there. I did get my revenge in a way. Unfortunately for him, before I left I got hold of his home address from the accident book. I also knew his daughters name and what she looked like from his endless bragging. When she was about 15 he was always saying that she was the most popular girl at school and that she was top of the class for everything. Now I had worked in an Oxbridge university lab and from the way that he was talking I assumed that was where she was heading. Imagine my surprise when a few years later, when I considered getting some personal revenge and I looked him and his daughter up, to discover that she had only passed one GCSE and that was in art. LOL. And her facebook page was full of drunken and drugged up exploits of his delightfully pierced up and tattooed daughter. Now I had a different car so it was not too much trouble get a cheap device and wait outside her home to catch something. And indeed I did, she slew onto the driveway at 2am and staggered out of her car, struggled to open the door of the house. All on film. Quick anonymous call to the police, claimed to be a neighbour who's car had previously been hit only wanting to put a stop to the drunken antics. Two police officers show up, one puts his hand on the car bonnet nods to the other who knocks on the door, I nearly died of laughter when my ex boss answered the door in his boxers, really apt pay back for the number of false call outs I attended. Upshot she was done for being 3 times of the drink drive limit and banned from driving. And he has just been done for harassing a female neighbour who has a previous conviction for assaulting, in fact it came out in court that he had 39 convictions stretching back to 1973. How the hell does a guy with that sort of criminal record and no degree get to be the boss of people that actually know the job and how did he get away with bullying people for so long?

There would be no 'purpose' for any organisation doing so anyway (admitting 'bullying') as it is not an 'objective' label as the video points out. If they did so, the managers would be able to say 'prove it' and that would be just as impossible as it is for those who feel bullied. (I would add here that managers themselves are often inappropriately treated as a consequence of claims of bullying made about them, employees can also act in ways that are vexatious) The difficulty is that there is a belief that alleging or calling someone 'a bully' will lead to a meaningful outcome when there are no structures or legal definitions in place to support that idea. A focus on specific behaviours without trying to put them all in a 'catch all description' of bullying means the relevant an specific issues can be addressed directly rather than be distracted by an attempt to prove it is or isn't 'bullying'. Terrible situations such as the ones you describe lower down can happen but any pursuit of a 'bullying' claim is pretty much purposeless, but that doesn't mean to say other actions can't be taken. In some, mediation can help, in others more provably illegal actions have occurred and so potentially criminal investigation is needed, in others it may be harassment ( clearly distinguished from bullying as described in the video above) and so a legal claim of harassment, if evidence exists, would be appropriate. But a claim of bullying is rarely if ever a useful pursuit and yet it is so often what people default to. There are so many other options....and that may even include simply leaving the organisation but it doesn't always have to default to that. I think that many large organisations in particular have simply 'costed in' an expectation of a certain level of legal and other costs such as HR time, arising from workplace relationship breakdowns of whatever level of severity that may be, and so it is difficult to recognise a profit threat because it is seen as an intrinsic cost and is rarely if ever reconsidered. There is, of course, also the impact on morale and collaboration that is almost impossible to quantify in terms of bottom line consequences. Thanks for your comments.

@@CommunicationandConflict To be honest, while some aspects of bullying are subjective, others are not. It is pretty clear if someone is getting the same pay as someone else on the same pay grade but they are working many hours unpaid every week in comparison that, that individual is either being overloaded with work or they have not been trained correctly, because who is willingly stays at work unpaid every evening? It is pretty clear if someone is being subjected to repeated disciplinary proceedings about very trivial things that most people would be given the benefit of the doubt about, that, that is likely to be bullying. The prime example of that is the tubing splitting on the flurometer, why would anyone think that such an incidence was negligence is beyond me, it is way more likely to be caused by wear and tear or a manufacturing fault. The simple proof for this is why would anyone do or neglect to do something that would cause a problem that would make their day longer unless they were being paid overtime? I was not being paid any money whatsoever for any hours that were in excess of the contracted hours, so replacing the tubing plus calibration plus repeating all of the affected samples added another 2 hours to my day. I even managed to get another disciplinary warning for discussing with work colleagues what was going on in a particular disciplinary, I needed to do this in case there were witnesses. Apparently, it was seen as damaging morale, funny thing is disciplining people who are guilty of pretty much nothing out of line isn't seen as damaging to morale, just other workers finding out about it. It just got me that a manager who runs a team of 20 people is having disciplinary hearings on at least a weekly basis and quite frequently more. If I was HR and I could see that together with the woman who had 56 disciplinary warnings in one year, I would wonder what the hell that manager was doing. It would not make me think that he was efficient, I would start to look closely into why this was happening so regularly.

@@439bananas Honestly I can't really respond to what you say about the events around. your particular situation as I obviously don't understand about fluorometers and tubing splits etc. but with respect to bullying and subjectivity, it can only be subjective as there's no legal definition to use to come to an 'objective' and witnessed conclusion. Harassment has a legal definition and is much easier to identify as it has negative reference to a protected characteristic and once that is included in the actions or words in a given situation and that is evidenced, it is much easier to. pursue legally. Bullying can't ever be pursued legally as it's not defined in law so that's what I mean by subjective. Many may see an experience as bullying, many others won't. The main point of the video being that whatever the situation, alleging bullying, pursuing it via investigation is not going to lead to a useful and conclusive outcome for the reasons given so for most people it will be better to consider other options.

@mcdonald2037 yep, if there's no clear evidence then it is rightly so that the case is dropped. In fact if it was an allegation of bullying it would be more likely to last a lot longer as proving it is or isn't is so confusing, but with harassment it is more straightforward to prove, or disprove as it has clear criteria by which it can be assessed while bullying doesn't.

Thanks Oksana, glad you found it insightful, I think the 'over-expectation' of bullying investigations to fix such situations when they are rarely if ever likely to is a repeated source of frustration for many. Time for other approaches to be used.

@@CommunicationandConflict I agree

No problem @Sarah Richardson ...while investigations may be necessary so that it is 'seen to be done' I think it's useful to be realistic from all angles about the reality of any outcome being conclusive and so to recognise there are other options, rather than to place too much dependence on the investigation. Where people do consider other options, even while an investigation may still occur, they are much more likely to have at least a damage-reduced outcome to their situation and sometimes even a restored relationship and way forward, through processes such as mediation and conflict coaching, for example, but sometimes just from their own choices about a different way forward than 'just' via an investigation and the disappointment and frustration that will lead to.

@@CommunicationandConflict thanks. I'm watching the Psychological Safety at Work video. 👍

@@sarahrichardson3452 Great, please let me know there what you think of it.

Hi Iris thanks for your comment. it's interesting how often some who hear this review suggest the video content means 'copping out' of dealing with 'bullies' rather than simply acknowledging that the pursuit of proving the label applies is an ineffective distraction from getting on with supporting an improvement in the working relationship while not ignoring any statutory or conduct breaches. I'm not sure what you meant by watching videos on alternative options...? Could you clarify and I'll do my best to make it happen. If you mean to share it then hopefully the share button will give you options for sending it elsewhere but if you mean something else please let me know.

I think the perception of bullying will almost always be because of personal reasons @Aj Hill but yes you're right it may not always be possible to use mediation if one or both people don't wish to do so.

Defenetly. But the problem lies in if 2 people have to work in the same place u can't sack one person because the other team member has taken a dislike. The problem lies in why is there a conflict and 9 times out of 10 its down to misconduct that carrys on being ignored. So how do u resolve it fairly without wrongly sacking on repremanding.

@@ajhill7525 It's much easier to sack someone if there's clear evidence of actual misconduct or even criminal activity. However in many allegations of bullying, people might describe someone's behaviour as 'misconduct' when it doesn't fall within that category via a definition of that term within the organisation's policies. It's one of the difficulties with talking about 'bullying and harassment' in the same phrase as discussed in the video. Many people may see someone's behaviour as 'bullying' but it will never be possible to conclusively 'prove' that as it's impossible to evidence it against the characterisation used, and just as easy to counter claim the same in the other person's behaviour in response. But with harassment that is much more clearly evidenced, the problem then becomes whether those managing the situation are aware of the important distinction and the organisation's policies reflect that clear distinction rather than treat 'bullying and harassment' as much the same thing. From my own perspective of working with bullying allegation situations in workplaces I'd say the 9 out of 10 is in the other direction, most do not involve any officially defined 'misconduct' but they do involve broken human relationships arising from language and communication challenges and assumptions about others that don't get a chance to be reflected on and so 'war' ensues and often escalates, but very rarely is it actually any breach of legislation. It's people falling out and not having an opportunity to resolve or 'heal' the relationship such that it can return to being an effective working relationship even if not a personally 'amicable' one.

Thanks @Shrimp Man hope it was useful for you.

@@CommunicationandConflict hi it was extremely useful. You have a very pragmatic way of looking at this topic. Your channel deserves more subs and views. Have subbed

@@shrimpman8422 That's very kind of you to say. I haven't put many videos out in a while but hope to start doing more in the near future. I think this topic and the issues raised in the video are significant in many of the issues around discrimination not being dealt with effectively in many workplaces so hope to do one on that fairly soon as well.

@Cobra427Veight thanks for the comment. And how is the situation being dealt with? Via an investigation or by other means?

I recently used my union guy and he talked to the manager above my manager , because I had been discriminated quite badly about 10 years ago from the management and office , but these two team leaders have been repeatedly over 17 years been , de meaning and defaming me to new employees, "covertly" pretty sure there has been belittling talk as well , it's easy to pick up from what other workers say, and easy to read body language when they stabbed you in the back again , I need to decide , maybe with legal help what to do about it , it is not healthy on the brain , but its a real catch 22 , want to expose them but that exposes me more and sort of want other employees to be aware of workplace bullying and the other types of bullying as well, too much anxiety and some depression has been bad for me , I would feel better knowing that the company took it more seriously and they have put the company in a bad position all because of their gossip and loving to degrade me . Thanks

Exactly Roundtuit (Nancy) - even if mediation is available 'in parallel' to the other processes it still provides a more practical and useful alternative to an investigation which is arduous, stressful, lengthy and rarely, if ever, conclusive. It is a puzzlement to me that there is so often a need for bullying to be 'proven' before other support is provided (and because it is rarely proven that support does not occur). It's rarely if ever a conspiracy as many will suggest, I think it is something about just 'following procedure' but the question has to return to....why that particular form of procedure when if mediation and/or conflict coaching are available alongside rather than 'after', or even 'before' any investigation is offered, it gives choices to participants and a sense of practical support being offered and actively engages them in resolution of the issue rather than render them passive and powerless while an investigation ensues.

@@CommunicationandConflict Mediation/Conflict Coaching helps people move from victim to taking control of their situation. As one workplace participant put it "I can now move on rather than sitting back and waiting for it to be fixed.

@@roundtuit1678 Fantastic and exactly so! Move from victim to taking control. For me that's about 3 underlying philosophies of mediation and conflict coaching that we adopt an (1)'adult-adult relationship with clients' that both believes and expects that people can create their own resolutions and it (2) 'supports empowerment' through enabling people to take (3) 'ownership' of their situation. Thanks again for the comment!

Yep, to me what you say about harassment is because of the unchallenged and unquestioned practice of always speaking of 'bullyingandharassment' as if it is one and the same. This then overpromises on bullying...but underdelivers on harassment as it is not recognised and acknowledged as a much more clearly evidenced issue and so the illegal aspect of harassment is not distilled out from the situation. Many such situations are not 'triaged' to ensure first of all that there is not evidence of harassment and then, if none, then a more relationship supporting approach such as mediation or conflict coaching to support reparation of the work relationship can be offered. If harassment evidence is 'sifted out' first of all then appropriate legal and/or other disciplinary action can be taken...and even if in such cases the identified victim wishes to, they may choose to also participate in mediation, but this is also why the mediation process must always be voluntary otherwise it risks undermining their statutory right to pursuing legal justice.

@@CommunicationandConflictas an employee you’re stuffed. I have only raised one eg harassment. I could have gone to a tribunal. I didn’t want to put myself through that. More recently I experienced both bullying and harrasment. The hiring manager was on 2 months sick leave when I came into post because of the situation he recruited me into without telling me. Even then I was stuffed. He’d declared it a sabbatical. His colleagues and his manager told me what really happened in his absence. My experience was worse because I was a woman dealing with the same male bully. Honestly. I’m decades into my career. Very occasionally it can be proven such as multi million bankers settlements on harassment. They have the resource to fight it and often raise it towards the end of their careers where not getting hired again won’t be an issue. It’s bleak. No matter the injustice, it isn’t worth trying to address it or reason or agonise over what has happened. School bullying is simply occurring except it’s in a workplace. It’s life. As an adult you can walk away. If it ever happens to me again I will resign immediately.

@@CommunicationandConflict also, if the employer won’t engage in conciliation it can’t go ahead. If the bullying and/ or harassment occur - because both can occur - to a point you are forced to resign, it’s even worse. Especially if it’s during a 3 or 6 month probation period. I’ve seen people “resolve” things internally. Their time is marked, they almost always end up leaving or taking a sideways move to a different team etc. it’s seen as a weakness.

@@pettali5007 Back to what you said in other comment....looking after number 1 is actually best in the long term and if more felt able to do so, it would lead to sooner change than is happening. I think in many large organisations it is 'costed -in' that such situations will occur and while that costing can be enormous, it allows for a mechanisation of the process without actually dealing with it. I find it hard to buy in to the kind of 'global conspiracy' view on it that some have as if all people who become managers get inducted into the 'gaslight and obstruct' order, I think most just don't have a clue how to do otherwise than their policies tell them and because they are, themselves at a loss, they inevitably can become defensive and avoiding of looking at the actual issues....they have their productivity targets to achieve but no one to help them with this 'distraction' so having the 'pass it on to legal' approach becomes the norm. It's the system that is fundamentally flawed but is often just accepted as 'the way of things'. Even by organisations such as ACAS as I referred to in the video. Thanks again. Stay well.

@@pettali5007 Absolutely....it's based on a 'parent/naughty child' view of employees who challenge but again it's because there isn't an ethos in such organisations...or sometimes just sections within it...of recognising how communication and conflict resolution are intrinsic to effectiveness, only a concern with the technical, procedural aspects. I would add however that those accused of bullying can themselves often be moved to other roles that in time then lead to constructive dismissal claims so the allegation rarely works 'for' those accused any more than it does for the person alleging. Because I'm a mediator I get to see and discuss in a fair level of depth both 'sides' in the situation and ultimately the personal outcomes for all involved can be painful and long term and in such situations the 'inhuman' organisational structural response is to avoid dealing with it and just set a path for those involved to leave (suspension, leading to stress leave, leading to termination, leading to legal claim, tribunal etc.) This is why again, I'd say your approach of looking after number 1 is best for all involved because it shows an insight and understanding of the 'best' or perhaps least worst way forward and those willing to 'go there' in their self support are often the best people to HAVE in the organisations so long term it's what means the organisation has to look at its approach in order to keep staff.