Support for Targets of Workplace Bullying and/or Harassment in East Anglia
About Us
This is a new support network and was founded in December 2004 by people who had experienced bullying and/or harassment at work in the East-Anglian region. We have all been victors in our personal fights against bullying and/or harassment and we share our experiences to help others recover from the effects of Bullying and Harassment.
Bullying
The intention of this page is not to reinvent the wheel and repeat information that many other websites already provide, rather, to give you a brief summary and direct you to more detailed websites
Brief description of Bullying behaviour
Essentially bullying is behaviour that a recipient finds unacceptable and is unwanted. It tends to be an accumulation of many small incidents over a long period of time. Each incident tends to be trivial, and on its own and out of context does not constitute an offence or grounds for disciplinary or grievance action, however as a whole they do. Importantly, bullying can be defined as behaviour that would be regarded as bullying by a reasonable person, ie if you described it to a friend, trusted colleague, counsellor or doctor, they would agree that you were being bullied.
- Bullying is intimidation designed to make the target feel threatened and humiliated and to undermine the self-esteem, confidence, competence, effectiveness and integrity of the bully's target.
- Bullying may take place in person or by other forms of communication such as email, phone or text message.
- Bullying takes place between individuals of the same status and different status. It is particularly destructive if the bully is in a position of power over you.
- Bullying may include:
- continual, undeserved criticism, nit-picking and fault-finding;
- belittling, demeaning and patronising remarks (often in front of others);
- imposition of unreasonable or changing deadlines;
- unreasonable demands for perfection;
- refusal to acknowledge you, your contributions and achievements;
- arbitrary and inconsistent demands;
- shouting, swearing and offensive language;
- being humiliated, often in front of others;
- constant interruption in discussion;
- being singled out and treated differently;
- constant attempts to undermine you;
- being isolated, separated from colleagues, excluded from what's going on;
- being overloaded with work;
- having your work taken away and replaced with menial tasks/no work at all;
- finding that your work - and the credit for it - is stolen/plagiarized;
- having your responsibility increased but your authority taken away;
- having annual leave, sickness leave and compassionate leave refused;
- being denied training necessary for you to fulfil your duties;
- having unrealistic goals set, which change as you approach them;
- finding things you say and do are twisted, distorted and misrepresented;
- being subjected to disciplinary procedures for trivial/fabricated reasons and without proper investigation;
- being coerced into leaving through no fault of your own, constructive dismissal, early or ill-health retirement, etc;