How to prevent bullying in the workplace

Life isn’t always plain sailing and as leaders or business owners we can sometimes see unhappiness and unrest within our teams. How can we avoid these situations and create a positive environment for employees to thrive in?

1. Champion open and honest communication.

This helps to provide a more comfortable environment for everyone and can also be a huge point of growth for managers, as it makes them more confident when dealing with conflict and difficult situations.

2. Have clear policies.

Be clear about your stance on bullying, what behaviours are unacceptable and how incidents will be dealt with. As well as the possible consequences if someone is found to be bullying. This should be communicated to all employees, including managers.

3. Awareness training.

Help to make everyone aware of what constitutes bullying behaviours, as well as what to do if they know it’s happening around them – everyone should feel comfortable to speak up or know who to go to if they suspect something isn’t right. Likewise, coaching and mentoring training may be suitable to help managers focus on interpersonal relationships and to diffuse any potential problems before they arise.

4. Be a collective.

Overall it’s important is that everyone within the business is on the same page when it comes to bullying. Managers need to be confident in dealing with issues, and employees need to feel confident that managers will act appropriately (if that belief isn’t there, it makes it far less likely that problems will be reported in the first place).

Even if you’ve worked tirelessly to create a culture where bullying isn’t tolerated, it’s possible that there will come a time when you receive a complaint of bullying in your business. It may be due to new hires, fractious relationships, or a shift in dynamics, for example, but what’s important is that your employees all know how to raise a complaint, who they go to, and that they feel confident in doing so.

We’ve all worked for a bad manager at some point in our lives… it happens! Situations like these can, unfortunately, cause teams to disengage, feel stressed, and become unmotivated.

Don’t worry though these situations can be fixed if you act quickly, identify the problem behaviour and arrange training, support or coaching that will help correct the issue.

If you feel like you ever need support in situations like this, we can help! Give us a call…