Why going to HR generally doesn't help targets of workplace abuse
Targets of workplace abuse have told me that when they reported their experiences to Human Resources, the workplace abuse generally got worse. Advocates said:
HR is there to protect a company's legal interests, not the worker. As soon as a you go to HR [about workplace abuse], you can expect things to get worse because you have just given them notice they need to get their ducks in a row and get rid of you so you can't document anymore. It's better to quietly go to an employment lawyer who will tell you if you have a case, tell you how to document, and act as your advocate when you have a viable case.
HR gets their paycheck from the company, not you. They are not your advocate.
Going to Human Resources can be as effective as doing nothing, if not worse.
It is important to note that many HR professionals are targets of workplace abuse themselves.
What do you do instead? Advocates most commonly reported that leaving the organization was the most effective (and often the...
Signs your toxic boss is subtly destroying your life
Work culture is top-down. So if those at the top believe passive-aggressive behaviors will help weed out bad employees, then you're at the mercy of abusive bosses who master the art of subtle abuse. And subtle abuse gets rewarded. "Research by the University of Buffalo School of Management finds that ... those who engage in harassment typically receive excellent reviews from their own supervisors and are exceptional at climbing the corporate ladder," says Glynis Sweeny in her Alternet article "8 traits of toxic managers."
The problem is that at best, you're left feeling shamed, isolated, drained, and fearful of losing your job. At worst, your abusive boss ruins your career, makes you question your value at work, and takes a toll on your personal life and health, leaving you with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
Sweeny points to these eight cues that you have an abusive boss:
1. They don’t give constructive feedback. Good managers want you to...
What to do — and not do — if you're abused at work
Targets who stood up to workplace abuse, even with plenty of documentation, reported outcomes they said "weren't worth it":
- Thousands of dollars in legal fees
- Mental and emotional exhaustion
- Health problems: sleeplessness, anxiety, and chest pains
- Bad effects on family and other personal relationships
- Take medical leave
- See a therapist
How businesses lose when they keep a bully on payroll
- Employees lose trust in employers who protect abusers. When they lose trust, their morale and productivity go down.
- Productivity also decreases when great employees focus on fear of more abuse.
- Employees lose money from absenteeism and turnover (not the kind that results from employers no longer needing certain skills), which costs organization big bucks in training.
- Since great employees leave their organizations when abused, companies lose employees who would have helped build a better company.
When costs go up for organizations, taxpayers lose, too. Health care costs get externalized, costs that the employer would have been responsible for.
No one wins when managers abuse employees.
Yet another study links workplace abuse to suicides. When is enough enough?
I reported earlier that a Norwegian study revealed that abused targets are twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts than those who were never abused. Pioneer Heinz Leymann estimated that 10 percent of those bullied take their lives.
Researchers defined bullying as harassment, badgering, and freezing out that generally:
- Occurred repeatedly over a period of time.
- Involved two parties in which one had a higher ranking than the other.
It happens so often that there’s now a term for it. “Bullycide” happens when the cause of suicide is attributable to the victim having been bullied.
Now researchers in Australia report similar findings. Australian researchers determined that workplace bullying or harassment was associated with 1.54 greater odds of suicide ideation.
How workplace abuse can lead any of us to suicide (“bullycide”)
Findings show that none of us have a thick enough skin to be exempt from the workplace...
How to spot an abuser early on
Afraid you won't be able to detect an abuser on your next job interview? In his book Bully in Sight: How to Predict, Resist, Challenge, and Combat Workplace Bullying: Overcoming the Silence and Denial by which Abuse Thrives, Tim Field outlines these bully characteristics:
- Cavalier attitude
- Delegation and dumping
- Differing values
- Divided loyalty
- Duplicity
- Envy
- Evasiveness
- Failure mentality
- Fait accompli
- Favoritism
- Focus on the victim
- Frequent moves
- Humorlessness
- Inability to cope with failure
- Inability to plan ahead
- Inconsistency
- Indecision
- Ingratitude
- Insatiability
- Insensitivity
- Insincerity
- Interference
- Imposition
- Jekyll and Hyde persona
- Know-it-all attitude
- Lack of competence
- Lack of contingency planning
- Lack of foresight
- Misrepresentation
- Mood swings
- Need to assert authority
- Negative language
- Opportunism
- Plagiarism
- Poor judgment
- Poor listening skills
- Resoluteness
- Rigidity
- Self-importance
- Selfishness
- Shifting goalposts
- Short-term thinking
- Short-term memory
- Spinelessness
- Steadfast...
Unrealistic responses to targets of workplace abuse
We've all read comments on online workplace abuse articles telling targets to just get a tough skin or a new job — that life is just hard, and abuse on the job is just another problem that we have to deal with.
Experts compare workplace abuse with domestic violence. In the recent past, it was perfectly legal for a husband to beat his wife. Imagine telling a wife to "just leave" or to "toughen up" as her self-esteem worsens but yet she needs to rebuild her life. Doesn't sound simple, does it?
A target of workplace abuse faces a similar problem. As abusers encourage targets who care about their work and organizations to question their abilities, targets feel beaten down and lose confidence to find another job. Even if they do have the strength to find another job, they generally need months to find other work — and endure more abuse during those months. Only those with safety nets (enough savings to cover months of living expenses, a second income through a side hustle or...
The singlemost important thing to remember in trying to end workplace abuse
Those of us who experienced workplace abuse firsthand remember a specific period of time: the window of time after the abuse pattern started when we felt most isolated and before we knew the term "workplace abuse."
Think about that time for a moment.
Remember when you discovered the term. You may have searched online for help and stumbled into the term. You may have read what workplace abuse is and what its effects are on your health. You may even remember exactly where you were when you found the term.
You suddenly felt less alone. You suddenly felt as though you weren't crazy, you weren't imagining what was happening to you, and you were and should have been just as shocked by your experience as your friends and family when you described it to them.
There are thousands of people out there just like you who feel isolated today — people who have no idea that what's happening to them at work isn't their fault. These are the people who would join our base of supporters and...
It's a movement to end workplace abuse
At one point in time, it was normal for women not to vote. But advocacy changed the common way of thinking. It wasn't just a change of law. It was a movement.
While we want workplace abuse legislation passed, we’re also changing the common way of thinking about employees — that employees' mental well-being matters. We're not just saying that a bill needs to pass. We’re moving the needle, each one of us, one by one, to say that mental health matters at work. We’ll look back on this movement and think how absurd it is that workplace abuse is allowed — just as we think not allowing women to vote was absurd.
The vision
Imagine workplaces based on mutual respect, places where people can contribute and feel valued and important, where workplace abuse isn't acceptable, but growth and support are. How do we get there? What might the roadmap look like?
Let's take a look at other social ills: murder, rape, domestic violence. At first we deemed these problems to be...
Study shows prolonged exposure to workplace abuse can lead to suicide – and it can happen to anyone
Researchers have finally found that workplace bullies can drive their targets to suicide. In fact, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health revealed that targets of abuse at work are twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts than those who were never bullied.
Researchers defined bullying as harassment, badgering, and freezing out that:
- Occurred repeatedly over a period of time.
- Involved two parties in which one had a higher ranking than the other.
It happens so often that there’s now a term for it. “Bullycide” happens when the cause of suicide is attributable to the victim having been bullied.
How workplace abuse can lead any of us to suicide (“bullycide”)
Researchers also tested to see if qualities of workplace bullying targets warranted uninvited psychological assaults. They found nothing: zero data to support reason to blame the victim. In other words, targets are not...