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Legal Worries For Businesses That Ignore Bullying At Work

23/11/2009

By Lea Pachta

Many businesses continue to ignore instances of bullying and harassment in the workplace and have no idea of the legal trouble they could find themselves in by ignoring inappropriate behaviour and language, claims a bullying and harassment expert.

Despite equality and diversity remaining very much on the public agenda, it would seem that many businesses simply don't realise the implications of bullying or harassment under current regulations and are often unsure how to deal with such emotive issues when they do arise, suggests Snéha Khilay, founder of Blue Tulip Training.

"Aside from the fact that organisations are legally bound to deal with bullying and harassment effectively, there is a serious impact for businesses that ignore these problems. Typically staff absenteeism rises as does stress-related illnesses. Coupled with this, productivity across teams falls and with the increased risk of being taken to a tribunal for discrimination, organisations could quickly find themselves in hot water. The problem for many is that they just don't deal with the issues in time to prevent them from escalating," explains Ms. Khilay.

Ms. Khilay believes many organisations have to some extent now become complacent when it comes to equality and diversity and although may have taken steps to avoid the obvious cases, could unintentionally let many smaller but equally damaging cases continue under their radar.
To tackle this, Ms. Khilay believes that using independent investigators or consultants is the best way to explore and tackle bullying and harassment concerns within an organisation, as many employees (including managers) are too scared to speak to internal staff.

"Experience shows that time and time again, people are much more open and at ease speaking to an expert who is independent, about issues related to bullying or equality than they are with a supervisor or internal HR person. They often say they can't speak to their managers or other senior staff through fears of being singled out as a trouble-maker or for being seen as a 'whinger'. For many, they worry that promotion prospects could be affected and so chose to remain silent," reveals Ms. Khilay.

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