Bullying and harassment is behaviour that makes someone feel intimidated or offended. Harassment is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010.
Bullying and harassment are common problems affecting many workers and it can make working life miserable. You can lose all faith in yourself, feel ill and depressed, and find it hard to motivate yourself to work.
Both bullying and harassment are unacceptable, and the law makes it clear that all employees have the right to work in a safe environment.
Examples of bullying or harassing behaviour include:
-spreading malicious rumours
-unfair treatment
-picking on or regularly undermining someone
-denying someone’s training or promotion opportunities
Bullying and harassment can happen:
-face-to-face
-by letter
-by email
-by phone
-on social media
What is bullying at work?
Bullying is behaviour from a person or group that’s unwanted and makes you feel uncomfortable, including feeling frightened, less respected or put down, made fun of and upset.
Examples of bullying at work could include someone spreading a false rumour about you, someone repeatedly putting you down in meetings, not being allowed to go on training courses but everyone else are, being given heavier workloads than everyone else or your team never lets you join social events. The bullying might be a regular pattern of behaviour or a one-off incident; it can happen face-to-face, on social media, in emails, over the phone, at work or at work social events. Bullying cannot be always obvious or noticed by others.
Cyber bullying and Social Media
Cyber bullying can sometimes be difficult to spot as the victim may not be even aware of the posts on social media, while some of the colleagues have seen them but choose to say nothing leading to the victim sensing the difference in their co-workers behaviour and feeling uncomfortable not really knowing why. Or on the other hand, the bully could post a comment or a social media post with the full intention that the victim will see it and will feel intimidated by it. Such actions can lead to victim feeling isolated, affect their performance at work and affect their mental health.
Remember, messages can often be interpreted differently by different people.
What is harassment?
By law bullying itself is not against the law, but harassment is. Harassment is covered by Section 26 of the Equality Act 2010. This is when the unwanted behaviour is related to one of the following:
-age
-sex
-disability
-gender reassignment
-marriage and civil partnership
-pregnancy and maternity
-race
-religion or belief
-sexual orientation
Pregnancy and maternity are different from the other protected characteristics, in how the law on harassment treats them.
For it to count as harassment, the unwanted behaviour must have either:
-violated the person’s dignity, whether it was intended or not
-created a hostile environment for the person, whether it was intended or not
For example, a group of men at work keep making offensive comments about a team member’s age. This is making them feel humiliated and anxious about coming to work. This is likely to be harassment because of the team member’s age.
What should you do if you are bullied or harassed?
See if you can sort out the problem informally first. In some cases, the person upsetting you might not realise the effect of their actions so you can try talking with them, if you feel you can. It’s a good idea to try and explain how their behaviour makes you feel. When talking to the person in question be firm and polite, not aggressive and stick to the facts.
It’s also a good idea to keep a diary or record of the bullying, including notes of how the bullying made you feel, dates and times it happened, any witnesses or any evidence, for example emails or screenshots of social media post.
If you do not feel comfortable talking to the person face to face, you could put this in an email or talk with someone at work you feel comfortable with.
If not, you should speak to:
• manager
• human resources (HR) department
• trade union representative
If this does not work, you can make a formal complaint using the employer’s grievance procedure.
If nothing is done to put things right and you’re still being harassed, you can consider legal action at an employment tribunal
(Please visit https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunals for more information)
You can also call the Acas (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) helpline for advice:
Acas helpline (Charges may apply, please visit https://www.gov.uk/call-charges for more information)
Telephone: 0300 123 1100
Textphone: 18001 0300 123 1100
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm
Being victimised
‘Victimisation’ is being treated unfairly because you made or supported a complaint to do with a ‘protected characteristic’, or someone thinks you did.
Protected characteristics under the law are:
-age
-disability
-gender reassignment
-marriage and civil partnership
-pregnancy and maternity
-race
-religion or belief
-sex
-sexual orientation
For example, your colleague makes a harassment claim against your boss. After you give evidence as a witness to support their claim, your boss starts treating you unfairly.
By law, you must not be treated unfairly at work through: discrimination, harassment or victimisation
Used links:
GOV.UK- Workplace Bullying and Harassment https://www.gov.uk/workplace-bullying-and-harassment
ACAS- If you’re treated unfairly at work https://www.acas.org.uk/if-youre-treated-unfairly-at-work/being-bullied
Citizens Advice- If you’re being harassed or bullied at work https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/discrimination-at-work/checking-if-its-discrimination/if-youre-being-harassed-or-bullied-at-work/
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