Management turns perpetrator as bullying cases soar

As many as seven in ten employees have felt bullied at work with almost half of bullying instigated by management.

The research conducted by Peninsula employment law service shows that bullying has increased significantly since 2003, with 69 per cent of employees saying that they have been exposed to bullying in the workplace, compared to 52 per cent in 2003.

Worryingly, just under half (44 per cent) say the bully is a member of management whilst 56 per cent who have felt victimised say that they were bullied by a work colleague.

Sadly, 62 per cent of those who feel they have been bullied in work say that it has had a detrimental impact on their personal life.

David Price, head of employee relations at Peninsula said he ‘urged’ employers to have a system in place where workers could speak to someone if they felt bullied and said bosses should consider having an Equal Opportunities Policy and an IT policy to prevent cyber bullying.

“When talking to employees it is apparent that those that are bullied by management or their employer are reluctant to work as hard as those that are not bullied. Silent bullying presents a major problem, where someone feels isolated when left out of group discussions and decisions. Employees and employers need to remember that harassment is in the eye of the recipient and the question employers need to consider is whether the situation could be considered severe enough for the employee to take legal action,” said Price.

The research showed that 69 per cent of workers would never consider reporting bullying to their employer whilst 89 per cent are not sure whether their employer has policies relating to bullying and harassment at work.

HR Zone, 20th February 2008

Eliminating Professors - Necessary Harm

...Given the social dynamic in this workplace, it is easy to see why the higher-ups did nothing to rein in the Jerk in. Addressing PITA's complaints would have meant taking on not just an individual harassing male but a cohesive group of male and female workers that was functioning productively in the overall organizational context. Each successive higher level of union or management authority to which PITA appealed was faced with challenging, disrupting, and overruling an even larger part of the organization. How much damage to morale and productivity can a senior official reasonably be expected to risk, for the sake of shielding one partially disaled woman from jokes other women laught at?

"Even so," you may say, "somebody should have done something." This comment has been made in every case I know of Dr. PITA's elimination from a uniersity faculty. It is a common exhoration of kind-hearted people working somewhere else...

From: Eliminating Professors, a guide to the dismissal process, by Kenneth Westhues

The Goebbels doctrine

'Repeat a lie hundred times, and it becomes truth.'

Bullies are...

Bullies are most likely to:

· Not challenge change

· Be low achievers with low self-esteem

· Be non - Enthusiastic (rarely volunteer)

· Have low integrity

· Have no ethical standards

· Not known for their commitment to human rights, dignity and respect

A favorite tactic of bullies...

A favorite tactic of bullies is to falsely accuse his/her victim of something so outrageous that the victim is stunned with humiliation.

The decent or religious worker is accused of viewing pornography at work, the dignified moral worker is accused of sexual misdoings, the libertarian is charged with being a racist, the most honest worker is branded a thief. [In the meanwhile, the truly incompetent are safe at the apex of the academic hierarchy.]

It doesn't really matter that the bully often can't make the charges stick, the harm is already done. There's that element of guilt by association placed in the minds of others.

From: http://www.badapplebullies.com/index.htm

Tensions high at Liverpool Hope over hiring of dean - UK

Dedicated teaching staff have been turned into "instant failures" as the result of a drive to boost research at the traditionally teaching-led Liverpool Hope University, some staff have claimed.

Tensions over the university's direction came to a head this month with the appointment of Jon Nixon as dean of education. There are complaints that the appointment not only lacked transparency but unfairly penalised long-standing teaching-focused staff in an institution that was founded as a teacher-education college for women.

Professor Nixon, who has been at the university for two months, was appointed without any advertising of the vacancy. His appointment was widely predicted as a "done deal" before it was officially confirmed.

The university's vice-chancellor, Gerald Pillay, has said that he is seeking to "raise the bar" by appointing more professors and increasing research opportunities. Liverpool Hope's education deanery - primarily the teacher-training department - is said by the university to be developing a "growing research culture".

Before Professor Nixon's appointment, staff there were told that the new dean would be selected from among professors only. Some of the department's lecturers, most of whom are women and include former schoolteachers, considered this decision unreasonable. The previous dean, Elizabeth Gayton, was not a professor.

Announcing the appointment, Professor Pillay said: "With an excellent academic track record over a long period, Professor Nixon demonstrated, through his own work at three other universities and numerous publications, the importance and interdependence of research and professional practice. Both are important pillars of the education deanery's strategic vision."

One staff member said: "Many of the people here were brought in because they were excellent practitioners. Using research as the criteria for promoting excellence is turning them into instant failures. To make a change like this takes a lot of understanding of the context, but that understanding doesn't seem to be there."

All new lecturers are required to hold PhDs, and existing staff are being advised to obtain them if they wish to progress. The lecturers maintain that in teacher training, staff with a wealth of practical experience are more useful to students than tutors with research backgrounds who have spent little time in schools.

The source added: "People here have a love for this place, and for the students that is palpable. It's the kind of thing that takes 25 years to build up and could so easily be destroyed."

Professor Pillay has faced previous complaints about selection processes. Shortly after his arrival at the university in 2003, he appointed three men as assistant vice-chancellors amid suggestions that there was no proper application process.

"They were all white, middle-aged, middle-class men," a university insider said. "Apparently it had been decided that no one else was suitable, so there was no point in advertising."

At the time, staff asked for the university to produce a formal policy document on senior appointment processes, but so far none has been forthcoming. Appointments to principal lecturer and associate professor posts require a lengthy application and five referees. Staff want a similar process to apply to senior appointments.

A Liverpool Hope spokesman said the university had followed normal practice in appointing members of its senior executive team. While all professors in the education deanery had been invited to express an interest in the dean's position, only two did so, he said.

"Candidates who expressed an interest were considered carefully. The successful candidate was by far the more experienced of the two," he said. The Liverpool Hope spokesman added: "In appointing to senior academic positions, the university seeks in the first instance to give opportunity to those most senior and experienced among its own staff. If this does not provide the most appropriate candidate the university advertises internationally, as it has done for the past two professorial appointments."

From:http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

Workplace bullying: just say no

...In a system where we place individuals in a position of power over others without democratic accountability or transparent process there is bound to be scope for those in a position of power to take out their frustrations and inadequacies on their subordinates, even where this cuts against the interests of the organisation...

When I was a UNISON steward in the NHS a few years ago I worked in a unit that had developed a real culture of bullying over a period of years. Whilst the two tiers of management we had direct contact with were, partially, responsible for this it was one worker in particular who was making life a misery...

Now I'm sure most people reading this would think "here's a job for the union". Your instincts are right and noble - but there was a difficulty. The branch secretary was married to a top manager and, as far as I'm aware, there has never been an instance of him opposing management on any substantive issue and when I approached him for advise he blankly refused to act. Why? Because the culprit in question was a member of the union.

This was an outrageous position. The idea that you don't protect workers when the bully is a union member turns union membership into something more akin to being a made man in the mafia...

To fight bullying you have to have leverage. The more leverage you have the better able you are to defend yourself. A corrupt union is worse than no union at all - but a good one is your best defense. Your workmates are the best weapon you have. Solidarity is the key.

From: http://jimjay.blogspot.com

Latest News About Kingston University - UK

The London South Employment Tribunal has ruled against Regina Benveniste in her claim for unfair dismissal and victimization. In its failure to refer to key points of compelling evidence presented by Dr Benveniste in her case documents (including documentary evidence that the Personnel Director, Liz Lanchberry, had openly called for her immediate dismissal because she could not bear the thought of Dr Benveniste bringing forward an appeal of her grievance to the Board of Governors), the Tribunal has whitewashed a case in which an employee was solely and exclusively targeted for imposition of workplace rules on working at home.

The University freely admitted that it had created the policy barring
working at home for more than one day per week in order to address Dr
Benveniste's working methods. It did not impose such a policy on any
other staff member, nor did it subject any other staff member to
disciplinary/dismissal procedings, as it did with Dr Benveniste. This
"convenient" action to single out and dismiss Dr Benveniste occurred
following her having filed a suit for discrimination and harassment, as
well as a grievance which was, of course, not upheld by the University.

Anonymous post

Open letter to UCU

Open letter to University and College Union.

We would like to bring to your attention the tragic issue of entrenched workplace bullying in higher education, and we would like to have your comments, suggestions and proposed strategies to deal with this. We are making some suggestions and comments below but ultimately we want to hear your opinions on the matter.

Right now most - if not all - HEIs have in place and are required to have in place anti-bullying policies. These exist on paper, but - as evidenced in numerous cases (Sheffield Hallam University, Leeds Metropolitan, Birmingham's School of Health Sciences), plus our own UCU survey, the problems persist. Quote from recent UCU survey:

'...An astonishing 82% said their institution had a management culture which 'actively contributed to stress' (87% in colleges, 80% in universities). 27% thought their management 'acknowledged the causes of stress' but only 15% thought their management 'sought to address the causes...'

Some rough figures: It is estimated that 14-16% of the British workforce experiences workplace bullying. In a union with a membership of over 100.000, this translates to over 14.000 members.

It appears that there are few, if any, 'formal' evaluations of bullying intervention programmes. For example, the recent HSE Research Report 024 reviewing supporting knowledge for stress management standards (Rick et al, 2002) found no studies examining evidence on interventions to reduce the bullying/harassment stressor.

In our opinion, it is far more productive for our union to intervene before disciplinary decisions are imposed on academics and other staff, before bullied staff loose their jobs under tragic circumstances. It is far more productive for a truly independent body, external body to assess if the university (employer) has indeed followed the right procedures before reaching a decision. This needs to happen before a decision is imposed and not after. The problem with formal grievance/discipline procedures, from the point of view of statistical monitoring, is that they come at the end of a long chain of actions and decisions and are therefore rare.

Usually, any mediation offered by the employer can be used / is used as another forum for power games where the target (victim) experiences the ultimate bullying and usually leaves with an exit package, a confidentiality clause and wrecked health. Internal grievance procedures never work in favour of the victims.

The 2005 Survey of HR Professionals: Which of the following factors impair your organisation's ability to deal effectively with bullying?

Unwillingness to acknowledge a problem by management - 74.4%
Prevailing management style - 70.4%
Lack of training in how to deal with bullying - 45.4%
Lack of cooperation from management - 44.4%
Inadequate procedures - 30.2%

In random order, some of the challenges we face, are:

• Failure of some employers/managers to fully implement ACAS guidelines, and in particular the right to call upon witnesses, to have representation, to have access to accurate records of all hearings. Yes, the Employment Tribunals can decide on this but does it have to always go that far? Are there no other options?

• Failure of some employers to have appropriate internal procedures, embedded with principles of natural justice. How many universities have a record of resolving employment disputes through negotiations and a truck record to prove so?

• Colleagues who are afraid to speak up for fear that they may suffer various forms of penalties. So the victim is often left without wtinesses. Which colleague will openly support the victim of bullying and become a witness against senior managers?

• HR and personnel departments caught in the dilemma between their professional training and professionalism, versus possible management 'pressures' to go along with the prevailing and obviously wrong groupthink.

• A noted lack of expert union reps in workplace bullying backed up by union active policy, strategy, negotiation, and legal action. There is a web page online from a network support group, and a legal/counseling help line that union members can phone, but the issue seems to be the lack of satisfactory results in some well document cases. The available help from the network support group, seems to come too late in the process.

• Funding and quality control bodies should somehow engage in the process of contributing to the implementation and appropriate application of internal grievance and disciplinary procedures. They should/can consider what is happening with workplace bullying, for this has effects on how the general workplace functions or dysfunctions. Yes, we know universities are independent bodies. True, but this is where the collective energies of multiple partners at all levels have to come into this, and the union is only one of them. In fact, the union could lead such a campaign and perhaps attempt to unite all the players in some kind of common cause.

Yes, we do have a new booklet that is well written, BUT the issue remains 'policing' and monitoring and from what we know, universities are not always good at policing their own. An independent party is indeed needed, an external party, even an ombudsman, something, anything… for there are far too many instances when universities when left on their own have not always done the right thing… (ACAS, internal procedures, discrimination, victimisation, racism etc)

TUC, Andrea Adams Trust, and other organisations are working/have worked on a number of projects – policing remains the issue, the gap, the weakness. We feel that our union could be more proactive on this issue and at least advocate for this. This is perhaps one of the central challenges. Does 'independence' mean lack of accountability and transparency on issues of workplace bullying?

The reply from HEFCE is/was that universities are accountable to their own governing bodies. Well, one wonders how cozy these relationships may become after some time. There is a voluntary code of practice for governors, but how many of us know about it or have read it? How many governors have been challenged successfully?

So, who has responsibility for this mess? So far, we have failed to pinpoint a single agent for change. That would be too easy. A collective and coordinated effort of multiple players is needed. We have a long way to go. We would like to know if our union will play a leading role in this or will remain a passive observer offering well-written booklets and support after the events.

It would be good to hear/read from all of you your thoughts and your suggestions on how to tackle workplace bullying in academia.

Louise Michel

Recognizing and Dealing with Workplace Bullies

In a presentation Camilo Azcarate (University Ombuds Officer, Princeton University), Nicholas Diehl (Associate Ombuds, Princeton University), Howard Gadlin (Ombudsman, National Institutes of Health), and Patricia J. Lynch (Corporate Ombudsman, United Technologies Corporation) gave at the first annual International Ombudsman Association conference, held in April 2006, they cited ten characteristic behaviors of workplace bullies that managers need to be alert to:

A workplace bully:

1. is charming in public; this charm is used to seduce the victim with the aim of dominating and controlling.

2. spreads rumors in private to reduce the victim’s power and damage his/her reputation.

3. is apparently supportive in private but exposes the victim’s mistakes in public.

4. distorts reality to make him/herself look good and the victim look bad.

5. is hypocritical — says the right things but is exploitative and manipulative.

6. is evasive, does not provide straight answers, and gets angry when confronted.

7. is pompous and self-righteous and inflates his/her importance.

8. is passive-aggressive. For example, the bully withholds information and works to isolate the victim.

9. presents him/herself as a victim and blames others for his/her pain and suffering.

10. pretends to care, and humiliates the victim under the guise of caring.

From: http://streamlinetraining.blogspot.com