Australian Update - Workplace Bullying

Workplace Bullying: A Message for all Employers

The Australian Federal Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, recently announced changes that will allow employees to seek assistance in respect of workplace bullying from the Fair Work Commission (FWC).
The proposed new laws seek to cut through the current complex processes available to employees under state health and safety laws and seek early intervention in bullying claims. The new changes will require the FWC to deal with any application urgently.

The Potential Changes

The Commonwealth Government has announced it will hurry through amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act) creating a new cause of action in relation to workplace bullying.

The amendments are proposed to take effect from 1 July 2013.

Definition of Bullying

The changes will adopt the definition of "bullying" set out in the Draft Code of Practice Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying. "Bullying" will be defined as "repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or a group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety". Importantly, the changes will clarify that the definition of bullying does not include reasonable management action, including performance management conducted in an appropriate and reasonable manner.

Process to Resolve Complaints

Mr Shorten announced that the new process will permit workers who believe they have been bullied to make a complaint to the FWC, which will be required to list any application within 14 days of the complaint. The changes will also enable the FWC to make orders in relation to the complaint, and/or to refer the complaint to the relevant state health and safety regulator.

Early reports suggest that any new FWC processes would be similar to those currently in place for unfair dismissal and adverse action complaints. This would include a compulsory conciliation conference, which is intended to quickly resolve the dispute to the parties' mutual satisfaction and avoid the need for arbitration or court action.

Where conciliation is unsuccessful, the amendments to the Fair Work Act will enable FWC to make civil orders in respect of claims. Current penalties under the Fair Work Act are up to AUD33,000 per breach, however, the Minister has advised that he will consult with business before confirming such penalties will apply.

What does this mean for employers?

Currently, victims of workplace bullying may seek to have their complaints addressed under many different legislative regimes. If an act of bullying is serious enough to pose a risk to health and safety, employers and employees may be liable under the relevant state health and safety legislation. In addition, in Victoria, legislation created as a result of the Brodie Panlock case enables criminal prosecutions in cases of serious workplace bullying. Both of these actions are initiated by state prosecution authorities rather than the individual employee.

The changes foreshadowed by the government suggest that for the first time individual employees (rather than regulators) will be able to bring claims against their employers for workplace bullying. This is a significant change in workplace law and if it proceeds is likely to result in an influx of claims from employees.

As yet, no draft legislation has been tabled regarding these significant changes. This is expected in the autumn session of parliament and we will provide a further update once the legislation is tabled.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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TOOL - Signs of workplace harassment/bullying

Apart from the direct sign of complaints being raised, signs of workplace harassment/bullying may appear indirectly. These signs may not always be linked with workplace harassment/bullying and need to be considered within the overall workplace environment.

Indirect signs of workplace harassment/bullying may include:

• changes in human resource management trends, for example:
  • increases in levels of absenteeism and staff turnover
  • increases in the use of employee counselling services
• workers leaving the organisation reporting dissatisfaction with working relationships
• negative results from organisational climate/worker opinion surveys
• the breakdown of relationships between workers, customers or management
• workers becoming withdrawn and isolated
• poor worker morale and erosion of loyalty and commitment

Measures including a workplace harassment/bullying policy, complaint handling system, open communication and training and education can be effective in preventing workplace harassment/bullying from occurring.

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2013 What we have evolved to !?! Oh dear..... Opinion pieces

Bullying in the eye of the beholder

ARE you being bullied? If you have a job, attend university, have a hectic social life or do anything else that involves being put under pressure, you probably are.

But only because everything is defined as "bullying" these days. From being called out on your slackness to being hauled over the coals for your political views; what we used to call "being put on the spot", we now call "bullying".

The rise and rise of the B-word is testament to the touchiness of our therapeutic era and to the now widespread belief that people are pathetic bundles of sensitivity who will unravel at the merest hint of pressure.

The wild expansion of the definition of bullying was brought home to me over the holiday season by an article written by the ABC's Jonathan Holmes.

He was criticising The Australian's recent critical commentary about Margaret Simons, director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne. The Australian's critique of Simons had crossed the line from legit journalism to "bullying", said Holmes. Tellingly, he described this paper as "one of the biggest bruisers in the playground". What was most striking about his piece was that it described Simons's own criticisms of The Australian, which have been myriad, as "judicious, cautious and fair", while The Australian's criticisms of her apparently add up to "bullying".

This sums up how eye-swivellingly subjective the term "bullying" has become. Bullying is now entirely in the eye of the beholder, with some words and ideas (the ones we disapprove of, basically) being branded with the B-word, while others are given a nod of approval.

This is an upfront attempt to delegitimise certain forms of media criticism, particularly those that emanate from popular newspapers and are aimed at respectable public figures.

More and more commentators, academics and even powerful politicians now depict themselves as victims of "bullying", by which they actually mean fierce criticism or public ridicule.

When Julia Gillard copped some flak from internet users (in the midst of the global praise she received) over her shallow, showboating speech on misogyny last year, one magazine said she had been "bullied online" - as if she were an everyday teenage girl being harassed by schoolmates rather than the most powerful woman in the southern hemisphere being critiqued for a very public speech.

Gillard's partner Tim Mathieson has lashed out at the "bullies" who ridicule poor Julia. Seemingly believing, like ABC's Holmes, that we're still all stuck in the playground, Mathieson said "the big boys" should stop "bullying women".

"Would they like being called nasty names?" he asked.

In a human rights lecture last year, academic Anne Summers compared the grief Gillard sometimes gets with "workplace bullying". On an issue like the carbon tax, it just isn't possible that the "level of vitriol" aimed at Gillard is because of the tax itself, said Summers - rather, it must be because of "the simple fact that she is a woman".

Here, even entirely legitimate political criticism over something like the carbon tax, which has made some people angry, can be slyly delegitimised through being depicted as playground-style bullying beastliness. This is a doubly patronising approach - it depicts the critics of Gillard as bullies (potentially freezing serious political debate in the process, with male MPs probably becoming increasingly fearful of appearing like ugly playground toughs), and it also depicts women as fragile creatures who might wilt or faint upon hearing a coarse or mocking critique.

In describing as "misogynistic bullying" what the rest of us simply look upon as heated political debate, feminists ironically rehabilitate the Victorian view of women as sensitive flowers who might need to be chaperoned when they tiptoe through parliament or venture on to the world wide web.

Where the B-word is often used as a means of shielding politicians from the vitriolic screeching of the madding crowd, it can also be used to chastise politicians who are considered too hard-headed.

So the claims that Tony Abbott "bullied" someone at university in the 1970s are now used to write off his entire political style in the here and now. One magazine describes him as a misogynistic "relic of the 1950s" whose "bullying has continued to the current day".

If Abbott makes a strongly worded speech, shooting down his enemies, it's bullying, apparently, akin to what he allegedly did at uni.

In Britain in 2010, then PM Gordon Brown became embroiled in something called "Bullygate" after it was revealed he frequently "clenched his fists" in the presence of his staff and "swore at senior advisers".

Unbelievably, some of Downing Street's staff phoned the National Bullying Helpline to complain about Brown. Did they think working at the heated heart of the British establishment, where key decisions are made, would be a cosy, stress-free experience with no swearing? If so - and I'm sorry if this is bullying - they are idiots.

The ideas of "workplace bullying" and "university bullying" are common currency today.

According to one British official report, workplace bullying can include everything from "arguments and rudeness" to "ignoring people, unacceptable criticisms, and overloading people with work".

In short, work itself - with all its tussles and pressure - is a kind of bullying. Which makes you wonder why we don't all just stay in bed instead, or perhaps literally go back to the playground, where we might be afforded some protection against life's stresses and debates by a caring teacher.

We are all worse off as a result of this bullymania. The bullying obsession is especially bad for politics, since it both helps to insulate already aloof politicians like Gillard from public ridicule while chastising other, more outspoken politicians for daring to appear strong-willed.

It threatens to make politics more dull, and to drain the zest and drive from media debate and from everyday life by branding all those who forcefully speak their minds as bullies.

In 2013, make it your resolution to never, no matter how beleaguered you feel, say, "I'm being bullied!" Those words should never cross the lips of anyone over the age of 10.

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VIDEO STORY : Bullied workers shattered; Workplace bullying costs Australian businesses an estimated $36 billion a year

Source TodayTonight

Bullying in the workplace is something that's rarely discussed, but it should be, as those whose lives it affects can be shattered forever.

Workplace bullying costs Australian businesses an estimated $36 billion a year.
In Victoria, the recently passed Brodie's Law has made bullying at work a criminal offence, but in every other state it's still not against the law.

Karen Carr lives a hair’s breadth from becoming yet another bullying statistic. She barely hangs on each day, having suffered months of ridicule, abuse and sabotage in a job she loved.
“It has reduced me to a shadow of my former self," Carr said.

WATCH STORY here - Video Link 

One in five Australian workers is bullied at work, with almost half of all victims simply leaving their jobs. It’s an epidemic that’s getting worse, and no company or industry is immune.
"This is an insidious disease that's of epidemic proportions," Carr said.
“Bullying is premeditated. It is intentional, repeated assault."

Carr still thinks of suicide daily. She is unable to return to work of any kind, and a successful career in newspapers has been destroyed by a pack of frenzied workmates. Despite this, she is the one punished, and the bullies have not even been reprimanded. “I am viewed as the criminal in this, and I am made to feel like that. Whereas the bullies are all living life just as they were seven years ago."

Nine years of constant harassment and bullying has left gentle giant Rob a quivering wreck, after he suffered a complete mental breakdown from taunts and abuse. Now his wife Tina is terrified to leave him alone, even for a minute. "It came to the point where Tina had to full-on wrestle me to the ground to get a knife off of me, because I was going to slit my throat," said Rob.
Workplace bullying, says Rob, destroyed his life.

“It was a day-to-day fight just to keep him from hurting himself, from killing himself, just to keep him alive,” Tina said. Rob now survives on a small pharmacy of pills and potions to get through every day. “People don't realise how serious bullying can be, and what it can do. People just think it's names in a schoolyard, but it is so much more than that," he explained.

Telstra linesman Levin Madeley is another bullying victim hounded out of his work by unrealistic pressures, crazy deadlines and workplace bullying. “I ended up having to go to the doctor before I did something really stupid," Madeley said. His wife Jenny knew something was wrong, but has no idea just how wrong or serious it was. “You think you know somebody really well, and Levin is my soul mate, so to not know that he was that close (to suicide), it hurts a lot," Jenny said.

Sadly some do take that terrible, final step. Nineteen-year-old Brodie Panlock jumped from a multi-story car park after enduring more than a year of workmates treating her like dirt at a Melbourne cafe. She was spat on, called fat and ugly, and once had fish sauce poured all over her. Under the tougher laws in Victoria, three so-called ‘workmates’ and the cafe owner were fined more than $300,000 after the all pleaded guilty.

Victoria is the only state to make bullying a crime, but is that enough?

Doctor Carlo Caponechia is doing a nation-wide study of workplace bullying and its terrible costs. He has been shocked by what he's uncovered. “One of the negatives is that it's not preventative. It takes for something bad to happen, like suicide or death or someone feeling very threatened and humiliated, and really negatively affected by this," Dr Caponechia said. “People are being hurt and they shouldn't be hurt in the course of their work."

But how do you fix a problem where the bulk of victims are too frightened to come forward?
According to Dr Caponechia “You have to make it safe for people to report, and you have to make sure people know how to report."

Carr is still waiting for her case to reach court. She’s hanging on, day by day, and praying for justice, but unable to banish her demons. “I will never forget. How can you forget an event that basically takes your life away as you knew it?"

Contact details

• Workplace bullying information - www.reachout.com

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or SANE Helpline on 1800 18 SANE (7263)

VIDEO STORY: Bullies in the Workplace

Source TodayTonight

Workplace bullying is a major issue in Australia with studies have shown it is costing the Australian economy $36 billion a year.

WATCH STORY here - VIDEO LINK

Now a Flight Centre franchise has landed at the centre of a fight over how its staff have been treated.
Three out of five staff from the same workplace resigned in just six months, and all are blaming one woman - their former boss.

The then manager of a travel agency in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston was Kelly Gallasch. She’s been accused of bullying behaviour by former staff members, including Richard Barnes.

Barnes says Gallasch told him to clean toilets, ordered him around and swore at him – “just to torment me until I'd lash out.”

Now Barnes is taking legal action against Flight Centre. He'll claim that he was a whistleblower on bullying problems at the travel giant, and under the Fair Work Act he was meant to be protected from victimisation.

In documents filed in the Federal Court Barnes claims his ex-boss made comments about him that would make tradies blush.

Another worker, Carol, has backed up Barnes’s claims. “I was constantly belittled in front of staff,” she said. Carol claims she received similar treatment to Barnes. “It was quite relentless,”

Amanda, another ex-worker who has come forward, says “I just didn’t want to get up and go to work.
“Basically she'd be increasing my workload so I’d feel more pressured and I’d quit my job,” Amanda added. And these employees are far from alone. Across the nation, bullying has reared its ugly head time and time again, and instances of workplace bullying are troubling.

It's estimated one in four people will experience bullying at some point in their work life, and seven per cent of suicides can be linked to workplace bullying according to a US report. Brodie Panlock is one of those victims; the nineteen-year-old killed herself after being bullied by three men at her workplace. Her tragic death led to Brodie's Law - a change to the Crimes Act that introduces ten year prison terms for bullying.

Psychologist Evelyn Field says bullying is “absolutely soul destroying. Being the victim of bullying changes your life forever.” Field believes bullying is often a cultural issue. “It’s really about management who are not stepping in and stopping it,” she said. As for the Flight Centre case, the travel giant says the matter was investigated at the time. They maintain they acted appropriately and deny the various allegations, which they say will be vigorously defended in court.

Flight Centre response statement

Our comment is similar to the comments we made when Maurice Blackburn issued its two previous press releases on this matter.

As this is now before the courts, neither Student Flights nor Flight Centre Limited can comment in detail.

The matter was investigated and action was taken against several people when the complaint was received last year.

Action was also taken against Mr Barnes, after concerns were raised about his behaviour in the workplace.

The company considers it acted appropriately and denies various allegations that have been made against it, including suggestions that Mr Barnes was forced out after he raised concerns.

It will vigorously defend the case.

Allegations of this nature are taken seriously and policies and procedures are in place to prevent and discipline such behaviour.

In addition, the company has a whistleblowers' facility that staff can use to report any alleged wrongdoing.

A Federal Government inquiry into workplace bullying is currently running in order to see if legislation needs to be changed. If you have experienced workplace bullying you can put in a submission at this website.




 

Bullying 2012 - The 8th International Conference on Workplace Bullying & Harassment, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

The 8th International Conference on Workplace Bullying and Harassment: 'Workplace Bullying and Harassment: Towards future Challenges' in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference will be held at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Social Sciences, in Denmark on June 13 - 15, 2012.

KEY NOTE SPEAKERS:

• Dr. Laura Crawshaw, PhD, from The Boss Whisperer
  For further information on Dr. Crawshaw please visit the website
  http://www.exec-insight.com/index.html
  
  
• Professor, Dr. Dieter Zapf from Frankfurt University, Work and Organizational Psychology
  For further information on Professor, Dr. Dieter Zapf please visit the website
  http://web.uni-frankfurt.de/fb05/psychologie/Abteil/ABO/personal/zapf_e.htm
  
  
• Professor emiritus Töres Theorell from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm
  For further information on Professor emiritus Töres Theorell please visit the website
  http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1769&l=sv
  
  
• Professor Suzy Fox, GPHR, MBA, PhD, from Loyola University Chicago
  For further information on Professor Suzy Fox please visit the website
  http://www.luc.edu/gsb/faculty_suzyfox.shtml

Conference information here

Health Impact and Side Effects of Bullying ... Blaming others can ruin your health

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Authors calling for new diagnosis called PTED, or post-traumatic embitterment disorder
• Expert suggests griping for a while to vent, get it out of your system
• Then keep reminding yourself of the all the physical harm you're doing to yourself

Kevin Benton had every reason to feel bitter.

During his sophomore year in college, he says, white students harassed him and the only other African-American living on the floor in his dorm in order to get them to move out.

The white students spat on their doors, tore their posters off the wall, and banged on their door at four in the morning. When Benton brought up the problems at a dorm meeting, the other students snickered.

"I felt like I was being bullied, being targeted," he says now of his college experience 19 years ago. "I knew I couldn't retaliate in any way or I'd lose my basketball scholarship."

This was the first time in his life Benton had encountered racism and it hit him hard. He had trouble sleeping, and then over the next several months he suffered panic attacks. Admitted to the hospital, he was found to have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or thickening of the muscles in the heart. The disease is the leading cause of heart-related sudden death in people under 30.

So sick he couldn't walk, Benton lay in his hospital bed bitter and resentful. "I thought to myself, 'I've never hurt anybody. I serve in the community. I work with youth. I wrestled with God -- why did this happen to me?'" he remembers. Just then, a janitor walked by and grabbed Benton's hand, and prayed aloud to God to heal him. "As soon as she said, 'Amen,' I felt like someone had poured cold water on my head and made my heart shrink," he says.

The first time Kevin Benton encountered racism, he was in college and took it really hard.

Benton forgave the students who had tormented them, and three days later, he walked out of the hospital. "If I hadn't forgiven them, I'd be dead," says Benton, now healthy and a social worker for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services.

Feeling persistently resentful toward other people -- the boss who fired you, the spouse who cheated on you -- can indeed affect your physical health, according to a new book, "Embitterment: Societal, psychological, and clinical perspectives."

In fact, the negative power of feeling bitter is so strong that the authors call for the creation of a new diagnosis called PTED, or post-traumatic embitterment disorder, to describe people who can't forgive others' transgressions against them.

"Bitterness is a nasty solvent that erodes every good thing," says Dr. Charles Raison, associate professor of psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine and CNNHealth's Mental Health expert doctor.

What bitterness does to your body

Feeling bitter interferes with the body's hormonal and immune systems, according to Carsten Wrosch, an associate professor of psychology at Concordia University in Montreal and an author of a chapter in the new book. Studies have shown that bitter, angry people have higher blood pressure and heart rate and are more likely to die of heart disease and other illnesses.

The data that negative mental states cause heart problems is just stupendous. The data is just as established as smoking, and the size of the effect is the same." --Dr. Charles Raison

Physiologically, when we feel negatively towards someone, our bodies instinctively prepare to fight that person, which leads to changes such as an increase in blood pressure. "We run hot as our inflammatory system responds to dangers and threats," says Raison, clinical director of the Mind-Body Program at Emory.

Feeling this way in the short term might not be dangerous -- it might even be helpful to fight off an enemy -- but the problem with bitterness is that it goes on and on. When our bodies are constantly primed to fight someone, the increase in blood pressure and in chemicals such as C-reactive protein eventually take atoll on the heart and other parts of the body.

"The data that negative mental states cause heart problems is just stupendous," Raison says. "The data is just as established as smoking, and the size of the effect is the same."

How to get rid of bitterness

It's impossible to avoid all events that could turn you bitter. At some point, all of us will be the victim of a crazy boss, a cheating spouse, a spiteful co-worker, or someone else who does us wrong. Some will be even more unlucky, and suffer physical or sexual abuse.

"There are situations where you'd have to be the Dalai Lama not to feel bitterness," says Raison, who writes regularly for CNN.com on the mind-body connection for health.

The key is how we react to these situations in the long term. Here are five tips for how to let go of bitterness as quickly as possible for the sake of your own health;

1. Gripe for a while

"Give yourself time to vent and get it out of your system," suggests Dr. Maryann Troiani, co-author of the book Spontaneous Optimism.

2. Watch the news

Frederic Luskin, director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, tells his embittered patients to think about how many others have had bad things happen to them.

"I ask people to watch the news for a day, or read the paper, or go to work and talk to people, and they'll see that others have suffered and this is just a part of life," says Luskin, author of the book "Forgive for Good."

3. Consider confronting the person who's hurt you

Troiani says some of her patients have found solace in doing this. Other times, however, it can backfire. "Some ex-spouses are real psychopaths, and hunting them down can be disastrous," she says. "They'll just connive and twist things around and blame you." If that's your situation, try writing a letter to the person and reading it to a trusted friend, she suggests.

4. Realize you're only harming yourself

Keep reminding yourself of the all the physical harm you're doing yourself by remaining bitter. "I tell my patients, take care of this bitterness now, or in five years it will haunt you in the form of chronic headaches, fatigue, arthritis, and backaches," Troiani says.

5. Consider the other person's mental state

Author Maya Angelou has every reason to feel bitter. Raped as a child, then overwhelmed with guilt when her rapist, an uncle, was murdered by another family member, she was mute for several years. Still, she says she never felt bitterness toward her attacker. "Although he was a child molester and abused me, I never hated him, and I'm glad of that," she says. "What I realized is that people do what they know to do -- not what you think they should know." As an adult, she's continued that mind-set. "If someone hurts my feelings or hurts me in any way, I think, 'This dummy, that's all he knew,' and I'm not going to carry this bitterness around with me. I will not give it a perch. I will not give it a place to live in me because I know that's dangerous."

Don't be a doormat

Taking these steps and losing your bitterness does not mean you should be a doormat, Raison says. For example, consider the classic case of the wife whose husband leaves her for a much younger woman. Instead of feeling angry, she can think about moving on with her life and finding someone new. "What happens is that the husband who's been doing the 20-year-old comes crawling back because now his wife looks really good, and the wife can say, 'You're a day late and a dollar short,'" he says.

A precursor to Bullying.... Rudeness At Work: On the Rise, And Coming With A Big Cost

Just because you’ve developed a thick skin for rude, discourteous behavior, doesn’t mean workplace incivility is not hurting you–and your family.

A new Baylor University study published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior found that workplace rudeness can follow you home, causing you to unleash “incivil” behavior on your loved ones.

That’s disconcerting news for the 43% of Americans who have experienced incivility at work, according to the report, Civility in America, 2011. To be clear, incivility is different from aggressive bullying, which usually carries the intent to harm someone. With incivility, the intent is ambiguous, and it’s less intense and characterized by demeaning remarks, showing little interest in a worker’s opinion, acting rudely or with poor manners, among other uncivilized behaviors.

The Baylor study found that those who experienced workplace incivility had lower levels of marital satisfaction and greater family/work conflict, particularly for the partner. It also found that stress from incivility was contagious to family members.

Whose to blame?

When asked to name some of the top causes for the growing incivility problems, 65% of workers blame their company’s leaders and 59% also blame employees, while 46% list the lagging economy as a cause. Interestingly, 34% blame younger employees for incivility and only 6% blame older employees. But incivility at work, many agree, is an artifact of life in America. More than 70% of Americans consider political campaigns, pop culture, the media, government and the music industry hubs of incivility, according to the Civility in America Report.

How to tamp down rudeness

In the words of Aretha Franklin, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The authors of the Civility in America report write:

Johns Hopkins Professor Pier M. Forni, co-founder of the Civility Project, defines the basics of civility as the Three R’s: Respect, Restraint and Responsibility. When Americans were asked to define “civility,” the words “respect” and “treating others as you would want to be treated” predominated.

And rather than shrug off rudeness, name it, because the more you become inured to it, the more normal it becomes.

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Workplace becomes new schoolyard for bullies

Many adults shake their heads in dismay over bullying that targets children and teenagers online and in school; they even push for lawmakers and schools to do more to stop the harassment.

But many are afraid to admit another dirty little secret: Bullying is just as big a problem for the adults in the workplace.

Up to 70 percent of working adults say they've been bullied at some point in their working lives, and 53 percent to 71 percent of the bullies are in management positions, Civility Partners LLC says.

The prevalence of bully bosses is why many don't report they've been bullied, says Bert Alicea, a licensed psychologist and vice president of employee-assistance programs and work/life services at Health Advocate Inc.

"A lot of people would rather leave than stir the pot and fear retaliation," he says. "But even if they want to leave, with the bad job market there's nowhere for them to go."

The problem of workplace bullying is not new, nor is it illegal.

If bullying leads to illegal workplace acts, such as discrimination or harassment, then the courts can act. Legislation called the Healthy Workplace Bill would make bullying illegal and has been introduced in more than 20 states since 2003.

Even without the bill, Alicea says many companies are beginning to take steps to reign in workplace bullying because of its bottom-line consequences: Bullying can cost a company $83,000 a year from absenteeism and stress-related issues.

Companies often ask Alicea to provide harassment awareness or sensitivity training as a way to make supervisors and employees more aware of bullying behavior and the steps needed to protect workers. But businesses may have another incentive to offer such training.

In some court cases, companies that have provided anti-bullying training are not always held solely responsible if an employee's lawsuit alleging harassment or discrimination is successful, Alicea says. Instead, individual supervisors may be held personally liable for some financial damages awarded to an employee if a company can show the supervisor received anti-bullying training.

Still, despite more interest from companies in anti-bullying measures, Alicea says he remains concerned.

"If the bully is in a power position or someone like a rainmaker in the organization who brings in $5 million a year, then no one really wants to rattle that cage," he says.

Another worry for Alicea — a growing use of online bullying. "Cyber-bullying is more prevalent in the workplace. People become friends with their supervisors on Facebook, for example, and they become more emotionally connected. It begins to blur the objectivity of those involved. I just think it opens up a whole can of worms," he says.

Workers also can feel bullied via other online communications, such as email, he says. "I think there's a real need for email etiquette to be taught in workplaces today," he says. "Sending an email, written in bold with 15 exclamation points sends a message in a degrading way."

If an employee feels bullied at work, Alicea says that person should:

• Contact the company's employee assistance program. While acknowledging that some employees may fear word getting back to the bully, "you have to be able to take that risk because you're tired of feeling the way you're feeling," he says. "You need to be able to talk to an objective third party who knows how to deal with these kinds of issues."

• Tell human resources. While you don't have to provide the name of the bully, it's important to have a record so if you experience retaliation, you have proof that it took place after your complaint.

• Ask for dignity and respect. You don't have to launch into a litany of complaints but simply state you want fair treatment. This often prompts companies to bring in outside help to educate and train supervisors and employees. source