What is workplace bullying?
Workplace Bullying; What is it? What does it cost? And… How to stop it.
Spoiler: Did you know it costs UK businesses billions of pounds? That’s why it’s so important to tackle it!
Why This Matters Now
The extent of bullying
According to the TUC in the UK:
- 29% of employees experience workplace bullying at some point.
- One in ten people have experienced workplace bullying in the last six months.
- Over half (53%) of people who are bullied DO NOT report it.
- Bullying costs the UK Economy £18 Billion a year, and according to the Health and Safety Executive, over 17 million working days are lost each year due to work-related negative behaviours, such as bullying (Hansard). That means if you have 200 people, bullying could well be costing your organisation c. £100K per year.
What is bullying in the workplace?
- Constant criticism.
- Negatively differential treatment or unfair treatment of a person.
- Exclusion of a person (this could be anything from exclusion from anything they might otherwise expect to participate in — a group, type of work, a benefit).
- Insulting, intimidating, or humiliating behaviour.
- Excess workload or pressure.
- Picking on, or regularly undermining someone.
- Denying training or promotion opportunities.
- Abuse of power or status which undermines, humiliates, or harms someone.
Bullying can be a one-off event, or a series or pattern of events. With a repeat event, each on its own may not look serious, but linked together, they have a cumulative effect. It can also be direct or via other media such as email or social media interactions.
A bully does not always have to have intent to hurt someone, it might be learned behaviour or something they are not aware of (the accidental bully).
At the more toxic end, bullies can be quite adept at covering up their behaviour to those who are not their victims — increasing the sense of isolation and helplessness of their victims.
What are the effects of bullying?
- Bullying can markedly increase stress of victims, having a consequential effect on physical and mental health.
- Bullying can reduce job satisfaction, performance and productivity.
- The effects on individuals may lead to increased turnover, causing staff to seek a better working environment.
- Bullying may well affect your reputation as an employer (as people discuss it on platforms like Glassdoor).
- As your reputation suffers, hiring may be affected, with people not wanting to join a toxic environment.
- The combination of the above will begin to adversely affect organisational performance.
- Staff who are in a bullying environment are less likely to raise concerns which could affect things like Health and Safety.
- Ultimately, if bullying and harassment is happening, your organisation will also have increased risk of litigation, particularly from affected individuals.
Your Obligations
- Organisations have a general duty of care to their staff to ensure a safe working environment. That can include ensuring your organisation takes proper steps to prevent mistreatment of staff.
- An employee who is bullied without the employer tackling it, and leaves as a result, may be able to claim constructive dismissal.
- Employees who suffer (such as mental and physical detriment) may have a claim against your organisation.
What Should You Do?
- Clear policies and procedures: Make required behaviours and standards clear. Have clear, well publicised policies on bullying and harassment.
- Training: Ensure you have regular, effective training for your people on what constitutes bullying, how to raise it and how to tackle it in your teams.
- Create the right environment: Create an environment where people feel safe raising problems and concerns, and know they will be treated respectfully and taken seriously.
- Zero tolerance: Have a zero-tolerance policy to bullying. Make sure when bullying does happen, it is tackled quickly and effectively. This should apply to every level of your organisation.
- Routes to Raise: Ensure that there are clear, well publicised routes for raising incidents. Include in these anonymous, two-way communications (link to Anonymous Speak Up page).
- Follow Up: Make sure cases are quickly and effectively followed up. This also includes ensuring you have a joined-up picture/overview of how many cases are occurring. Consider an online Case Management system to help (link to HR Case Management page).
- Prejudice: Check in that people who do raise things, feel happy with the process, and do not feel they have suffered prejudice as a way of raising things.
- Surveys: Consider periodic mini surveys (link to Surveys page) to check back with your people that they feel you are clear of bullying and that were they to see problems they would know how to raise it.
How WorkInConfidence Helps
WorkInConfidence gives your people a safe, anonymous way to raise a bullying concern long before it reaches the point of a grievance or resignation, and gives your HR team the ability to respond and act on it properly.
Anonymous, two-way reporting lets someone flag a concern without revealing their identity, while still answering follow-up questions from the manager who is handling the matter. This directly helps to address the single biggest reason bullying goes unreported: fear of retaliation.
Every case is tracked through structured HR Case Management, with a full audit trail, so nothing depends on memory or gets lost in an inbox.Beyond individual cases, aggregated and anonymised reporting data helps you spot patterns e.g. a particular team or area of the organisation, a spike around a specific period, long before those patterns show up in an escalation in resignations or a tribunal claim.
If you’re interested in learning more, we’d be happy to walk you through it. Book a free demo of our anonymous two-way reporting, HR Case Management, and Surveys, and see how they work together to give you a real-time picture of the health of your organisation.
WorkInConfidence joins up trusted employee voice with management insights into the state of your organisation so you can learn, develop and thrive, no matter your size.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Is workplace bullying illegal in the UK?
A: There’s no single law that names “workplace bullying” specifically, but employers have duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Equality Act 2010, and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 that apply directly to bullying situations.
Q: How common is workplace bullying in the UK?
A: According to the TUC, around 29% of employees experience workplace bullying at some point, and over half of those bullied don’t report it — making it significantly under-recorded relative to how often it actually happens.
Q: How can employers encourage earlier reporting of bullying?
A: Offer more than one way to raise a concern, including a genuinely anonymous option with two-way follow-up, respond visibly and promptly when concerns are raised, and train managers to recognise and act on early warning signs.