Bullying remains rife in the workplace

A new poll by HR consultancy Reabur.com revealed more than one in five of respondents (21%) feel ‘bullied’ by their boss at work and a further 28% feel picked on by a co-worker in the office.

According to the study of 1,298 people, women are more likely to feel bullied at work, with 31% of the women asked admitting to having felt victimised in their work place at some point, compared with just 17% of men.

The results show less than one in 10 of those that felt bullied in the workplace actually report it to their HR department. But 24% do tell a colleague about their experiences and almost three quarters (73%) tell their spouse.

People feel more intimidated by men than women according to the study, with 19% of the respondents claiming to feel victimised by a male colleague compared with 14% that feel victimised by a female co-worker.  

When asked the multi-answer question ‘why do you feel the person at works bullies you?’, 41% think the culprit is ‘intimidated by their abilities’, a further 29% think they are ‘jealous of their status within the office’ and 48% believe they are picked on because of ‘their appearance’.  

Less than a third of respondents (29%) of the respondents feel their manager dislikes them. However, 22% of those asked think their manager is ‘under qualified’ for their role and 32% said their manager is ‘incompetent’.

The study found that of the employees that feel bullied at work, 57% are actively searching for new jobs and a further 37% ‘dread work’ everyday. More than a third, 36%, admitted that their personal life is affected by their unhappiness at work.  

Georgina Read, co- managing director of Reabur.com, said: "I was shocked to see these results; being unhappy at work and feeling bullied will certainly affect productivity levels as well as the individual’s self-esteem, as the results show. It is encouraging that people are talking to fellow peers; however they should approach a senior team member or their human resources officer.

"The main issue with being bullied at work is that it is not taken seriously and people tend to think that the individual is over-reacting. All allegations should be taken seriously and investigated, as getting to the root of the problem will create a better workforce and office environment."