How Bullying Drives Good Employees Away

The 2024 Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) Survey showed that 46% of American adults have either experienced or witnessed bullying in the workplace. That's a statistic employers concerned with employee well-being and retention can't afford to ignore.

According to the WBI report, "62% of bullying targets risk losing a job they once loved." This is predominantly due to the target quitting (26%), being "constructively discharged" after having been convinced to leave for mental or health reasons (18%), or accepting a transfer just to stay employed (10%). 8% of targets are fired.

2 Key Actions That Stop Bullying (and Keep Valued Employees)

The toll workplace bullying takes on people is significant. Targets of bullying and those who witness co-workers being bullied experience similar types of stress-related health impacts: anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, headaches, and digestive issues. Both have increased negative feelings about the organization and an increased desire to leave.

By taking steps to prevent bullying, employers can positively influence employee well-being, engagement, retention and other KPIs. Here are two of the most important steps:

1. Help People Understand How to Respond

Targets of bullying need to be encouraged to stand up for themselves and shown how to do so in a way that is safe and effective. The clip below shows how a bullied employee holds his ground and uses the right words to make it clear to the perpetrator that the bullying needs to stop:

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Witnesses of bullying should be encouraged to be upstanders and call out co-workers whose behavior feels unfair or disrespectful of others. The clip below illustrates how the co-worker of a bully can respectfully point out the negative impact their actions are having:

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2. Identify and Address Organizational Barriers to Speaking Up

Even when people agree they should act, they often don't. Many witnesses to workplace bullying choose to stay silent, primarily due to fear of consequences. Seeing a co-worker harassed signals an unsafe workplace, making witnesses reluctant to speak up. Both targets and witnesses worry about career damage, job loss, or damaged relationships with peers and management.

Behavioral training courses like those offered by Atana can help uncover concerns like these that are hidden beneath the surface. Learner responses to science-backed survey questions wrapped around bullying scenarios reveal employee attitudes, perceptions, and abilities related to what they're learning and how likely they are to apply new behaviors.

Among other things, this type of aggregated learner data can reveal:

• Employees' perception of the organization’s culture and whether it encourages people who see or experience bullying to be bystanders or "upstanders"
• If fear of retaliation or negative consequences (i.e., low psychological safety) is present and potentially keeping employees from speaking up about abusive conduct
• Employees' confidence in their ability to call out disrespectful behavior

These insights help the organization see where they're succeeding in building a culture that does not tolerate bullying, where issues of disrespect may be occurring, and where additional support or action might be needed.

L&D Framework for Success

In addition to selecting training that enables the two actions above, L&D can enhance bullying prevention efforts by:

Establishing Expectations for Speaking Up Against Bullying and abusive conduct through ongoing respectful workplace training. A number of different training opportunities can be used to reinforce the organization's commitment to a workplace free of harassment of any kind, including:

• Employee Onboarding 
• Addressing Culture Clash After a Merger or Reorganization 
• Harassment Prevention Compliance

Helping Managers Keep Their Style in Check. The WBI Report shows that 55% of workplace bullying perpetrators are "bosses," or individuals whose job level is higher than their target. Behaviors some people consider strong leadership sometimes fall into the category of bullying. Our Bullying Self-Assessment provides a safe tool managers can use to privately reflect on their own behaviors and determine if any adjustments are needed. Many manager-specific harassment prevention courses help those in leadership roles understand abusive conduct and specific actions to avoid. Some states (e.g, California and Connecticut) make this information a mandatory part of management-level harassment prevention training.

With Atana respectful workplace solutions, you can communicate the organization's commitment to workplace bullying prevention, provide employees and managers with the necessary skills, and receive actionable insights into strengths and weaknesses in workplace culture.

Request a demo to learn more about our behavior-based courses, analytics, and Atana Insights dashboard.