The Bully-Free Workplace: Stop Jerks, Weasels, and Snakes From Killing Your Organization

Step 3: Develop Informal Solutions

When formal complaints and investigations are the only options for bullied targets, trust in the new system will be low. Utilization will be predictably low because people justifiably fear retaliation. Informal resolution options provide the alternative to adjudication. Having an alternative may actually reduce the number of formal complaints, but that is not its purpose. It is to give options to bullied targets.

The Importance of a Precomplaint Process

Whereas other cultures, such as Scandinavian employers, for example, have 15 years or more of experience in dealing with workplace bullying, it's still a very new challenge to North American organizations. The U.S. workplace bullying movement began in mid-1997. It's understandable that organizations cannot be expected to go from zero awareness to having reliable resolution procedures in place immediately. For the sake of organizational learning, the policy-writing group needs to create ways for people who think they have been bullied to express their curiosity or doubts. They should not be required to file a formal complaint (thus avoiding the retaliation that nearly always accompanies complaint filing). Rather, they should be able to explore whether or not what is happening to them is bullying in the first place.

Clarification and Validation for Curious Employees

The best description of a bullied individual's initial response to a bullying incident is frozen inaction—like a “deer in the headlights.” ...