Everyone has the right not to be bullied or harassed at work. Bullying and harassment can be extremely harmful and have a negative effect on workers’ health, workplace culture, individual and team work performance, productivity, organisational reputation, and budgets.
Workplace bullying and harassment should be dealt with in a fair, timely, sensitive, objective and policy-driven way.
National anti-bullying laws and state or territory health and safety bodies help people with bullying and harassment in the workplace. Go to the Australian Government Fair Work Ombudsman to find out about the workplace health and safety body in your state or territory.
The definition of workplace bullying is:
“Repeated unreasonable behaviour that specifically targets a person or a group of people and, over time, contributes to the target/s becoming increasingly unwell. This can be but is not necessarily associated with discrimination and sexual harassment.” Moira Jenkins 2013 Preventing and Managing Workplace Bullying and Harassment page 26.
Bullying happens when someone in the workplace repeatedly behaves unreasonably towards another person or group of people and causes a risk to health and safety in the workplace. This behaviour doesn’t have to be related to the person or group’s characteristics and adverse action doesn’t have to have happened.
The Fair Work Act 2009 specifies that bullying occurs when two criteria are met:
Bullying behaviour may involve any of the following types of unreasonable behaviour:
Behaviour is unreasonable if a reasonable person might see the behaviours as unreasonable in the circumstances.
Some workers think that they are being bullied when they are being performance managed at work.
Your manager can make decisions about poor performance, take disciplinary action, and control the way work is carried out. This management action, if carried out in a reasonable way, is not bullying.
Talking to a trusted person may assist you to make sense of your perception of being bullied.
If you think that you are being bullied at work, you should talk to:
To understand how your workplace deals with bullying and harassment, read the:
Experiencing bullying and/or being harassed at your workplace can be extremely distressing and harmful to your physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.
It can be subtle, direct or indirect in nature and raise many complex, challenging and often destructive behaviours, especially if you are a victim or you have witnessed a colleague being bullied. It can be hard to make sense of it.
Trying to understand the behaviour of a bully can be confusing. It could make you feel vulnerable, ashamed and alone. Emotions can be heightened and responses can start to be programmed to react on ‘fight or flight’ mode.
Feeling alone, shamed, isolated and unsure about how or where to access appropriate, confidential support can add to an individual’s distress.
No matter what form bullying and harassment takes is it is unacceptable and is not tolerated. It is important that you know how and where to access your organisation’s policies and procedures on prevention of bullying and harassment.
Nursing and Midwifery Board Australia (NMBA) has released a new Code of conduct for Nurses and Code of Conduct for Midwives. The new codes come in to effect from 1 March 2018 and are on the NMBA website. The NMBA codes apply to all nurses and midwives in Australia, even if your employer also has a code of conduct. The codes describe the responsibility of all nurses and midwives in relation to prevention of bullying and harassment:
Bullying and harassment
When people repeatedly and intentionally use words or actions against someone or a group of people, it causes distress and risks their wellbeing. Nurses/midwives understand that bullying and harassment relating to their practice or workplace is not acceptable or tolerated and that where it is affecting public safety it may have implications for their registration. Nurses/midwives must:
a. never engage in, ignore or excuse such behaviour
b. recognise that bullying and harassment takes many forms, including behaviours such as physical and verbal abuse, racism, discrimination, violence, aggression, humiliation, pressure in decision-making, exclusion and intimidation directed towards people or colleagues
c. understand social media is sometimes used as a mechanism to bully or harass, and that nurses/midwives should not engage in, ignore or excuse such behaviour
d. act to eliminate bullying and harassment, in all its forms, in the workplace, and
e. escalate their concerns if an appropriate response does not occur.
Bullying and harassment is not usually a matter for the NMBA and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra). However, if bullying and harassment is at a level where patient safety is being risked or care is being compromised, you can speak to Ahpra about making a complaint.
Nurse & Midwife Support is here to talk you if you are experiencing bullying or harassment. Our service provides free and confidential support 24/7, to nurses, midwives and students Australia wide. If you would like to speak to someone call 1800 667 877, or you can request support via email.
If you would like to know a bit more about the service before getting in contact — take a look through accessing support.