Remote work has not freed us from workplace toxicity but has instead, in many cases, exacerbated it. Catherine Lawson investigates. This article is from Communicate magazine's print edition.

Few things are more damaging to the wellbeing of an organisation than bullying. Legal action, reputation damage, reduced staff loyalty and productivity, retention issues, higher absence rates and the kind of low systemic morale from which it is hard to recover, are all by-products of this toxic behaviour. For those personally affected, the price is even higher; bullying can, over time, impact social, emotional, physical and mental wellbeing in ways that are far-reaching and long-lasting.

There are numerous pieces of legislation in place that either directly or indirectly address bullying in the workplace (most notably, the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Protection from Harassment Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010), however, they can be fraught with ambiguity. This places the onus on employers to create policies and procedures that embody these principles in practice, and explicitly demonstrate how they will discharge their duty of care. So why are such policies not working?

The ‘Managing Conflict in the Modern Workplace’ pre-pandemic 2020 study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) revealed “a continued reliance on formal processes and procedures to resolve conflict, as well as a gap in how well employers and people managers think they deal with conflict, compared with the experiences of employees who’ve been on the receiving end of it”. Therein lies one of the fundamental issues: perspective.

“The need for effective conflict resolution skills in the workplace has never been greater”

While 90% of the managers surveyed stated they would quickly address conflict in the team and that they had a good understanding of what constitutes bullying, 32% of employees thought differently, reporting that their manager made the situation worse. 41% stated the conflict was left unresolved following manager intervention.

When asked directly how conflict resolution skills are being used to combat bullying in the workplace, Rachel Suff, senior employee relations adviser at the CIPD, says: “There is much more scope for employers to embrace early conflict resolution approaches to resolve individual issues at work. Where differences are addressed and proactively managed at an early stage, there’s much more chance of preventing the problem from escalating and becoming a full-blown dispute.

“This requires a culture where people aren’t afraid to speak up about concerns and have the confidence to challenge inappropriate behaviour,” Suff continues. “It also requires senior leaders who visibly lead with strong values and help to create a supportive workplace environment.”

Unfortunately, the need for effective conflict resolution skills in the workplace has never been greater. The change from location-based bullying to cyberbullying, instigated by the post-pandemic shift to remote working, has led to a significant rise in workplace conflict, with 43% of remote workers surveyed by the US based Workplace Bullying Institute in 2021 reporting incidents of bullying. Of those reported incidents, 50% took place during virtual meetings. When asked directly if the pandemic impacted co-worker relationships, 25% agreed that COVID led to an increase in harmful workplace bullying.

“In the remote working world, organisations can easily develop multiple middle-manager-led cultures which can clash, opening the way for harmful behaviours to thrive”

Aside from the lack of fundamental training in people skills, there are other systemic contributory factors at play. To start with, the wellbeing of any organisation is underpinned by a strong culture. In the remote working world, organisations can easily develop multiple middle-manager-led cultures which can clash, opening the way for harmful behaviours to thrive. Nurturing one very clear values-based culture which is led from the top, and permeates all levels, is key to creating the conditions for optimal co-worker relationships.

Secondly, the lack of accessibility to managers is an issue for remote workers, with incidents of bullying being harder to repair when there is seldom any time or social support in place to restore the situation. Managers need to be available with a remote ‘open-door’ policy which provides support for those who would have previously knocked on the door to ask for a quiet word.  

Perhaps most importantly though, remote working, by its very nature, isolates individuals, making bullying easier. Enhanced isolation through exclusion from virtual meetings and communications; the use of messaging apps and chat group cliques for gossiping; face-to-face humiliation during virtual meetings by singling out, muting or interrupting and the insidious misuse of social media as a platform to bully. These are just some of the tactics enabled in the digital world that blur the lines between an individual’s personal and professional lives and consequently impact both.

“The lack of accessibility to managers is an issue for remote workers, with incidents of bullying being harder to repair when there is seldom any time or social support in place to restore the situation”

For employers, the need to address the rise in workplace bullying is an imperative. Left alone, the impact at organisational and individual levels can be catastrophic. Adapting policies in light of the shift to remote working, clarifying procedures for complaints, prioritising diversity and inclusion training and engaging third party organisations to conduct anonymous surveys, might all be tools which make a show of prioritising relationships. However, without the fundamental shift in culture and training required to effectively tackle toxic behaviours, they can only ever act as an Elastoplast: the messy, damaging, toxic stuff will always be just below the surface.

In the 2022 Harvard Business Review study ‘How Bullying Manifests at Work — and How to Stop It’, 15 different forms of bullying in the workplace are identified: these range from the hostile ‘screamer’ to the covert ‘gaslighter’, and everything in between.

The same study cites an American theorist, W. Edwards Demming, who claims “94% of issues in the workplace are systemic, and only 6% attributable to individual-level, idiosyncratic factors.” Bullying should, therefore, be everyone’s responsibility.

“‘94% of issues in the workplace are systemic, and only 6% attributable to individual-level, idiosyncratic factors’”

Regardless of whether bullying happens in-person or digitally, only a long-term strategy for cultural change can bring a community to a place where a collective, zero-tolerance approach can succeed. As Graham Goulden, international speaker, trainer and founder of Cultivating Minds UK, says: “Active bystandership requires more than just training. It requires a system that both expects and supports intervention.

“We all benefit from a healthy workplace culture.”

Ultimately, it’s incumbent upon all of us to protect the workplace experience for everyone. “Silence, whilst an option for bystanders, has consequences,” Goulden continues. “Helping people better see what stops action, and the consequences of inaction, is the key to building strong cultures.”