Bullying is no short cut to success

Ground Floor/Kieran Fagan: Legislation on workplace bullying looks like shutting the stable door after a particularly vicious colt or filly has bolted. The drive to cut costs and the pressure on managers to get results is putting new pressures on the workplace.

In the hands of good managers, these pressures yield greater efficiencies. Bad managers, like the poor, seem always to be with us, but there are some in the middle who are getting it wrong and don't know why. Legislation provides financial compensation to the employee who has probably quit at that stage, and penalises the offside employer, but nobody ever gets back the time lost and the pain suffered.

I've seen it from both sides in 40 years in various industries and companies. As a trade-union activist, and later as a manager, I've seen bullying, unacknowledged episodes of bullying, unfounded accusations of bullying, and an epic attempt by one bully to take another out, ending in a bruising draw.

Those experiences convince me that legislation and penalties won't put the bullying genie back in its bottle. Part of me says that the statutory body mooted this week by Frank Fahey, the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, at the prompting of the Health and Safety Authority, is a good thing. But I'm also reminded of the tourist in Kerry who asked a local for directions. "If you want to drive to Killarney, sir, well sir I wouldn't shtart from here."

Much can be done at workplace level by people of goodwill to stop the bullying before it starts.

First, you need to recognise it. Bullying behaviour mutates to find new forms. Some managers today are cursed with the "False Michael O'Leary paradigm". It goes something like this: "Michael O'Leary broke all the rules and succeeded. You can do the same." (For the record, I'm not suggesting that Michael O'Leary or Ryanair ever bullied anyone. Ryanair succeeded through rigid application of O'Leary's accountant's approach to cost-cutting. He applied the rules others ignored.) Back to my middle manager. Go for it, go on you boy, you (or girl). Forget about the team-building stuff, that's so nineties. Put on the pressure. Get the management job, promise to achieve unrealistic targets. What happened to the candidates for the top job who didn't promise to drain the Shannon? They didn't get the job, that's what. Losers.

Now our new manager has told his bosses he can deliver more than his people can realistically achieve. It usually begins with a pep talk to the troops. There's one of them who insists on picking out the flaws in the master plan skilfully presented by macho manager. Right, well if Jimmy won't play ball, Jimmy will be dealt with.

Start small-scale. Jimmy is no longer One Of Us. Isolate him, make jokes, play tricks. Maybe Jimmy gets no work to do. Maybe he gets too much. Jimmy's fellow workers are confused. Suddenly Jimmy is a Bad Person. We'd better stay onside with the boss. The wagons are circled, with Jimmy outside.

Then, with a bit of luck, Jimmy sees the writing on the wall and moves on. Someone is appointed who has all the right Non-Jimmy characteristics. She may be appointed for no other reason than the differences between her and the departed Jimmy.

Watch carefully what happens when Non-Jimmy joins the group. The group now takes on the bullying role for the boss. Jokes, ridicule, make much of Non-Jimmy's mistakes, how she doesn't understand Our Way of Doing Things. Tell the boss how badly Non-Jimmy is doing, and how he needs to do something to help her - in her own interest.

I spotted a beauty once. A fast learner member of the compliant/submissive group of staff was a bit nervous that a Non-Jimmy was settling in, despite everyone's best efforts. Non-Jimmy asked for advice on how to deal with a particularly difficult customer.

Non-Jimmy followed the advice, the customer went ballistic, and Non-Jimmy got the blame. The compliant/submissive denied ever having given any such advice.

"How could I? I'd never get it that wrong."

So Non-Jimmy joins the exit queue. And the manager who set the unrealistic target has an alibi. Not one, but two, people let him - and the team - down.

Often, nobody uses the word bullying. Many people who are bullied don't wish to admit it - it would be an admission of weakness. Move on, stay shtum.

For the perpetrators (and some who began in all innocence and were drawn into guilty behaviour), well, Jimmy never tried to tried to fit in, did he?

So how do you know if bullying is taking place in your business?

There are indicators that should set alarm bells ringing. They include high turnover of staff, high incidence of stress-related sickness, too much reliance on disciplinary procedures, and too much time promulgating over-rigid instructions.

But there's also your nose. Your nose, be you managing director or junior sales agent, should tell you something funny is going on.

Long before the problem gets to the statutory forum that Mr Fahey is considering, a good company will have safeguards in place. The best ones, I suggest, are not excessively onerous. If company leadership watches the danger indicators, union representatives look a bit harder at problems that flare up between their members, and older staff keep an eye out for the younger ones, a lot of hurt and waste of effort will be avoided.

If I had a magic wand, at recruitment, each new employee would be put under the care of an older hand - not their line manager - with whom problems can be discussed in confidence.

Not least because some of what some people perceive as bullying can be just a misunderstanding.

Kieran Fagan is a freelance journalist and can be contacted at kfagan99@yahoo.com

Sheila O'Flanagan is on holidays.