Bullying hits 20% of UK workers

Helen Green won £800,000 from Deutsche Bank after being bullied

One in five UK workers have faced bullying and harassment at work in the past two years, a survey says.

The research, the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development says, indicates that this treatment remains commonplace in the UK.

Disabled people were worst affected, with 37% saying they were bullied.

Those from ethnic minorities have also been badly hit, with 29% of workers who are black or Asian saying they have suffered from bullying or harassment.

The findings are being published by the CIPD ahead of a national campaign against workplace bullying, to be being launched next month by the Andrea Adams Trust.

Its national "Ban Bullying Day", scheduled for 7 November, is aimed at persuading employers to make more effort to combat bullying and harassment among their own workers.

Serious problem

Mike Emmott of the CIPD said the issue was clearly a very serious problem which employers should take more seriously.

"It can damage individuals' confidence, morale, motivation and sometimes their health causing them to be less productive and effective at work," he said.

"It can also trigger absenteeism, make retention rates go down and both the employer's reputation and bottom line can take a hit."

Public sector staff are more likely to be bullied than private sector ones.

The difference between public and private sector workers might be due to those who are employed by the government and local authorities having a greater awareness of the problem, suggested the CIPD.

Disabled staff

But there was a very big difference in the survey between other groups of employees.

Of non-disabled staff, only 18% claimed to have been picked on at work during the last two years, compared to more than a third of their disabled counterparts.

While more than a quarter of ethnic minority workers had been bullied or harassed, the problem was noticeably less prominent for white employees, of whom only 18% had faced such treatment.

Racism was blamed by many for their experiences.

Among Asian respondents, 15% claimed that the bullying was racial, 8% of other ethnic groups also felt this was the case, while only 1% of white staff thought race was the reason for their treatment.

The CIPD concludes that despite the proliferation of anti-bullying policies and the widespread publicity that has been given to the problem, changing peoples' attitudes and behaviour is proving tricky.

The survey, of 2,000 people, was carried out online by the polling organisation MORI and Kingston business school.

Fuller results on other issues such as flexible working, loyalty, job satisfaction and attitudes to management will be published in December.