According to a 2014 National Survey report by the Workplace Bullying Institute, 27% of U.S. workers are either experiencing abusive conduct at work now or did so in the past, and 21 % have witnessed someone being bullied at work! That means a total of 65.6 million workers have been affected by bullying!
The survey results also show that employers still fail to fully address repeated mistreatment and abusive conduct by managers as well as rank-and-file workers, the report’s authors said. As a result, bullying–which ranges from threats and humiliation to intimidation, work sabotage or verbal abuse–continues, they said.
“It is clear that in 2014, despite significant public awareness … employers are doing very little voluntarily to address bullying,” the report said. “At the time of the survey, there is no state law yet enacted to compel employers to attend to, rather than ignore, abusive conduct.”
The national survey results found that most workplace bullies are bosses and men! According to the survey results, 40.1 % of respondents said bosses were the principal perpetrators of bullying and abusive conduct in U.S. workplaces. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of respondents said perpetrators of abusive conduct were men, while 31 % said they were women. Fifty-six percent (56%) said the perpetrator held a higher rank than the victim, 33 % said the abuse came from peers and 11% said the bullying involved subordinates. Among respondents who had experienced or witnessed bullying, 60 percent said the targets were female and 40 percent said male.
Employer response to bullying and abusive behavior in the workplace varies, the report said, noting that 25 percent of respondents said their employers deny it happens and fail to investigate complaints. Another 16 % said employers discount bullying or describe its impact as not serious, while 15 % said employers rationalize it by describing the bullying as an innocent, routine way of doing business. According to the report, 12 % of respondents said employers take steps to eliminate bullying by creating and enforcing certain policies and procedures. But 11 % said their employers defend abusive conduct when the perpetrators are executives and managers, and 10 % said employers acknowledge the behavior and show concern for affected workers.
Since 2003, 26 states have introduced healthy workplace legislation, but no proposed laws have been enacted.
