An increasingly prevalent phenomenon in the workplace, bullying undermines employees' mental health, jeopardises team cohesion and impairs business performance. Yet inaction is still common because of a lack of clear guidelines. Faced with these alarming facts, companies need to adopt a global strategy, combining prevention and training. Aldric Zemmouri, an expert in psychosocial risks and occupational health, sets out a practical action plan to address this major issue.
Harassment: definition
Moral harassment in the workplace, classified by psychosocial risk experts as psychological violence in the workplace, is characterised by repeated acts aimed at degrading working conditions, thereby affecting an employee's personality, dignity and/or physical and mental health.
These situations are often insidious. They can arise from dysfunctional working relationships, poorly managed conflicts or unsuitable management. The consequences are serious. Not only for the victims: chronic stress, loss of confidence, isolation, even depression. But also for the company: disengagement of teams, increased absenteeism and staff turnover, and damage to the company's image.
Faced with this challenge, companies can no longer be satisfied with reactive crisis management. A a global, proactive approach is essential for prevent toxic behaviour.
However, recent data show that the subject is still poorly understood in the field. According to the Ipsos x Qualisocial 2022 barometer :
- 74 % of employees believe that bullying is widespread
- 62 % perceive an increase in cases
- paradoxically, 86 % say they are poorly informed about what it actually covers
- 73 % find it difficult to identify situations of harassment
A training strategy to enhance the skills of key players
This twofold observation - an increase in harassment and a lack of awareness of the phenomenon - calls on most employers to take action. However, it's not as simple as all that to raise the skills of your workforce on these issues. There are many obstacles to overcome:
- the subjective and invisible nature of damaged relationships
- a strict legal framework that leaves plenty of room for interpretation
- internal resistance because it is an anxiety-provoking subject for employees
- difficulties in changing practices...
These are all obstacles that require employers to implement a genuine training strategy to develop the skills of all the key players involved in dealing with relational violence.
But to be effective, training must be part of an overall plan to prevent bullying and harassment. The plan has three levels of action:
1/ The company's common framework for action
2/ Supporting managers
3/ Raising employee awareness
A 3-level bullying prevention plan
1er level of action: the company's common framework for action
To put in place an effective policy to prevent bullying, it is essential to define a clear common framework for action that is shared by all the professionals involved in dealing with these situations. The first step is to define precisely the role of each person involved. Then concrete tools need to be developed, such as reporting and investigation procedures, a list of resource persons and a whistleblowing circuit.
However, this stage cannot be implemented without first training the key players:
- human resources (the HR Director and his teams)
- members of the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) and/or members of the Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee (CSSCT)
- management (members of the COMEX/CODIR), which is responsible for this prevention policy
Together, they will have to think about the practical implementation of this policy to prevent bullying.
This training stage is all the more necessary for an employer who has never worked on these issues and whose prevention culture is weak.
Prior training for these players ensures that they have the same level of information (on the legal framework, recommendations, recognised practices, etc.) and a common language. These are essential prerequisites for building a shared framework for action.
[Training]
Psychosocial risks: implementing a preventive approach
Key points:
- understanding the issues surrounding psychosocial risks (PSR)
- identify the main factors for implementing a preventive approach to bullying, stress, burn-out and, more generally, suffering at work within the company
Examples of practical exercises :
- study of a case of psychological harassment
- self-diagnosis of management practices
- drawing up a prevention plan for the company
2th action level: support for managers
Once the common framework for action has been defined, the next step is to pass it on to all the company's managers.
Indeed, managers are going to be the relays on the ground of the prevention policy driven by management, HR and staff representatives.
But putting this policy of preventing bullying into practice on a day-to-day basis is not so simple. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, a lack of awareness of the phenomenon of bullying makes it difficult to spot at an early stage. In reality, many weak signals (the sidelining of a team member, an inequitable distribution of work between employees, old unresolved conflicts, disparaging rumours or jibes at a single person, etc.) are not seen or interpreted as worrying. What's more, relationship problems between employees are often played down, leaving situations to fester. And even when managers do spot problematic situations, they don't always report them or report them far too late, often because they lack the time or skills to investigate borderline situations further.
[Testimonial]
"An investigation into bullying was opened in my department a short while ago. It concerned a fairly long-standing conflict between a colleague and another member of staff with whom he had worked for 10 years.
It's true that I've had to intervene many times over the last few years between them, because they're supposed to be working together but they can't get organised. However, I never imagined that this conflict could degenerate to such an extent and that it could be so bad. Even though he had isolated himself recently, he was still doing his job properly... I thought he had personal problems and needed some peace and quiet.
In the end, it was when I spoke to him at the annual interview that he cracked, talking about suicide. So I started to dig around and find out what was really going on between them. In view of his condition and the facts he was reporting, I decided to tell HR because I was really worried.
Training managers is therefore essential if the policy of preventing bullying is to be put into practice on the ground. This is the ideal time to help them identify the main obstacles that prevent them from raising the alarm. Discussions will often lead to clarification:
- the alert circuit
- essential information to be provided
- documents to be used
- the vocabulary to use...
[Training]
Preventing harassment and raising employee awareness
4 key points:
- Understanding moral and sexual harassment
- Identifying the risk factors that encourage this type of behaviour
- Dealing with harassment
- Anticipating risks with an appropriate prevention plan
Example of practical exercises: practising interview techniques to check information
They say: "Concrete content, that's what I was missing to continue the work I had started in the company.
The training reinforces the manager's role as guarantor of employee safety and helps him or her to manage potential risks on a day-to-day basis.
3th action level: raising employee awareness
Once the common framework for action has been shared with managers, the company can finally communicate the main elements of its bullying prevention policy to all employees. To do this, it must mobilise all the channels at its disposal:
- presentation to the CSE/CSSCT
- regulatory signage
- internal communication tools (intranet, newsletter, etc.)
- direct awareness-raising initiatives (webinars, practical workshops, prevention stands)
This is when training for all employees takes on its full meaning. These are usually half-day awareness-raising workshops. What are the objectives?
1/ Raising awareness of the phenomenon itself. This provides an opportunity to clarify the difference between a conflictor harassment. Employees often ask these questions.
[Testimonial]
"Last week I took part in an awareness-raising workshop on preventing bullying in the workplace. I wasn't very keen at first, because I think you hear this term used all the time in offices, and it's a bit of a nonsense. But the workshop was very interesting and I learned a lot!
First of all, I realised that moral harassment is not a conflict. There are quite specific criteria for harassment. We looked at a number of very concrete situations to try and determine whether they could be construed as harassment. What surprised me the most in the examples given was the variety of ways in which a perpetrator could attack his victim, sometimes using techniques reminiscent of the schoolyard. For example: I ignore you, I cut you off, I make fun of you... And this is repeated on a daily basis. It's exhausting for the victim, and eventually they crack.
The other thing that struck me in this workshop was that the perpetrator of harassment is not always a monster. And the victim is not always an angel either! We can all be potential perpetrators of bullying, depending on the work context, sometimes without realising it! I really enjoyed this deconstruction, which helps us to avoid getting stuck in stereotypes and to better understand how bullying really works. It makes it easier to spot tense situations before they go too far. In the end, it's better for everyone because it helps maintain a good working atmosphere.
2/ Present or reiterate the employer's policy: alert circuit, investigation procedure and care for victims.
The many exchanges with employees during the workshops ensure that the prevention message is well understood and that the tools proposed are operational.
To sum up, preventing bullying requires a strong commitment and a structured strategy involving everyone in the company. Training, awareness-raising and a clear framework are the pillars of a culture where everyone knows how to spot, report and take action. As well as ensuring legal compliance, this is an essential lever for collective well-being and performance. So, beyond moral harassment, isn't the issue more global, or how to establish a corporate culture based on respect, listening and conflict prevention?
