ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we painted a picture of bullying in the workplace by providing an idea of the extent of the problem and the very broad range of people it appears to affect. We showed that bullying is a phenomenon directly linked to people’s experience of a variety of negative behaviour at work and that it is pervasive. Using the results of recent research we showed that the number of people who reported regular exposure to negative acts at work far exceeds those who labelled themselves as ‘being bullied’. Whether the experience of all of these people should be thought of as bullying is an open and current question. What is beyond doubt is that a large proportion of the workforce is faced consistently with behaviour which may be construed as bullying and which may damage them.
