Harassment & Bullying – Be more than a bystander
Harassment and Bullying Prevention
Examples of Bullying (From the Government of BC)
Bullying is usually targeted with an intention to intimidate, offend, degrade or humiliate. Bullying actions and tactics can be both obvious and subtle as well as physical and psychological. Below are some examples of behaviours that may be determined to be bullying. This is not an exhaustive list:
- Aggressive or frightening behaviour such as swearing, shouting or intimidation by threatening violence
- Spreading false accusations about a person
- Criticism, humiliation, invasion of privacy, slanderous comments, undermining, destructive rumours or gossip and making unreasonable demands
- Rude, belittling or sarcastic comments (“you’re hopeless” or “she’s on her way out”)
- Abusive, belittling or intimidating phone calls, emails, notes and so on
- Baiting or unreasonable teasing, for example, singing derogatory songs and inserting the person’s name or using cruel nicknames
- Nasty practical jokes
- Deliberate and unreasonable isolation or exclusion from work discussions, communication or other work-related activities
- Ignoring the person
- Withholding necessary information or deliberately withholding work flow so that a person cannot carry out their duties
- Removing areas of responsibility without cause
Bullying and harassment are not necessarily face to face. They may be done by written communications, visual images such as pictures of a sexual nature or embarrassing photographs of colleagues, electronic email or flame-mail or by phone. Unless universally applied to all workers, automatic supervision methods like computer recording of downtime from work or recording of telephone conversations may also be considered bullying or harassment.
