Workplace Bullying Support Program
As an Employer of Choice, you want to ensure that your employees are happy and supported because this contributes to a culturally and financially healthy business.
Our Workplace Bullying Support Program supports your company to build and maintain a mentally healthy workplace, one that is free from bullying. We help you navigate the journey to reach a positive resolution for everyone involved.
Workplace bullying can have a serious and detrimental effect on the mental wellbeing, culture and performance of your workplace. In an environment where bullying exists:
- All employees are at risk of reduced mental health, not just the bullied target.
- Your company is likely to suffer from reduced work quality, productivity, and higher employee turnover.
- You are also at risk of costly Workcover and legal claims.
Our unique approach holistically assesses the situation when a bullying claim is made. The assessment includes the bullied target, the alleged bully and your company to solve the problem and develop a plan to minimise harm and the risk of claims.
When should you access the Workplace Bullying Support Program?
The best time to undertake the Program is when an employee claims that they are being bullied or as the employer, you suspect bullying-type behaviours are occurring.
As an employer, you will want to mitigate the risk of a Workcover or legal claim, as well as ensuring the mental wellbeing of your workplace.
The earlier you act, the greater chance of reduced impact of a bullying claim and risk mitigation.
What does it involve?
Our Program works with you and your employees, using our specialist knowledge of workplace bullying, mental health injury and support systems to understand your challenges and develop solutions.
Our Workplace Bullying Support Program uses a four-step process:
Assess the situation.
We aim to understand the situation to develop the plan. Some of the primary questions we are looking to answer include: What do you understand as the employer? How well are your systems and policies working? What does the employee understand? Are there indicators of bullying already present? Are there signs of mental health decline or injury?
Develop the Plan.
We will recommend a holistic, realistic and achievable plan developed with you and your employees. This plan covers all stakeholders including your company representatives, the bullied target and the alleged bully. The plan will define the specific actions and timeframes needed to reduce or mitigate injury risk based on our assessment.
Implement the plan.
We will support you to implement the plan with identified timelines and provide guidance along the way.
Review the implemented plan.
You want quality outcomes. To ensure continuous improvement this phase asks the questions: Is it working? What adjustments can be made to ensure it continues to work successfully?
What is the outcome you would expect?
Our program uses a collaborative approach focused on solutions that involve the employer, the bullied target and the alleged bully.
For employers, we work with you to identify your goals and what has been done to resolve the problem and mitigate your risk
of claims. We identify potential improvements in your systems that lead to long term bullying mitigation.
For the bullied target, we work with them to clarify the bullying experience. We identify any signs of injury and declining mental health, and develop a support plan with them to minimise or prevent general and mental health injury.
For the alleged bully, we meet with them to understand their experience, recommending approaches to ensure they are
supported through this process and provide specific actions to prevent the recurrence of bullying type behaviours.
At the end of the process, we provide you with a detailed report including, a situation summary, the plan and recommendations. This report provides recommendations for each stakeholder – your company, the bullied target and the alleged bully.
How does this program compare to more traditional approaches?
There are commonly three pathways taken with workplace bullying including complaint investigations, mediation and Employee Assistance Programs (EAP). Our approach is different in several ways including:
- A non-combative, no blame approach focused on solutions and outcomes that promote longer-term success.
- Investigations rely on complaints that are rarely formalised, combative and seek to blame.
- Assessing for signs of mental health injury before placing the target in the same room as the alleged bully.
- Mediation may exacerbate mental health injury.
- Participation in the process ensures you, as the employer, are aware of the risk and part of the plan to mitigate it. EAPs are often confidential meaning you are unaware of which employees are at risk and who is using bullying type behaviours leaving your business vulnerable.
Companies that care about the mental and physical well-being of their employees will always look to get the best outcome for them.
The earlier you act, the better the outcome. Call us now for a free and confidential conversation. Our approach can be delivered remotely so we can support you wherever you are located.