Four in ten of all employment enquiries to one firm in 2009 were related to bullying. Contact Law, a solicitor-finding service, says that out of the 14,130 enquiries it received from employees relating to employment in 2009, 5,652 were in part related to bullying.
Dan Watkins, Director of Contact Law, says that although employers have been aware about the problem for some time now, the difficulty of firstly defining bullying and then acting upon it effectively means that it continues to be a prevalent issue in the workplace.
He commented:
“It is rare for bullying to actually manifest itself in a physical act of aggression such as throwing around mobile phones and documents. Most of the time bullying will be verbal, indirect or symbolic, such as undermining a colleague in front of peers.
“There is also a very fine line between what is defined as bullying or simply as a tough management style. An employee might think they are being bullied whilst an employer might think they are merely managing that employee properly.”
