Protecting yourself against bullying

Protective strategies for employees who are experiencing bullying or harassment:

• Describing perceptions
• De-stressing outside of work
• Focusing on self-care

Your mental and emotional well-being will likely be affected when you believe you’re the target of bullying behaviour. These situations can also have a significant impact on your productivity and interactions with others. Yet sometimes it can be very difficult to prove the behaviour is causing harm – there may be insufficient conclusive or objective evidence.

Even if you report what you perceive to be bullying or harassment, you may not be able to stop the behaviours or get the situation addressed effectively. If your complaint is dismissed or ignored, you may feel more powerless, hopeless and isolated. If conflict resolution is offered to address bullying it may be a long or sometimes uncomfortable process.

No matter what processes or supports are available in the workplace, protecting your health and productivity can also help you cope. At a time when it may feel you’re subjected to behaviours outside of your control, there are steps you can take. Options include describing your perceptions clearly, de-stressing outside of work and increasing your self-care. When you’re better able to cope, you can make better decisions about whether to address, avoid or walk away from the bullying behaviour.

Describing our perceptions

We all have different perspectives. By describing the behaviour of others in terms of how you experience their actions – such as insensitive, inconsiderate, disrespectful or isolating – you can more objectively explain the situation to yourself or others.  The following are some examples:

• “When I see people rolling their eyes when I present an idea, I perceive this as inconsiderate of my contribution.”
• “When I’m the only one on the team not invited when people are going out for a coffee break, I feel left out.”
• “When someone goes into my desk and takes my things, I experience this as disrespect.”

Some other questions you can ask yourself:

• How do I prefer to receive critical feedback? Have I ever shared this with those who are expected to provide feedback to me?
• How do I react when I think my boss or co-workers are frustrated with me?
• If someone at work is feeling frustration with my work or behaviour, how would I like them to express it?
• How do I respond to what I perceive as a negative attitude of others towards me?
• When do I perceive good-natured teasing as crossing the line into insensitivity?
• When do I perceive feedback as crossing the line to being insensitive?
• What do I perceive as disrespectful behaviour from my manager or co-workers?
• What do I perceive to be excluding behaviours? Am I doing things that isolate me from my team as a way of coping?

De-stressing outside of work

• Life outside of work can contribute to stress. Consider these and other relevant areas of your life:
  
  • Other jobs
  • Volunteer work
  • Immediate family
  • Extended family
  • Friends
  • Neighbours
  • Living conditions
  • Finances
  • Physical health and well-being
  • Hobbies and interests
• List the ways you’re experiencing stress in each of these areas.
• Choose one or 2 stressors you can change immediately.
• Every week consider addressing one or 2 other stressors.

Example scenario

Alan is an insurance adjustor. He’s a single father of 2 adolescent children, a baseball coach for his daughter’s team, a volunteer at his local hospital and the primary caretaker of his aging mother. 

Alan perceived a co-worker was bullying him. He tried to have the behaviour addressed, but he didn’t have evidence to support his complaint. He began to experience headaches and nausea every morning on his way to work. At work he lost confidence when he made errors on even routine tasks.

Alan looked at the other areas of his life and the stressors within. He asked a few parents on the baseball team to take over some administrative coaching tasks he found time consuming and stressful. He reduced his volunteer hours at the hospital to one evening a week. Next, he arranged with his sister, who lived in a distant city, to take on some caretaking tasks for their mother that could be managed from a distance. Alan also sought counseling from the Employee Assistance Provider provided by his work benefit package.

These changes helped reduce the negative physical and psychological impacts of the bullying and increased his sense of control. They didn’t immediately change the work situation, but helped him cope until he could make necessary changes.

Increasing self-care

• Breathing
  • Breathe more intentionally and fully to reduce stress. 
  • For one minute, breathe deeply with full lung expansion and exhalation. 
  • Do this as many times a day as you can, while you: 
    
    • Brush your teeth
    • Walk to the bus stop
    • Cook dinner
    • Wait at a traffic light
    • Sit at your desk
    • Are doing anything where you can find a minute to breathe
• Calming the mind
  • Think about a specific time when you felt peaceful and calm. 
  • Try to remember exactly how it felt in your mind and body – face, neck, shoulders, chest, hands, feet and other areas. 
  • Learn to recall and recreate that calm feeling any time you need it.
• Moving the body
  • Start or increase physical activity – anything that moves the body, like: 
    
    • Exercising
    • Working out
    • Dancing
    • Walking
    • Standing instead of sitting
    • Stretching
    • Yoga
• Nourishing the body
  
  • Stay hydrated by drinking plain water throughout the day.
  • Minimize consumption of caffeine, which can increase agitation.
  • Watch your consumption of alcohol and other substances used as stress relievers. Saying When is a step-by-step program offered by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. It helps people cut down or stop drinking.
  • Pay attention to how much and what kind of food you eat. Consider reducing foods high in sugar, salt and sodium.
• Interacting with people
  • Increase contact with people in your life who help you feel good.
  • Limit contact with people with whom you don’t feel good.
  • At the same time, resist the urge to isolate yourself.
• Giving to others
  • Consider how you can be of help to others. Engaging in helping behaviours can give you a break from your state of distress.
• Receiving help
  • Ask for help and allow others to give you help.
• Seeking professional help
  • Consider going to a counselor or therapist to help you through this tough time. You may also find it helpful to use free resources like those available through Employee Assistance Programs.

Alan addressed his self-care by putting a note on the dashboard of his car to remind him to breathe intentionally at every traffic light while driving to work. He decided to walk 30 minutes to work twice a week. He stopped buying soft drinks and instead bought a refillable water container and drank plain water. He phoned a good friend he hadn’t seen in months and set up times to get together to play cards. Each of these actions helped Alan to manage his stress and to begin feeling better and stronger. This made it easier for him to consider his options and make decisions about addressing, avoiding or walking away from the bullying behaviour.

It’s preferable that behaviours in the workplace aren’t allowed to escalate to the point where the employee needs to take these measures. Harassment and bullying prevention focuses on preventing and responding to behaviours that are offensive or potentially harmful to others.

Share this with anyone who might be dealing with bullying.

Additional resources

• Managing stress. Learn how to manage your reactions to stress and protect your well-being.
• Loneliness and social connection. Loneliness is directly linked to health, life and work satisfaction outcomes. Learn strategies for addressing loneliness and building social connections. 
• Managing trauma at work. Trauma is a subjective experience for each individual, as is the way we interact and respond to triggering situations after experiencing a traumatic event. On this page, you’ll find some steps you can take to help manage trauma.