News: Performance Management
Management training 'key to ending workplace bullying'
25 November 2008
Businesses must employ relevant management training to ensure their staff are protected from workplace bullying, a commentator urges.
Lyn Witheridge, the chief executive of the Andrea Adams Trust, a charity which seeks to challenge such behaviour, calls for employers to raise awareness of what constitutes bullying.
She urges: "Managers need to be trained and key people like harassment advisers and investigators have got to be put in place, we have got to take this seriously."
Ms Witheridge agrees that many organisations have grievance procedures in place but warns that without acceptable management training and awareness, this is "just written words".
A recent survey conducted by YouGov On behalf of the Trades Union Congress shows one in seven people claims to have been bullied, with many stating that senior managers were behind their harassment.
It found such bullying was more prevalent in the public sector, where 16 per cent of respondents said they had experienced it compared to 12 per cent of the private sector.
