Ask A Coach: How to Document Harassment

With Shirley Adrain, The WIP Empowerment Coach

​When you are job-seeking, getting the right role seems to be the biggest hurdle.  Often in the job search, we research the position and company thoroughly, but overlook researching what the company culture is like.  In fact, the job may be perfect but the culture is far from it - which can lead to stress and self-doubt. Being happy in your environment is just as important as being happy in your role, and both can have an impact on your performance and career progression.  

Recently the Resilience Coach Nerice Gietel answered questions from the WIP community about dealing with subtle office politics.  Now the Empowerment Coach Shirley Adrain helps us tackle more overt bullying and harassment.

Q: What are the signs of bullying or a toxic work environment that you should look out for?

It can be difficult to label behaviours as toxic when you first come across them.  You might think that you are being over sensitive or simply unfamiliar with a new workplace dynamic.   While it is useful to not jump to conclusions - maybe that first interaction is a reflection of someone’s bad day and not a personal attack - it is important to establish boundaries about how you believe you should be treated.  If you’re not sure what you are experiencing constitutes bullying or harassment, ask a friend, family member or colleague that you trust for their opinion. Shirley also recommends looking out for the following behaviours to help you identify whether you work in a toxic environment:

• Publicly shouting and expressing anger at individuals and teams.
• ​Passive aggressive leadership - ignoring meeting requests, not responding to emails, cc’ing your boss in all emails to you.
• Destructive gossip - fabricating false stories about you, which can undermine your work.
• Conniving office politics – taking credit for your work, interrupting you in meetings, publicly pointing out your errors.  
• General negativity about people, the culture, strategy and plans which has a knock-on effect on team morale and motivation.  
• Disregarding a person’s feedback or opinion whilst favouring another's.

Q: When should you present your evidence of harassment, and to whom?

It is natural not to want to deal with situations of conflict, and it feels even more uncomfortable when you don’t have the tools to deal with it.  However, Shirley encourages you not to fail (or wait) to report the issue. Arrange an informal chat to someone to your Human Resources department to get their guidance on how to approach this.  “You can also try to stop the bullying behaviour by quickly and tactfully pointing it out to the bully in calm and non-emotive language,” says Shirley. Here is one way to do this:

‘When you…’ (enter bullying behaviour e.g. ‘shout at me in front of my clients’),

‘This…’ (enter impact on you, e.g. ‘makes my clients question my capability, and this looks bad on all of us’).
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‘In future, can you please...’ (enter what you want to happen e.g. ‘talk to me in private in a calm manner so I can understand the issue and we can discuss and resolve it).

If this doesn’t work, get your facts written down.  Document the evidence of the bullying with times, dates, exactly what was said or done, the impact of this on the business and details of anyone who witnessed it.  It is likely that this bully may be also bullying your co-workers, so ask them to also document their evidence and get together with them to collectively present your evidence. “Look at the impact #MeToo has had,” says Shirley.  This is a great example of the collective power of people who have been victims of harassment.”

Once you have your documentation, go together to formally present your evidence to HR, should you work in a large organisation.  In addition, ask your HR department for the details of your company’s formal grievance/complaints process. This should be in your employee handbook.

​What if you work for a smaller company with no HR?  Then take your complaint to the CEO or someone in the senior leadership team who has the power to make changes and is a supportive and effective leader.

What if the CEO is the bully? If your attempt to calmly point out the behaviours following the model above doesn’t work, start looking for another job, or harness the collective power of your co-workers to influence and change the culture.  Although daunting, this is an effective strategy. “Look at the Google walkout at the end of 2018,” says Shirley. “They documented their five demands for fairness and to end harassment at work. It worked!”

Q: What are the next steps after you have presented your evidence?

If you don’t get a response from HR or see any improvement, ask for a follow up meeting.  If your company seems to be stalling the process, it is useful to know what legal recourse you have in your area.  The UK, US and Hong Kong legislation information can be found below. If you find you’re being penalised as a result of your actions, then you can seek external help from an equal opportunities commissions or organisations in your area.  Unfortunately, there is still a lot of work to be done in some regions to legally stop bullying and harassment in the workplace. Therefore, if your company response is not positive, then it’s time to start looking for another job with a company with a more positive culture and better working environment.  Seek the advice of a coach to support you in this process.

Q: How can you stay positive while working in a toxic work environment?

When you’re working in a toxic environment, the atmosphere and behaviours can severely affect your self-worth.  Make sure to take a walk outside of the office to clear your mind and give yourself some physical and mental space for a few minutes during lunch break.  These are small actions, but can make the day a bit more bearable. It’s difficult but important to learn to stop the negative behaviours and toxic culture from making you feel depressed and questioning the value you add at work.  “Try to remember that we cannot control what others say and do,” says Shirley. “But we can control our responses to these behaviours.” To develop your resilience, Shirley suggests working with a coach or someone who knows you well outside of work and clearly define your skills and the value you add at work.  “Look for evidence from past experience and also what you are doing now. It’s a good lesson for all of us at work to be able to recognise when we have done a good job, and not depend on the opinions and feedback from others to validate this.”

At work find one of two friends at work whom you can confide in and focus on supporting each other, but not gossiping. “Keep your integrity at work and don’t emulate the negative behaviours you see around you,” says Shirley.  “Take learnings from this experience on how to spot ineffective leaders and how to act appropriately when you become a leader.”
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If you realise that the work culture is not going to change in the near future, it’s time to weigh up the role and decide if there are enough good points to stay.  If so, find ways to do more of what you really enjoy at work, to help keep you positive while also growing your skills. Alternatively, make a plan to move roles, move departments or raise a formal grievance and potentially remove the person who is harassing/bullying you.  If not, make a plan to find another job, remembering that it’s always easier to move jobs when you are already in a job.

If you’re not sure about what consistent workplace bullying or harassment, check out these legislations for the US, the UK and Hong Kong

US: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/types-of-harassment-in-the-workplace-2060886
UK: https://www.gov.uk/workplace-bullying-and-harassment
​HK: https://www.gov.hk/en/residents/employment/labour/discrimination.htm

"Change has to start somewhere, and cultures won’t miraculously be different overnight.  But if you contribute to building a positive environment, you are contributing to a better experience for everyone - including the bottom line for the company.”  
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What advice do you have for dealing with a toxic environment?  Let us know in the comments!