Freedom From Workplace Bullies Week
Everyone Deserves a Safe, Healthy Workplace
Bullying is a systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction that jeopardizes your health, your career, the job you once loved. Bullying is a non-physical, non-homicidal form of violence. Because it is abusive it causes both emotional and stress-related physical harm.
Freedom from Bullies Week (Oct 13-19, 2024) is a chance to break through the shame and silence surrounding bullying. It is a week to be daring and bold.
The power of workplace bullying is its ability to stay hidden in plain view. Make every workplace safe and take a stand against workplace bullying!
Everyone Can Stop Workplace Bullying
See WBI Action Plans Below
BULLIED TARGETS
Actions for Freedom Week
- Study the WBI Tutorials to learn what happened & what will happen.
- Tell co-workers, friends, and family.
- Put your health first.
- Talk to a WBI Coach (fee).
- Do not believe the BIG LIE about you.
- Purchase the Workplace Bullying University® Complete Package for full understanding.
- Reclaim your dignity — fight back or find a new job.
FAMILY & FRIENDS
Stabilize, Normalize, Validate, Humanize Targets
- Give unconditional support. Believe them. Tolerate obsessiveness.
- Remind them of who they were before bullying injured them.
- Don’t ask why they did not do more to fight back.
- Encourage them to get psychological and medical help.
- Provide needed respite from toxic, stressful work.
- Distract them with pleasurable activities.
- Don’t ask more of them than they are capable of doing.
- Remember, you will be the last ones there after others abandon.
COWORKERS
- Don’t give in to fear, e.g., of being the next target.
- Share your bullying experiences with your targeted friend.
- Offer help. Targets are too ashamed to ask.
- Validate the target's emotions, even if scary to you.
- Organize others AS A GROUP to confront the bully.
- Do not side with bullies against your friend, even when ordered to.
- Reinforce the target’s humanity. It’s the social compact among us all.
UNIONS
- Help abused members. Do not condition support on liking them.
- If abuser is also member, represent but do not defend.
- Make psychological & psychosocial safety demands for all members.
- Employ workplace bullying prevention to organize.
- Purchase Workplace Bullying University® for Unions. Train a team of members to support all.
- Bargain to include an anti-bullying provision in your CBA.
- Support the Healthy Workplace Bill in your state. Alert your Legislative Director.
MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
- Specialize in workplace abuse in your practice.
- Use trauma-informed approach for bullied clients.
- Trust what abuse victims tell you. Believe that there are people as evil as have been described to you.
- See how work environments, not your client, explain the mistreatment.
- Minimize testing during acute phases of abuse so as to not misdiagnose.
- Learn EMDR, if not certified.
- Learn the consequences for the client of FMLA, Workers Comp, and Disability (short- and long-term).
- Purchase the science-based Workplace Bullying University® for in-depth understanding.
EMPLOYERS
- Stop chasing personality-based solutions, e.g., anger management. Personalities don't change.
- Learn the unsustainable costs of bullying. Act rationally.
- Commit to correcting and preventing bullying. Create psychological & psychosocial safety.
- Create a non-toxic workplace.
- Read the Namies' book for employers: The Bully-Free Workplace.
- Purchase The Work Doctor® Toolkit for your organization (workdoctor.com)
