Firstly, I think the charity commission should have a code of conduct to which all charities serious about avoiding toxic working environments should be signatories. Then in all workers’ contracts, there should be a respect at work clause which the worker must sign. This way, the charity is making clear their bottom line.
Why should charities do this – as mentioned before, charities are attractive to bullies and harassers because working for them bestows virtue by association and can give them what they crave most status, power, and opportunity to bully and or harass. Bullying and harassment cost a lot of money paid to the targets who can evidence what has happened, and toxic environments lower productivity. The most highly trained and talented leave unless the toxicity has been effectively dealt with your recruiting into a poisoned chalice.
The longer a charity leaves dealing with bullying and harassment, the more difficult it is to unpick.
Lastly and most importantly, you need me to train your workers to protect your charity’s reputation and future productivity – by holding a bullying-proofing webinar. While covering the usual course content, I also tell workers, management, and HR how to identify the multiple ways a bully tests potential targets grooming them to be bullied and or harassed. I help organisations learn what is and is not acceptable and how to politely rebuff behaviour that crosses an acceptable boundary.
#workplacebullying #bullying #harassment #bullyingawareness #bullyingprevention.
