--- title: "Challenging The Toxicity Of Bullying" episode: 82 date: 2023-10-05 guest: "Nicki Eyre" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/82-challenging-the-toxicity-of-bullying audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-082/audio.mp3 --- # Challenging The Toxicity Of Bullying Joanne Lockwood is joined by workplace bullying expert Nicki Eyre to unpack what workplace bullying is, how it shows up day-to-day, and why it can be so difficult to evidence and challenge through formal routes. They explore the spectrum of bullying behaviours—from incivility and exclusion through to intimidation and psychological manipulation—and the way repeated patterns and power dynamics can keep someone in a prolonged stress response. The conversation covers the legal and procedural gap in the UK around non-discriminatory bullying, the limitations of grievance processes, and how investigations can retraumatise those raising concerns when organisations focus on defensiveness rather than learning. Nicki and Joanne also discuss the real impacts on wellbeing, including anxiety, depression, reduced confidence and self-esteem, and trauma responses that can persist long after someone leaves a role. They highlight the importance of trauma-informed approaches, early intervention and prevention, accountability alongside support for all parties, and the role of allies and collective voice in challenging harmful behaviour and pushing for change. ## Chapters - 00:02:11 — Bullying varies and can be subtle or violent - 00:07:30 — Wife resigned, faced constructive dismissal, bullying allegations - 00:11:35 — Workplace bullying trauma causes mental, physical harm - 00:17:39 — Favoritism and small actions build up stress - 00:20:30 — Newer definition of bullying emphasizes emotional harm - 00:25:51 — Workplace abuse and coercive control similarities. Financial control - 00:29:38 — Investigate accusations properly; use names, not whistleblowing - 00:35:20 — Bullying at work, formal process & trauma - 00:39:45 — Apologies prevent costly consequences for businesses - 00:45:01 — Speak out, find allies, challenge behaviour - 00:47:21 — Trans person sexually assaulted, confronted abuser respectfully - 00:51:05 — Fight against workplace bullying and promote legislation - 00:56:00 — Subscribe to Inclusion Bites podcast, exciting guests coming ## FAQs ### What is workplace bullying and how is it defined? Workplace bullying can take many forms, from small acts of incivility to physical or emotional abuse. It is defined as targeted behavior towards one person, often with a power dynamic involved. ### What are the effects of workplace bullying on a person’s health? Workplace bullying can cause both physical and psychological health problems like depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and fatigue. Victims may experience changes in behavior, destroyed self-esteem and confidence, and a sense of losing oneself. ### What is the best way to handle workplace bullying? Prevention and early intervention are essential, and employers have a duty of care to prioritize them. That said, when workplace bullying does occur, it should be recognized as an organizational issue rather than an individual issue. ### How can organizations avoid allegations of bullying in the workplace? By investing in the fair treatment of employees and implementing a robust whistleblowing process, organizations can avoid allegations of bullying by creating an inclusive culture of transparency and accountability. ### Are grievance procedures effective in cases of workplace bullying? No, the current system has a high failure rate, and the burden of proof often falls on the person alleging bullying rather than the employer. For a formal grievance process to work, it must be trauma-informed, and investigators should be trained in assessing trauma’s impact on a person’s ability to provide evidence. ### How can managers and employers recognize bullying behavior and prevent it from happening? By promoting an inclusive culture and increasing awareness of bullying, managers can learn to recognize bullying behavior and intervene when it occurs. It's important to act rather than ignore the behavior, and early intervention can help prevent long-term damage. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Hello everyone, my name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series I've interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation about the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk that's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk You can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode 82 with the title Challenging the Toxicity of Bullying. I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Nicki Eyre. Nicki describes herself as a workplace bullying expert. When I asked Nicki to describe her superpower, She said that she turns a bad situation into a positive, never gives up even when it's really tough. Hello Nicki, welcome to the show. Hi Nicki Eyre: Jo, absolutely lovely to be here with you today. Joanne Lockwood: Yes, likewise. I took part in your conference last year and it was an excellent and you can tell us all about that later if you wish. So, Nicky, toxicity of bullying, how do we challenge it? Tell us about that. Nicki Eyre: Well, the first thing that everybody can do, Jo, is exactly what we're doing here, and that's talking about it. Let's shout it from the rooftops. This is a subject that needs to be discussed. It needs to be brought out into the open, and we need to be helping people to understand exactly what it is, what it looks like, and most importantly the damage that it can do. So that's definitely the starting point, let's have these conversations. So you said Joanne Lockwood: there, describe it, what is bullying? Is it What it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like. So what is it? What does it sound and feel like? Nicki Eyre: So the thing about bullying is that there's a whole spectrum of bullying behaviours and they can start from those really small moments of rudeness and incivility and go right up to violence in the workplace. So it can be physical or emotional injury that is suffered as a result. And there's all sorts of different behaviours in between and some of those are verbal behaviours, so talking about other people, gossiping about them, spreading rumours, shouting at them or even not talking to them at all, blanking them, ignoring them, excluding them. And that can be done physically as well. So you get into people's faces, you encroach their personal space or you block them from joining a conversation with just a small turn of the shoulder. Right up to physical violence, which is assault basically. And Then all the psychological impact as well. When we start thinking about the psychological side, this is really the most common workplace form of bullying now. It's very much about getting people to doubt themselves, doubt their own sanity, questioning them all the time, humiliating them, stealing their credit for their ideas so that people think, well, they're just making things up when they say that that was my idea. So absolutely people end up withdrawn and really scared to speak up in those situations because every time they try and speak up, they get punished for it. That's a very broad brush stroke approach to all the different kind of behaviours that can be involved. It becomes bullying behaviour when you start to get a pattern of behaviours, particularly when it's targeted towards 1 person. And also when we're thinking about there's a power dynamic involved, which doesn't necessarily mean that it's got to be a boss. A power dynamic can come from just holding information about somebody, having a photo of somebody that they don't want you to share. It can be peer-to-peer, it can be upwards, it can be downwards. Bullying can happen in every different direction and the area of bullying that I focus on is non-discriminatory. So I think of harassment as bullying attached to a protected characteristic. But there's a huge amount of non-discriminatory bullying, which is, it comes about just because it may just be that you don't like that person or you're threatened by them. There are lots and lots of different reasons why these situations arise. And I've been chatting for ages there, Joe, so I'll pause for a breath and let you come in with any questions there. That's interesting yeah because Joanne Lockwood: as I'm sure you and many of our listeners are aware discrimination is defined in the Equality Act and harassment is also defined in the Equality Act, the UK Equality Act 2010, whereas bullying isn't. So the distinction you're making is it's not just about having a protected characteristic, this is bullying that occurs outside of the protected characteristics, where you're using the word bullying rather than harassment, which is a legal definition as part of the Equality Act. Yes, absolutely spot on. And Nicki Eyre: a lot of people don't realise that there is a difference in law and they'll use harassment and bullying interchangeably. And actually in law, as you rightly say, anything to do with harassment and discrimination and victimization is covered in the Equality Act but bullying that isn't linked to a protected characteristic it's a very very different situation. So anybody who's in a workplace has to have worked there for at least 2 years before they have any protection rights and you can't actually bring a bullying claim to an employment tribunal. What you have to do is leave your job and bring a claim such as a constructive dismissal or something like that. The other option available to you is to get injured to the point of having a psychiatric injury, a recognised psychiatric injury, and then you can take it through the civil courts in terms of personal injury, which is very, very different to harassment, where you're protected from recruitment stages and you can stay in your job and bring a claim and you can get, you can claim for injury to feelings as well which you can't do in the case of a bullying situation. So in law, they're treated very, very differently. And currently workplace bullying is not recognised in the UK legislation system. Joanne Lockwood: I have some experience of this situation. My wife, almost a year ago this month, exited her role of 7 or 8 years with a constructive dismissal resignation letter. And you're Right, the onus was then on her to leave before she could do anything about it. And of course the company's response was, you should have followed our grievance process before it got to this. However, in her particular case, the grievance process went through the people that were causing the problem. And she felt she had lack of support or no support from her immediate team lead, her manager. And in fact, it got to the point where she went, she was told she wasn't allowed to resign with that letter because they wanted her to remove the words constructive dismissal and bullying from her resignation letter before they would accept it. So we had to get a solicitor and an HR advisor involved to basically tell us that it stands and here's our reply to your reply. So you're further bullying me. You're not allowing me to resign. You're making my mental health impacted even more through your unwillingness to engage in victim blame or my wife's blame. And yeah, it was an incredible situation where she ended up, instead of working her notice, she ended up signing herself off sick because she couldn't get out of bed. She was crying her eyes out. She felt she really was bullied by this. Nicki Eyre: Yeah and you know what you've picked up there is actually the damage that it does to individuals and the grievance procedures in themselves. I can completely understand why you know if it's got to go through those people you have no faith in the system. The grievance and disciplinary procedures that we use are really not fit for purpose in these kind of cases at all. You have to think about, are you prepared to do that to yourself almost, whether or not you go through that route, but the onus is still on individuals who have been bullied to speak up all the time and that's where we've got to turn things around hugely because it's time for it to be recognised as an organisational issue and not an individual issue because there are working practices that allow bullying complaints to be more likely to occur, if you like. But even when you do go through those processes, you know, if I go, oh, we've got an anti-bullying policy and we've got a grievance procedure and we've got this, that, and the other, the stress of going through those is enormous. And there's no really strong statistics, but kind of colloquial evidence, if you like, is that somewhere around 80 to 90% of bullying complaints are not upheld. So you've got a system with 80, 90% failure rate and yet we're still being told to use it. So we have to look at different ways of doing this and it's got to start with first of all, people understanding what bullying is, but secondly, starting to try and prevent it rather than allow it to go to that stage where people's health is getting damaged. I completely empathize with your wife about that feeling so bad that you just don't want to get out of bed, you're crying all the time. Absolutely, I went through that with my own experience of bullying and it is massive the impact that it has. Joanne Lockwood: She still has an element of PTSD from it because every time we drive on the dual carriageway that overlooks that building where she used to work, you can tell her she's kind of, it's flashback in her mind. So it's not a thing that just fades quickly. There is PTSD in this environment. Nicki Eyre: There is and there's a couple of psychologists who have written a paper about workplace bullying trauma. Evelyn Field who's in Australia and Pat Ferris who's in Canada and they have 20, 25 years of working with people who have been on the receiving end of workplace bullying. Basically what they said is there are a number of different ways in which this affects people. So it obviously affects your psychological health and you mentioned you know your wife's mental health there has a hugely damaging impact. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, loss of concentration, confusion, flashbacks, all of those things come in there. That spreads to your physical health as well. Fatigue, muscle ache, headaches, migraines, your behavior changes, the tears, the angry outbursts and everything like that. There's all different ways in which it changes you. It destroys your self-esteem, your confidence, all of those different areas. I know when I went through it, I always say that I felt like I lost myself and I felt like I just became a different person. It was a person that I didn't like because I started shouting at other people. They were coming to me and saying, it's obviously making you ill, maybe you should give up, but that need to fight and get justice for what has happened is almost overwhelming. And 1 of the things that you get with workplace bullying is this rumination, so this constantly going over and over and over things in your mind, but also it differs from other kind of trauma in that you want to talk to everybody else around you and they actually, you know, you draw them in until they're exhausted and then you draw the next set of people in until they're exhausted and eventually you exhaust yourself and you just become broken. So that trauma element is incredibly real and some of the work that Pat and Evelyn did they looked at kind of 3 different levels and if workplace bullying is caught quite early on then if it's what they call mild, a mild case. So they might just have had a short period off work, may even still be in work, then there is potential to turn things around and keep them working in a healthy way. A more moderate might be you know you're off work for several months and that's when you start to experience a lot of the symptoms I just talked about. But for the most severe cases, some of those people never work again. They can end up on the benefit system. They're never able to really let go of what has happened. But that moment you talked about there, with seeing the building where you worked, or it might be seeing someone you used to work with and having that moment of panic or that going back into that vital flight mode, that stress response that you lived in for so long, that's incredibly common And so it's very easy for people to go, well, it's just another HR case. It's another grievance. We've got an outcome. That's it, end of case. Oh, it does not stop there. It keeps going and going and it actually affects, you know, it's not just your working relationship, it affects relationships all around you, friendships, you know, personal relationships, all of those things get, that ripple effect is huge. And most people probably, if they walk away from a job, they quite often walk away from a lot of friends at that point as well too. I use the word victim when I Joanne Lockwood: describe my wife just now and I know that when we spoke before we started recording that you don't use the word victim although victimization comes out of the Equality Act. So what's the best terminology to use when we're talking about this? So for me, I always use the Nicki Eyre: word target, because when you are bullied, you are targeted. So What tends to happen is that the relationship between you and that bully is really quite unique, which again is why we do an awful lot of, well, what are they like with you and have you ever seen that side of them? The chances are that people haven't because they will have targeted you or they will very much be a lot of covert, behind closed doors, one-to-one meetings type behavior that other people don't understand. It's quite individual in terms of what people perceive as bullying. So what might be bullying to 1 person might not be for another. So from that point of view, then actually this is where we need to think about how is whatever you're saying being received? What is the delivery of that message like? What is the impact you're having on the other person? We've got to become much more self-aware and aware of the impact that we're having on other people. And so from that point of view, when you think about that person's relationship, it is targeted. And in that sense, so if I think about my experience, a lot of what went on was in one-to-one meetings. But I felt that I was treated differently to other people and they tried to say that I wasn't. Joanne Lockwood: But this was somebody who Nicki Eyre: had a favourite in the group as well and it was very obvious. So, you know, he obviously did treat people differently in the team, but it's really hard to articulate things like that. And this is 1 of the biggest problems. So when we come to trying to explain what has happened, you start to pick up things like, well, they rolled their eyes at me, or they didn't ask me if I wanted a coffee, or they didn't send me some information I wanted, or they didn't reply to my email, or they copied me in, and they copied all these other people in on an email that was sent out and individually on their own, they don't sound like anything at all. So when you're kind of exploring, particularly in an investigation, that relationship between the 2 people and the target is sitting there going, well they did this and they did that. It's really easy to dismiss that and go, well so what, well so what. But actually It's the fact that it is nonstop and it's that drip, drip, drip effect that keeps you in that stress response because you're never quite sure when the next threat is coming around the corner. From that point of view, you are targeted because something will have started you feeling that way. For me, it was a really clear moment in time, but when that relationship starts to break down, if that person hasn't got the self-awareness to recognize what they've done, then it's really hard to pull back and if they keep pushing and if they keep pushing especially after you've tried to talk to them about it, that's intentional and we don't talk about intent in bullying anymore, we talk about impact more. But people say to me, when do you know it's intentional? I went, well, when you've told them they're doing something wrong and they do absolutely nothing to change it. That's good you picked Joanne Lockwood: up on that because I, before we could record this, I did a bit of googling. Now, what is bullying and what I got back was repeated behaviour which is intended to hurt someone either emotionally or physically. I was going to ask you, who decides the intent? Is it the person who communicates it or the person who receives it? So for you to say that actually impact, as perceived by the target, overrides intent, because there's so many people who are maybe blind to their privilege, blind to their manner. Their intent is often positive or ignorant, but the impact, and as you say, is the repeated element of that impact. Nicki Eyre: Yeah, and if you think about the definition of harassment in the Equality Act, talking about unwanted conduct, but it actually uses a phrase in there, the purpose or effect. This is the same as what we're talking about now. The original definition of bullying came from a case where a judge did their absolute best to identify and define what bullying was. He used the word intent in that original definition. And that's where ACAS got their original definition from. And that was back in 2014. So relatively recently, even though there's been work going on in this area for 25 years or so. And basically, if you look at the way the ACAS definition has changed, it included the word intent, then they just took intent out. So it was behaviour that could cause, that could be defined as malicious etc. Now they've changed it to actually say behaviour that could cause physical or emotional harm. That last bit is actually quite a new part of the definition and I'm really pleased to see how it's changed over the last few years. Because I always use the Joanne Lockwood: example when people tell me what's the difference between intent and an impact, I say well I use the example of manslaughter and murder. With murder, the intent is to kill. With manslaughter, the intent is not to kill. It's a byproduct of what happened. But the impact of both of those is someone dies. So It's recognizing the difference between intent and impact. By using that as an example, you go, yeah, okay, I've lost a loved 1 and my family's died, that person's life's been cut short, whether you meant to or not. I didn't mean to get into my car after having 5 pints and drive home and hurt somebody. I just wanted to go home. But the intent doesn't matter. The impact statements, the judge, our courts now bring in victims or the families of the people who've been impacted to give impact statements, which influences sentencing. So impact is really, really being taken into consideration when it comes into crime and other things, doesn't it? Nicki Eyre: Yeah, and that's really interesting because I've kind of thought about that analogy myself before, because it is, like you say, the outcome is the same. Yet in bullying cases, it's all about the target being made to prove that this has been the impact instead of just being able to say, yes, this is the impact. Here's my 6 months off work that the doctor signed me off saying that it's work-related stress, that I've got depression, that I've got anxiety. I've got medical evidence here, doesn't matter. It still didn't mean you were bullied. And so I think there's a huge amount of learning for the medical profession, a huge amount of learning for businesses and organizations, but there's a huge amount of learning for us as individuals as well. Because 1 of the things that I found really hard was when you go to put in a bullying complaint, I didn't really know what I was doing because I hadn't really thought about bullying until that point in time. I don't think I'd ever had any training on it. So all I had was an anti-bullying policy and do a bit of work around it. And so I was like, I've got to write a grievance and I should be putting it into words that really show, put my case forward, but I don't actually know what those words are. I don't actually know what it is I'm trying to prove here. And so that in itself, when I look back, I've looked back at my investigation document and gone, well, actually, that is just incoherent nonsense, which I can now look back at and say, well, actually, the reason it was incoherent nonsense was because you were in a state of trauma. But as an investigator, I would probably have come to the same conclusion and not upheld it. But that's when, as an investigator, that's where you need to be trauma-informed. So I think that's a huge area for development in terms of this work as well. So if we take, I appreciate Joanne Lockwood: you're talking specifically about the workplace here, but I've had a lot of guests on this show, talk about domestic violence, abuse at home. And we're quite, I think we're becoming quite familiar with the words, coercive control, gaslighting, and what you were telling me earlier about how it manifests itself sounds exactly like gaslighting, not good enough, being undermined all the time, and coercive control being pushed in. So we're seeing bullying from different dimensions here. We're seeing it from the Quality Act against a protected characteristic. We're seeing it in a domestic situation, DV cases and abuse in the home. And we've got workplace bullying. Is there any overarching view of this where we could look at it holistically rather than fragmenting or are they so different in the way they impact? I don't think they are that different in the Nicki Eyre: way they impact and a lot of people do refer to it as workplace abuse and you're absolutely right. You know the similarities particularly in terms of the gaslighting and coercive control. Well, actually, that is another. When you think about the financial control as well, people stay in jobs because they can't move on or they've lost their confidence and they're not able to move on. They've got to put, you know, people don't support other people who are going through these things because they don't want to be seen to be a troublemaker, she says in quotes, because they've got to pay their mortgage, they've got to put food on the table for their family, you know, they've got to pay their bills. So absolutely, there is an element of coercive control there completely. And that can also go down into the way that people work in terms of, well, I'm not going to let you have the budget for that, but I'll let that person do whatever they like with their budget. You can't have any training, but that person can. So there are all sorts of ways in which it infiltrates across. But the impact, yeah, I mean it might start from a different reason but actually the impact is pretty much the same for all of these things. And I think 1 of the things with the workplace, when you're in a relationship, it's domestic violence, then there is absolutely, you expect to be treated well within that relationship. You're supposed to be there because you love each other, you care for each other, you're going to respect each other. When you're in a workplace, it's not just that you should respect each other, but the employer has a duty of care. And so 1 of the things that is sometimes talked about is the workplace becomes the traumatiser. So, where are some people, perhaps if they're in a domestic violence situation, they go into work, that's their safe place. Then, essentially what you've got is people leaving their home and being forced to go to their traumatiser. Go and spend the day with your traumatiser. So that's not going to ever going to make them better. And particularly if you've gone through a case, even if there's an outcome, even if your bullying complaint was upheld, it doesn't end there. So the workplace, the employer should have done something to keep you safe and stop that happening and that's where we need to really flip it around and start saying we've got to put prevention in place, we've got to pick this up earlier, we've got to intervene earlier and we've got to stop it going to formal processes because they are so damaging. The process Joanne Lockwood: can go wrong though can't it? I mean I'm aware of a friend of mine who has been the target, this is the word target, of a whistleblowing campaign against them, where people lodged complaints using the whistleblowing process to undermine their credibility in the workplace due to some nebulous events. And because the whistleblower policy created was anonymous, there was no right of reply. You had to just sit there in a chair and take it and try and defend yourself for that, knowing what really happened. So we've got to be careful also that we put checks and balances to stop these processes being weaponized by bullies. Yeah. Nicki Eyre: And we talk about this a lot, don't we? We don't really talk about the person who's on the receiving end of these accusations. And If it is legitimate, then a lot of people are actually shocked to discover that people think that they're a bully. But if it's vexatious, then there's got to be a way of looking at that as well. You have to start. 1 of the things that happens is that any of us we're in this situation where there's some sort of accusation against us, we're going to react with a defensive approach initially. It's just natural. It's a human reaction. It's the animal reaction. You know, if you get trapped in a corner, you're going to come out fighting. And actually what you have to do is allow people to have that initial reaction and then actually let's come back to this and let's put some support in and find out what's really happened, what's really gone on. Let's have those individual conversations, coaching conversations if needed. Bring someone external in if you need to, but actually start to have a look at what the real reasons behind these things are. And I mean, it's interesting because there's a lot of things in the paper at the moment where people are coming forward and talking about things and it took the first person to come forward. So if you're looking at that, then how on earth do you deal with it? And If it's a series of anonymous complaints, which is what you're talking about with whistleblowing, then actually there is nowhere to go back. And so, 1 of the things we talk about with bullying cases is that actually you should put your name to them because there has to be a right of reply. So the thing about whistleblowing is, again, whistleblowing was set up to have a look at where somebody was doing something that was potentially fraudulent or against the public purse or standards or something like that. It wasn't really set up for individual behaviors. If people are starting to use it for that, then I think we almost have to have a little bit of a pushback that says, let's deal with the right thing in the right way. If this is a behavioral problem, then we have to come back and we have to say, let's have a look at what's going on. If there is evidence of some sort of fraud or something that really sits under the whistleblowing arena, then by all means investigate that. But don't expect somebody to defend themselves if you're not able to tell them what it is they've done wrong. So it is complex, it's really complex, in fact it's getting more complex as we talk about it. Joanne Lockwood: I've always felt you have to safeguard both parties. The target and the perpetrator or alleged because they're an alleged perpetrator. So you've got to make sure that you're safeguarding both individuals, giving them dignity and respect and believability, because part of this is believing, believing what people say. If you start disbelieving people, then people won't come forward. So it's creating all that environment in a very non-judgmental way, partitioning the 2 parties in a way that neither of them feels like they're being prejudged. And it's Nicki Eyre: a really complex minefield, isn't it? It is, yeah. And I would agree with you totally. Put support in for both parties. It may even have been a ripple effect of this around the team. It may be that you actually need to put some support in for a team that's, you know, where there's something that has blown up in the team. But absolutely, for those 2 individuals, they've got to have support. Support to understand the situation from their own perspectives and from each other's perspectives, support to potentially change behaviours, and I would say on both sides as well. If somebody feels they've been bullied for a long time, which is what usually happens before they speak up, then they're going to have to have support to recover from that process to rebalance their stress response before they can even start to talk about the situation. And you have to be able to do that, but at the same time, if you put those support systems in place and changes don't happen and people refuse to take any of that on board, then you have to be prepared to make the tough decisions and hold them accountable. So absolutely always start with support though, that would always be my approach as well. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, presumably many, many of the cases that start get dropped quickly. People run out of steam, they run out of motivation, their trauma's there, they just want, I can't take anymore, I just got to move on, the PTSD kicks in, they're constantly having to be pushing that zone where they remember what happened and it's like, life's too short, I just need to get this out. So a lot of the time we haven't got the stamina to go forward, have we? No, absolutely. And for some Nicki Eyre: people, they'll vote with their feet very early on and just leave. But for the people who do start to go through these processes, then... I know from my own point of view, I went through a grievance and that involved, well, I had to go and find the evidence because the bullying had been going on for the best part of 2 years at this point. I had to go back because they were like, oh, document it. As soon as it happens, document it. You don't know when it's happening. You don't realize until you've been in it for a long time that, well, you're not prepared to admit it to yourself probably to start off with. I wasn't. I was a strong independent woman in a senior position. I couldn't be bullied. That was ridiculous. So I didn't collect any evidence as I went along. So I had to go back and find it all. So first of all, you have to remember it. So you're reliving the trauma there. Then you have to collect the evidence so you're reliving the trauma again. Then you have to put it all into order and put it into a document ready to submit your grievance so you're reliving the trauma again. Then you go through an investigation, you relive it again. Then you have the outcome, you relive it again. All of these times and every conversation in between, you're reinforcing the trauma because your brain does not know the difference between whether it's happening right there, right then, or whether it's just a memory. And so you're reinforcing that trauma all the time. And if somebody comes in and then goes, we don't believe you and we dismiss you, that creates a secondary level of trauma. And so the way in which those formal processes are dealt with has a huge impact on how that person responds. So people going through that are soon going to run out of stamina. They're soon going to run out of, become less resilient. It is so damaging that so few get to tribunal because people just know that they haven't got the energy to go through there. Tribunals are being booked some like 2 years ahead at the moment. So they're not a quick and easy fix. For most people, the tribunal is not about, it's definitely not about the money in terms of bullying because all they do is put you back to the position you would have been in if you still had your job. So if you've left and gone into another job 2 months later, you'll get 2 months salary at the most. But It's about being heard because through all of that process they don't feel heard. They don't feel validated, they don't feel heard and they don't feel safe. So that's all they want. They want that moment to have their voice and that's so much more important and to put people through that just to be heard, not good enough. So we definitely need to make some changes. Yeah, when my Joanne Lockwood: wife left, we deliberately waited for the 3 months and a day and didn't say anything. So we kind of left it hanging deliberately to the organization had to reverse bullying, if you like, making them wait to see what we were going to do. But from the first day she left, she said, I've got no intention of taking this forward. But our HR advisor said, well, just hang on. You've got 3 months and a day to sit on it and make a decision. And we kind of decided that we didn't need to do anything to do nothing. So we didn't do anything to do nothing sort of things. We just sat on it and let it expire. And Marie, my wife, didn't actually want anything out of it other than acknowledgement that she had been bullied. She wanted just someone to say, I believe you and not get all HR and defensive and kind of all this shackles went up. Rather than sitting down and saying, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it was, yeah, we could have done better. We're kind of ashamed of ourselves and we've learned our lesson, thank you. But you never get that, do you? You never get that. It's always legal speak and I'll pay you off without accepting responsibility, without prejudice, Nicki Eyre: whatever the phrase is. And you think, I just want someone to say sorry. I really want someone to say sorry, please. That's so true. And there's a saying that I've come across and it's something like, The hardest thing I ever had to do was to accept an apology I never received. That was part of being able to let go of all of this and move on from it. But yeah, that is it. So many cases, they wouldn't go through any of these processes if they just said, do you know what? You're right. We shouldn't have treated you like that or that wasn't the best management and we can do better than that and we're really sorry. Can we try again? God, it would save so much time, money, effort, but yeah, they're so concerned about litigation and we can't possibly say that that was the case. And Yet, if it goes to tribunal, then it's in the public domain. You've got social media now and Glassdoor and places like that. It's going to be in the public domain no matter how quiet you want to try and keep it. And there are also in terms of investment, if they've actually looked at companies now and where there's been, for example, with the MeToo campaigns or the Black Lives Matter, where there's been examples in the press of actually, you've got problems in your company. They actually did a piece of research in the height of the Me Too and it said that if you'd invested in a certain group of companies that had scandalous reports or whatever, however you want to put it, you'd have lost 20% of your investment as opposed to gaining, I think it was about 47% in the other direction. And so, the way in which employees are treated by their employer is now becoming a key factor for investors as well. So even if you don't want to do it for the moral reason, there are lots and lots of reasons for businesses, competitive reasons to actually treat people really well and making sure that they treat each other well within that environment as well. Joanne Lockwood: The other problem I found is that, it took a movement for people to speak. And I've been involved with a society club in the past where we organized events and things and people came along to these events. So it's kind of workplace kind of in out what to, Everybody visited this club rather than it being an organization's event. So it's an event organized for others organized. And we had an example where somebody was the subject of some inappropriate sexual intent. There was physical touching involved and this lady was spoken to and she didn't realize that she had been the target of something, she just thought it was something, it happened, I'm a grown woman, I get used to this kind of inappropriate behavior, so men do that, yeah, right. And I think it was only when someone said to her, hang on, you shouldn't feel that you've got to turn up to an event such as this and then be worried about what's going to happen to you. You should be able to turn up like everybody else or every other man, if you like, and just think, well, I have a safe space. And what happened was that we also found out that other people had a very similar experience with the same alleged perpetrator, but nobody was prepared to be the 1. And I suppose the question I'm trying to get to you about is, where we've got this sequence of unsubstantiated or unfulfilled complaints. What worried me at the time was that what if the next person came along and I said, oh yeah, you're not the first. And then they go, I'm not the first. You knew about this. You've done nothing, but I can't do anything because, so how can I act on unsubstantiated claims where there's no process followed and yet still look someone in the eye and say, I knew, but I didn't do anything? I think that's Nicki Eyre: where we've got to differentiate between I know something, but I can only do something if there is a formal process. Actually, as soon as you know something, particularly as an employer, if something has been brought to your attention, then you have a duty to act on it. Now, you don't have to go in and be accusatory, but you can sit someone down and say, I've heard something that's quite worrying and I feel the best thing to do is to bring it to your attention. So, yeah, it's going to be difficult, it's going to be tough, but and they're probably going to deny it. Yeah, who Joanne Lockwood: said? Tell me, give me examples. Yes, yeah, And you Nicki Eyre: can protect that person, but actually that 1 conversation might be enough for them to change their behaviour. Even if they don't acknowledge it to you, they might acknowledge it to themselves and they might start to be more careful. I think what is really interesting is what we're talking about is this acceptance of behavior where people kind of brush things off and go, well, it's just what it's like around here or, well, I'm a grown woman, I should expect it. I can deal with it. But like you say, why should you have to? But actually, what we do is we've got so used to turning a blind eye to certain behaviours that it's really hard for us to challenge them now. That's why it took a movement because It was that safety in numbers, those collective voices. And yeah, it's really important that if you're feeling uncomfortable, the chances are someone else is as well. And so Find an ally, find someone that you trust to speak to, find someone who can help you. Stand up for others if you see it happening. Check in with that person, was that okay with you? Did you feel uncomfortable? Do you want me to report this for you? Do you want any support? Whatever it is they might want, or divert, distract, or basically call it out. If it's a safe place to do it and you can call it out, you can say it in such a way of, be careful there, that's not acceptable anymore. It might just be enough, but unless we start to be brave enough to do that, and it does feel, it's scary. The first time you call it out it's scary and the second time you call it out it's scary but the more you do it the more people will join you doing it as well and definitely safety in numbers but yeah the collective voice is what makes a difference. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I had a situation 6 or 7 years ago where I was with a group of male friends who I'd known for some time in a club situation, sort of a society club sort of situation. And 1 of them wasn't aware that I was trans or transitioning at the time. And I guess looking back on it, and I'm not allowing this person permission to have done what he did, but he did that sort of scene from Crocodile Dundee where he grabbed me between the legs and said, yeah, it's what's down there sort of thing in a very kind of bantery blokey sort of thing. And there was contact, it was uncomfortable. And I was left aghast at someone who sexually assaulted me, really. I mean, even if I wasn't trans, it was still being sexually assaulted by me. And I remember not laughing it off at the time, but by being bit like you pick up a cat or rabbit by the back of the neck, you become a bit kind of fight, fight or freeze, I froze. And I was really in that kind of like shock. And it took me 3 days, I think, to kind of start to replaying it in my mind all the time, replaying it, replaying it. What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? And I suddenly thought, wow, I'm doing that. I'm blaming myself here. I'm trying to make excuses for this person. And what I end up doing was sending them a text saying, I need to talk about the impact of inappropriate sexual conduct the other day. And I need to have a phone call with you. And they've picked up the phone. I said, I don't need to speak or say a word. I just want to tell you how I felt and how that made me feel. If you want to say something after I've spoken, that's fine, but I don't need you to do anything. I just want to tell you how I felt. I did it, and at the end, they just said, I'm sorry, and we both hung up. And that gave me my power back. Cause I didn't need to ruin that person's life over this incident. I could put it in context as banter, as a bit of a laugh. But what I wanted to do is make sure they realized that the laugh went too far, and I didn't need to take it any further. But that takes a certain kind of strength and resilience in your character, and I know that not every target of inappropriate verbal behavior or whatever it may be is able to say no and re-own it or that person wouldn't maybe even responded in another way and dismissed or not listened. Yeah and of course Nicki Eyre: the other thing you've got there is you've got bystanders who stood there and let it happen. Actually, as a bystander, you can intervene. You can say something or you can distract or you can, did any of them say to you, are you okay? That was a bit off or anything. Did anybody come to you? It doesn't take much, does it? I think they laughed Joanne Lockwood: because it was that kind of environment. So, yeah, I didn't get a lot of support, but I did talk to 1 of the other people who was in the group at that time and told them how I was feeling and then told them what I planned on doing in terms of this owning, taking control back. And we didn't speak about it after that, but they knew that I'd had that conversation as well. So it made me feel better that, in my case, I had witnesses, 3 or 4 witnesses, although they didn't defend me at the time, they laughed at the time. Having had my own examples, my wife's been through examples, I really, really understand the complexity of this and the challenge of actually standing up and saying something. It is. Nicki Eyre: It's incredibly hard. And I think for me, I tried to stand up, I tried to fight to make sure this didn't happen to anyone else again. I felt responsible for all of the people that I was responsible for in an organization, which I'm talking about 500. I'm not just talking about my team. I just sort of went, I can't possibly let this happen to any of them. And so I fought and fought and fought. And I was so sure that obviously they're going to see this is bullying. And, you know, you come away from things like that with so much anger and hatred and injustice and all of those really negative emotions. And I've had to work really, really hard to turn that around. But 1 of the things I've really learned is that you can't change things from a place of anger, you can never do that. So I ended up in a position where I've absolutely surrounded myself by amazing people. They're helping me now with the Stop Hurt at Work campaign, where we're trying to get workplace bullying recognised in law, so that you have the same level of protection in the workplace. There's still huge numbers of people who aren't protected, freelancers. If you look at something like the film and TV industry where they go on different jobs all the time. So there's lots and lots and lots of work to be done, but You know what, there are some amazing people out there doing this work. There are some amazing people out there making a difference in their own organizations, and they're starting to have more and more of these conversations, which is all just absolutely fantastic. And, you know, you mentioned earlier, Joanne, that you were in the conference last year. So we run the United Against Workplace Bullying Conference in November, an anti-bullying week each year. And that is really helping to get the subject out there and just bringing everybody together to say it's okay to talk about this, it's okay and you are not alone, you're not the only 1 this has happened to and there is help and we are trying to make a difference. I'm trying to build those collective voices to really push that through in legislation as well. What you said there about not speaking Joanne Lockwood: from anger, speaking to educate and there's a saying that, as a professional speaker, there's a saying that we often use, speak from the scar not from the wound. So if you're speaking from the wound, it's all about me, it's my own trauma, it's my own thing. But once you have the scar, you can step back and you can then think about it's about everybody else, the bigger problem, the challenge, without always bringing it back to you and reliving that trauma because of the mental health PTSD. So I completely understand, yeah, you've got to heal yourself first and not sorry, forget the anger, but don't let you not become driven by anger, become driven by outcomes, by the change you want to see, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. And the way Nicki Eyre: that I put that is that most of the people are angry because their values have been compromised in some way. And so I say to them, just remember, you're driven by your values, not by your anger. And that's so important to remember. I like that. That's a great note Joanne Lockwood: to start running out. Driven by your values, not your anger. I think that's a fantastic punchline to end on. Thank you. We've been chatting over an hour now, and before we got on to record, it's been fascinating talking to you again. I know we talked a lot during your Conduct Against Workplace Bullying conference last year. How do people get hold of you? How do people get involved in the conference? Do they listen to this? How can they get hold of you? So the Nicki Eyre: best place to go is the website, which is conductchange.co.uk. And On the website, if you check on the menus there, you'll see the UAWB conference, United Against Workplace Bullying. There's also the Stop Hurt at Work campaign. So again, it's on the main menu. Have a look in there, have a look at the work we're doing on legislation as well. And we're also, if you want to share your story and help add to the data collection, then Speak Out Revolution are our data partners for the campaign and you can add your voice to their data as well and you can do that anonymously. So there's lots and lots of different ways that people can get involved and help influence change. Fantastic and if you go Joanne Lockwood: there you may even see my video from the conference last year when it gets published soon. So yeah. We will indeed, yes. Go and check that out. Excellent. Thank you. Nicki, that's amazing as ever. Thank you so much. Also a huge thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in, for getting to the end. I really, really appreciate and value that. If you're not already subscribed, then please do tick the box and subscribe in your favorite platform for future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Do share it with your friends, tell your colleagues about it as well. I've got more and more exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be equally inspired by over the next few weeks and months. And of course, if you'd love to be a guest, I'd love to have you on. Send welcome, welcome, suggestion and feedback to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood. It's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you