What Constitutes Workplace Bullying?

When I was interviewed for a recent post one interviewer spoke very highly of the department I would be working in, and shared an interest with me in international development work. She said the Department “was very active in that area”. It was with that knowledge and the Trusts corporate values that led me to sign the contract.

In the first week however it became very clear, very quickly that the department was ‘broken’. I found staff arguing about who was managing who, talking about strike action and mutiny, staff in tears wandering around the hospital like headless chickens in the aftermath of Covid-19. There were no systems, processes or procedures in place. I volunteered to help out in the management building in good faith to better use my skills, and found a similar scene. Managers disagreeing about who was responsible for what. We all had stomach sinking feelings as we uncovered the extent to which the department was broken. There was no reporting structure, no training plans, no CPD, scant documentation, a shell of a database, and a management team who were either newly arrived, new to management, new to the NHS, or new to their positions. In both settings I saw chaos and dysfunction. It was not a good situation, given the high risk nature of the work.

The manager who apparently had a shared interest with me in international development took me for a coffee in the first week and spoke at me, at length. About her background, her arguments with PhD supervisors, her ambition to become Head of Department, and about her propensity to “turn the air blue with swearing”, which she said “some people seem to get offended by”. Red flags naturally starting appearing. Not just because she had not been honest with me, but she was revealing characteristics I have not heard of or seen before in the NHS. She had a style that appeared more suited to the trading floor. She didn’t ask about me, my background and ambitions, or the interests that led me to be there. But I let that pass.

I worked on the handover of an outgoing member of staff. He worked from home, so it took me some time to convince him to come in and work with me. He was disillusioned by the way his role had been seen by the Trust, but he had a wealth of knowledge I felt it was my responsibility to capture before he retired. We chose to write a comprehensive report for the Head of Department outlining the state of play, flowchart the required processes, and the tasks needed of the new post holder.

In my first week on the way to the office, the manager cornered me in the corridor and said “You need to leave and get another job. You’re clearly not happy here”. It was hard to know what to say to that. I was unhappy at moving house to discover I had arrived in a broken department. I let it pass.

Whilst the outgoing member of staff and I were doing the handover work, she would come over and sit in a chair opposite us, stare silently at us both which distracted us, and then launch into unrelated topics of conversation de-railing our meetings and work. One day I mentioned my father had recently passed away. The following day she came over, sat down, glared at me and said “Old people huh? They all die eventually”, and then started chatting to my colleague about the fact “the Queen is probably going to die soon”. I felt very uneasy and left to get a glass of water. When I returned, she had left and my colleague looked at me and said “That was nasty. I wonder why she did that?”

Another day she cornered me in the office and said “X is not doing his job properly. I want you to do it as well”. X being the member of staff I was working with. I knew he was unclear about what she wanted but had been unable to get clarification from her. I was unable to get clarifications from her too, because she did not listen. I didn’t know what to say. The idea of replicating the work of someone I was working with seemed very unfair on him.

On another occasion she asked me to present inaccurate and incomplete risk data to a clinical working group, without listening to my concerns about data quality. I felt unable to do that because clinicians rarely have time to attend meetings, let alone be presented with rubbish. But she didn’t listen. When I asked for clarifications she said to me “I expected more from you” and stormed off.

I was amazed at how she stood in the middle of the office and had everyone jumping at her command. She was aggressively assertive. She told me that she had an anger problem. “You probably don’t want to learn assertiveness from me because it has got me into a lot of trouble”.

These strange occurrences kept happening so my colleague and I decided to work in a different building in order to focus on the work we were doing for the Head of Department.

I found myself spending half of the week sitting next to my line manager in the office doing that handover work, which was above both of our pay grades, and half of the week attempting to work in dysfunctional workshops under my line manager. In effect I was wearing three hats, reporting to seven people in a department that didn’t have reporting structures in place.

Whilst in the workshop I watched three different managers come in at different times, giving conflicting instructions. The first, my line manager came in cracking the whip as if we were in the army, then disappeared and managed via the phone. The second, above him had an authoritarian management style, she came in and talked down to the technical staff, chastising and berating them. The next one up was quiet and reserved and said “I’m watching from a distance”.

There was no-one in the workshop considering the wellbeing of the staff (who were arguing with each other, talking about strike action, and joking about mutiny). In the workshop I was told to “ignore the managers”, “keep your head down and ask lots of questions”. More red flags. Everyone was adopting coping strategies, trying to get out of that environment.

I saw nine members of staff leave the Department. Some left in tears, some in anger, some refused to attend leaving parties in the management building. Managers were recruiting at the same rate as staff attrition. From my perspective I was watching new staff being shovelled into a burning building with little thought for them as individuals with families and aspirations. When I arrived my own line manager said to me “Forget all your NHS experience I need to mould you into a band 5”.

It was a building on fire from the ground up. A burning building where the flames disappeared when a manager walked into the room. From what I saw and from what the leaving staff told me, it was abundantly clear what the problems were. I actively listen to people, and saw a few dejected staff catching their breath in the corridors to “I need to get away from her”, “She’s relentless”. Some were in tears. Some were shaking. “It’s as if she’s trying to break me”.

I tried to convey this higher up, and was told that they were aware, and I should leave the Trust for my own safety. At one stage, when everyone was exhausted, and the union rep having a nervous breakdown next to me, the authoritarian manager rushed in with my line manager and gave a speech about how we were all underperforming, she spoke at length about a number of issues and said we “need to make the numbers look good for people higher up”. While there was a ‘heated debate’ about the other issues I thought about a possible solution that would “make the numbers look good” and tried to get it across to her. But she walked over to me. Turned her back to me, and said to everyone else “I haven’t got time for this!” and stormed out.

I have never seen that behaviour in my 20-something years in the NHS, so I reported it. I also requested a meeting with the three managers, in which I attempted to explain how three management styles were contributing to the Departments dysfunction. I tried to stress, and still do today, that the issue was with management styles not individuals. One turned to me and said “I need to run the workshop like a battery farm” and then characteristically “I haven’t got time for this” and left. The other two managers did not appear concerned with her saying that about their staff, even given that she was not responsible for managing the workshop.

The workload I took on and the amount of dysfunction was too much. I was exhausted and my repeated requests to work in one role reporting to one manager were ignored, and I experienced an autistic burnout. On the way out I used the FTSU process in order to convey the extent of dysfunction. I felt it was very important to make sure the Head of Department received adequate support from the Trust.

Being on sick leave with the NHS after burning out and using FTSU is not a good place for anyone to be. I gave Employee Relations my CV and skills summary and tried to be moved to a functional part of the Trust where I could use my skills more effectively, but no options were presented. After a few months of being passed around from meeting to meeting, the only option made available was for me to return to the dysfunctional department. I wrote a phased return-to-work plan and gave it to Employee Relations and was instructed to work in what had become a building site. An area without power and lighting, with builders drilling into the wall next to my head. Working on the devices I had raised FTSU concerns about.

I saw so much potential in the Department, and given my core belief is in supporting and empowering others, something well suited to a training role, I arranged a Teams meeting to discuss the training vacancy. I was under the impression that lessons had been learnt from the FTSU process, but the authoritarian manager took the call, spoke at me at length about what she wanted. I responded and at the end of the call I congratulated her on gaining HCPC registration, a sincere gesture in my part, she bristled with anger and turned on me “THIS IS OVER! NO! STOP! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT! THIS IS OVER! YOU’RE FININISHED!” and abruptly ended the call.

That threat tipped me over the edge and led me to attempt suicide.

Individuals have reached out and thanked me for standing up to her. Yet many members of staff who work there today and know about it have remained silent. I am being led to believe that what I saw and experienced was normal behaviour for a manager. Normal behaviour in the NHS. I don’t believe that so therefore feel I need to re-calibrate my sense of what normal acceptable behaviour is in the workplace.

An online search gives very consistent patterns of behaviour that do constitute workplace bullying.

• An abuse of power or position to make you feel threatened or undermined, that can cause anxiety and distress, or ill health
• If someone has taken away your dignity or created an intimidating, hostile atmosphere where people are scared to speak up
• Persistent offensive, intimidating and/or malicious attacks on personal or professional performance carried out for a negative purpose or effect. These are often unpredictable and unfair or irrational
• Being called names
• Deliberately being ignored or excluded
• Constant criticism or ‘putting down’
• Setting you up to fail
• Aggressive behaviour — shouting, intimidation and threatening behaviour
• Making threats about job security or blocking your progress

I have written this in order to learn from the experience. In order to help me re-calibrate what is acceptable behaviour in the workplace I welcome your thoughts and comments.