Being Bullied at Work

You may have rejoiced the day you graduated from high school, elated at the thought of never having to deal with bullies again. Little did you know that bullying still goes on in the adult world, especially in the workplace. A recent study conducted by CareerBuilder reports that 27% of 5,600 full-time workers surveyed have felt bullied at work. I was surprised that the figure was only roughly a quarter of the survey respondents, because I saw a lot of bullying during my four year tenure in public accounting alone. In my experience, victims of bullying seemed most often to be nontraditional experienced hires who found themselves working with inexperienced campus hires. Given the age, maturity, and experience differentials between the two groups, it often seemed to me that the experienced hires found themselves intentionally isolated from the rest of the audit team. Their job performance also seemed to be held to a higher standard than their colleagues who were recent college graduates. 37% of the survey respondents who had reported being bullied felt that their work was judged by a different measure than their colleagues.

Another form of bullying I have seen is when a person's input in a meeting or among team members is completely dismissed. This was the most common form of bullying reported by the CareerBuilder report. I recall a meeting with more than a dozen audit team members at all levels sitting around the conference room table. The discussion was dominated by two senior managers who were personally attacking each others' ideas as if they were brothers in the backseat of the family car. They completely disregarded others in the room, and in the end, the more senior person turned his back to his opponent, told him no one was going to accept his approach, and changed the subject, effectively closing the book on further discussion. From that point on, everyone was afraid to challenge this person, no matter the size of the issue, for fear of being publicly humiliated themselves. Anonymous upward feedback is a useful tool to combat such behaviors. Most large public accounting firms use such procedures to evaluate anyone in a supervisory role. By reporting consistently stubborn and insensitive behavior on the part of your supervisors, you can make them aware that their attitude causes more harm than good to both the firm and their own potential for promotion.

27% of survey respondents claiming to have been bullied said that their coworkers gossiped about them. I suspect such incidents are even more common than reported, since not everyone is aware when they are the subject of gossip.  I find this to be the most harmful of all professional bullying, because it is often baseless and the victim is ignorant of it. I once worked on an audit team that "roasted" teammates on their off days when they weren't around to hear what their coworkers really thought of them. I tried to combat this type of venomous talk by challenging my colleagues to put themselves in the other person's shoes, defending the person who was being attacked, or just telling the culprits to back off. I'm sure it didn't stop them from gossiping, but at least they refrained from doing it while I was around, so that I would not be considered a part of it.

As an auditor, you have probably already realized that it takes some thick skin just to stand your ground with clients, but you may not have expected how much harder it is to withstand an affront from an office bully within your firm. If you are being bullied by your immediate supervisor, talk to your performance adviser or mentor about it. You don't want to risk looking petty and tattling on someone every time you hear gossip, but sticking up for what you know is right. Also, refraining from joining in can help you win a small battle in the big war against workplace bullies.