The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7469 p293
15 September 2007

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Letters to the Editor

Listening friends

Bullying at work

From Ms K. Featherstone

A recent article in May 2007 issue of The Psychologist highlighted the issue of bullying in the workplace. The article lists the experiences of bullying at work and included in the list are:

• Having opinions or views ignored

• Being exposed to unmanageable workload

• Someone withholding information that affects performance

• Excessive monitoring

• Having key areas of responsibility removed or replaced with more trivial or unpleasant tasks

As well as the discussing the characteristics of workplace bullies and victims it also notes that studies have uncovered strong links between bullying and certain aspects of the work environment. These studies demonstrate that there is a high level of bullying associated with highly stressful and changing work environments and work overload, as well as organisational cultures.

The type of culture in which bullies are likely to flourish can be characterised by:

• A high level of competition

• Radical change

• A climate of insecurity (ie, a threat of redundancy)

• Strong macho-style management (although the proportion of men:women bullies is close)

• Hierarchical structures

• Low levels of staff participation or consultation

• Excessive work demands

Many calls to the Listening Friends Scheme come from pharmacists experiencing these highly stressful work cultures, particularly in the current round of NHS reorganisations. Although the Listening Friends can offer support to pharmacists on an individual basis, we wish to raise awareness of the issue on a larger stage, for two reasons: First, to inform those pharmacists who may be persevering in such a culture that the Listening Friends Scheme is available to support them (tel 020 7572 2442) and, second, to encourage those in senior management to consider the work environment and culture of their organisations when developing their policies on bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Kathryn Featherstone
Joint National Co-ordinator
Listening Friends Scheme

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