How To Deal With Workplace Bullies Effectively

There are always two reasons why a person quits his/her job, either because the boss is a monster or the environment i.e. the colleagues become a pain. Let’s talk about how the latter adds to stress in life and how bad can it get while you think about putting up with bullies at work.

You will often notice people around your own organization who keep sticking it out for hours doing their colleagues work or taking nonsense from them for the same reasons teenagers succumb to peer pressure in college or high school. If at any point you want to stop this or you yourself been through it, here are a few tips to avoid it again.

Use the word ‘NO’ more often
You don’t have to do the work if you don’t want to or become part of joke or do something to stay in the good books of your colleagues. Office is quite different from college. Stop bothering about fitting in. Doing a favor once or twice is fine but sport and project yourself as a strong individual by saying NO to any more favors before it becomes habit and you start coming across as a backup plan to them.

Know your rights around your organization
You can’t of course go complaining for every small thing with the HR or your own boss but know your rights and if the problem persists with a colleague more than once or twice, don’t be scared to bring it to the notice of the HR or your Boss or ask for help from a superior.
Know also who to ask. A good superior you know who will believe you and will take the right action should be your support.

Avoid feeling Guilty
Sometimes a situation does require you to come across as a little rude or straight forward. If the colleague seems to persist with the work throwing behavior or blame game, tell the person to back off. You feeling guilty or projecting so will only give that person an opening to force it upon you more.
Instead ask for a favor of your own since you have done so many favors. We bet that person won’t be that comfortable returning the favor and will try to swindle their way out.

Report any Misbehavior
This is a critical point even more so when it comes to women working in organizations. If you think a certain colleague is getting beyond their behavior and since you have not being willing to take extra work from him, this has even more angered the person, bring it to the notice of the authorities. If you think it is bordering on the point of a criminal case by all means use your rights to the law of sexual harassment and file the report.

There are various kinds of office bullying happening everywhere, i would love to hear your experiences of tackling them. Please leave me a comment.