Bullying at work costs businesses £18bn every year

While many parents worry about the taunts their children are subjected to at school, perhaps it is when the children start work that they should be most concerned.

Bullying in the workplace has become a major cause of employee stress and loses industry 18.9 million working days every year.

This costs individual companies between 8 and 10% of their annual profits, on top of the threat of expensive litigation.

To mark National Ban Bullying at Work Day, Royal and SunAlliance, the UK's largest commercial insurer, is today warning businesses of the potential consequences of office bullying.A survey by the Andrea Adams Trust, the world's first charity dedicated to tackling workplace bullying, found that 1 in 4 people are bullied in the workplace.

60% of those surveyed said that it had affected the quality of their work, and 51% said that it had caused them to take time off.

In over half of cases, victims were bullied by their immediate managers and unfair criticism was the most common method of attack (73%).

Some taunts are taken so far that companies are sued for large amounts of money, tarnishing their reputations.

Aaron Devitt, Director of Professional and Financial Risks at RandSA, said, "Current discrimination legislation in the UK relating to sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation and religion makes any act of harassment is illegal.

What's more, damages awarded in the courts for such behaviour are currently unlimited.

This could potentially cripple the business of some unwary employers.

"With this is mind, RandSA has designed an Employment Practices Liability product which includes free value added services specifically aimed at meeting our clients' needs.

These offer smaller companies with less sophisticated human resources departments the guidance and draft procedures to help prevent harassment and workplace bullying taking place."Matt Witheridge, Operations Director of the Andrea Adams Trust, said, "Bullying really does happen in almost every employment scenario.

Industries that are affected most are those with a very hierarchical management structure, high pressure jobs where staff can be seen as fairly expendable and also in very small, sometimes family-run businesses which fall beneath the radar of union involvement and have no policies on bullying.

"Any business that has no specific formal route for an employee to tackle bullying and harassment is open to a contractual breach of the duty of care.

It is good to see that RandSA offers these companies the advice and support to address these problems."For more information about bullying at work please visit www.andreaadamstrust.org, www.banbullyingatwork.com or go to www.royalsunconnect.co.uk/preloginprofin/EPL.asp for details of protective cover and advice.

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