A Week for Support, Inspiration, Peace & Health

40 cities, 2 counties and 1 university recognized Freedom Week 2011 by issuing proclamations.
See the gallery of documents.

Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week sponsored by the Workplace Bullying Institute, is a chance to break through the shame and silence surrounding bullying. It is a week to be daring and bold. Here are different ways to celebrate Freedom Week.

Bullied Targeted Individuals

Make this the time to break your silence.

• Tell co-workers, friends, and family. Ask for help.
• Put your health first. Read the voluminous research on health harm related to unremitting exposure to stress from bullying.
• Schedule a coaching appointment with the WBI mental health professional who understands bullying.
• Talk to an attorney for one hour to see if you have any legal recourse.
• Refuse to believe the lies told about you and the shameful way you have been abandoned. It is not about you; it's the perpetrator's need to control others.
• Commit to either finding a new job or planning a fight-back strategy (involving co-workers, unions, the more rational executives) to reclaim your dignity. Everyone should be entitled to work without interference and assaults to her or his integrity.
• If you are mad as hell, call your state senator and state representative to ask them to sponsor the Healthy Workplace Bill.
• Ask your city mayor or city council to proclaim Freedom Week to draw attention to workplace bullying.

Spouses, Partners, & Friends

• Give unconditional positive support to the targets. Believe them. Tolerate dinners disturbed by their obsessing about the never-ending problem at work. Understand the exhaustion and withdrawal.
• Encourage them to get psychological and medical help. Validate that they are tough, but because they are human, they cannot endure prolonged exposure to extreme stress without it impairing their health -- no one can.
• Provide needed respite from the toxic, stressful world of work targets endure.
• Distract them with pleasurable activities.
• Remind them of who they were before bullying injured them.
• Remember, you will be the last ones standing when all others have abandoned them.
• Don't ask them to do more than they are capable of doing.
• Don't ask why they did not do more to fight back.
• Support them now; you can ask for repayment of the credit you advanced to them later.
• Bullying tests the love between partners and friends. Pass the test for the sake of your loved one.

Co-Workers

Our many years of immersion in workplace bullying convince us that co-worker witnesses have the best opportunity to stop bullying, second only to employers. However, the chances are passed by.

• Don't give in to the "F" factor. Stop the fear -- of being the only one who comes to your bullied colleague's assistance, of daring to provoke the bully with an indignant stand, of being the next target, of being called insubordinate if you talk or work with the target person, of losing your job.
• Go ahead and feel guilty for not helping someone who clearly needs your help and may have asked for it.
• Why do you worry about the bully's impression of you? Think more about your personal integrity.
• Your bullied friend may be too ashamed to ask for help. So, offer it without having to be asked.
• If all co-workers stood together and immediately confronted the bully AS A GROUP about interfering with work of the target, he or she would most likely back down, if only temporarily. Truth is that this happens in less than 1% of incidents. (see WBI research). And if you stick together, you can't all be fired (thus overcoming the greatest fear of all).
• Bullies are liars and cowards. They need you to side with them. Don't agree to do it.
• Unfortunately, the do-nothing reputation of co-workers is well known. They cower in fear, doing nothing, or worse, siding with the bully. That's why some people call bullying "mobbing." It becomes many against one. Co-workers do the bullies' dirty work for them.
• Comfort the target by sharing your experiences as a former (and probably future) target of the same bully. In the beginning of the bullying, targets believe they are alone and this never happened to anyone before (because co-workers are silent and do not share experiences).
• Provide emotional support if tactical support sounds too scary.
• Reinforce the target's humanity. While being bullied, targets come to believe the bully's lies. The group can counter the lies. Be there for your friend. It's the social compact among human beings.
• Honor humanity; dare the bully to act humanely toward all of you. Read more about why groups do what they do in The Bully At Work.
• Make Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week the excuse to try something different. The results will please you. It will be something you can be proud of. And your targeted colleague will thank you.

Employers/Owners

• Learn how bullying is an unsustainable cost. Ask your Risk Manager or CFO if there's evidence of avoidable, bullying-related costs eating away at profit margins.
• Look beyond personalities as causes to see how the workplace culture and environment make your organization prone to bullying.
• Commit to correcting and preventing it.
• Read the book for employers to learn what managers and leaders can do -- The Bully-Free Workplace
• Adopt the Work Doctor Blueprint to Prevent Workplace Bullying. Employers define all conditions of work. Leadership sets the rules and establishes the culture. Bullying could not exist without either the explicit or tacit approval from employers. You own the place and are responsible for the problems that exist within.

HR Professionals

Addressing allegations of workplace bullying isn't something the average Human Resource professional is trained to do. Sadly, some organizations see a conflict between supporting the employer's right to demand performance from employees and an employee's right to work free from abuse. The truth is, a middle ground can be reached. HR can guide organizations to find a balance between managerial perogative, supporting the organization and protecting employee well-being.

Those in HR roles often struggle when presented with evidence of bullying. Often there's little they can do, especially if there's no explicit organizational policy to base their actions on. Sometimes HR is tasked with dealing with interpersonal issues for which there is no clear guidance.

• For Freedom Week, make a personal pledge to never again stand idly by while people are harmed.
• Seek to expand your understanding of workplace bullying and encourage your organization to do the same for employees.

Mental Health Professionals

• Don't say to clients "let's change your behaviors that provoke the bully."
• Trust what abuse victims tell you. Believe that there are people as evil as have been described to you.
• Stop holding targeted clients responsible for the unsolicited psychological violence they endure. Understand how work environments, not personal flaws, explain health-harming mistreatment. Stop committing the fundamental attribution error.
• Be careful to not misdiagnose as borderline or adjustment disorder. Minimize psychological testing during acute phases of abuse so as to not skew results.
• Learn and apply EMDR.
• Suggest the client attend a trauma support group.
• Learn the consequences for the client of FMLA, Workers Comp, and Disability (short- and long-term).
• Learn more about workplace bullying at our University training for professionals as have many other professionals like you.
• Make workplace bullying one of your clinical specialties.
• Study the science behind bullying and stress-related diseases.

Unions

• Help bullied members. Representation need not be a defense.
• Adopt the prevention of workplace bullying as an organizing tool.
• Schedule training for members to become internal experts in bullying so they can help member-coworkers.
• Make a bullying-free, safe workplace a goal for all members.
• Adopt bullying as a strategic goal. Bargain tirelessly to include an anti-bullying provision in your CBA.
• Endorse the Healthy Workplace Bill in your state and join the advocacy now. Provide a Memorandum of Support or assist our citizen lobbyists with professional help. Unions are natural partners in the fight for workers' rights and human rights. Dignity at work is deserved by all.

School Administrators

• Learn about the Workplace Bullying in Schools project, begun in Iowa, to address bullying among adult employees -- teachers and staff.
• Complement your student bullying with the program that reduces your risk exposure while creating a healthy work environment to optimize student success.
• Find the missing dollars to plug budget holes by decreasing litigation costs. Mistreatment of employees is preventable. Lawsuits are the final act of people desperate to get your attention. They have asked for relief but were ignored. Show leadership. Show compassion.
• Invite WBI speakers to address your regional, state, and national conventions.

Legislators

• Listen to your constituents' tales of workplace abuse.
• Be a genuine populist representative - for the people rather than the Chamber of Commerce.
• Sponsor the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill in your state. Several hundred state lawmakers already have already done so. See the latest tally at the HWB website.