WBI thanks CareerBuilder for conducting the survey. Our results and CB’s converge a great deal. Overall, the CB survey found a bullying prevalence of 27% (34% women, 22% men). WBI found 35% in 2010. Though the definition of bullying used in the CB survey is not yet available, bullying is inarguably a troublesome epidemic that plagues the American workplace!

CB regularly conducts surveys on a variety of workplace topics:  effect of job candidates not sending thank-you notes, use of tax refunds, readiness of managers to lead, march madness office pools, co-worker dating, etc. Bullying is not a regular focus of theirs. The fact that they chose to survey on the topic is evidence of the phenomenon’s further mainstreaming into the HR-related world.

The CB methodology seems sound. This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder among 5,671 U.S. workers (employed full-time; not self-employed; non government); ages 18 and over between February 21 and March 10, 2011 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset of U.S. Employees, based on their responses to certain questions). With a pure probability sample of 5,671, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.30 percentage points.

However, CB counted responses only from employed private sector adult Americans whereas, the WBI-Zogby surveys count all adult Americans including government workers, allowing for the fact that bullied workers became unemployed as a result of the bullying and they could describe the conditions of their bullying. Hence, the larger prevalence rate in the WBI study.

The Major Differences

A. In the CB survey, nearly half of workers (47%) said they confronted the bully about his/her actions. Of these workers, 43 percent said the bullying stopped, 13 percent reported the bullying became worse while 44 percent said the bullying stayed the same.

This clashes with our in-depth knowledge about targets of bullying. The proportion who said they confronted their bullies is an over-estimation. And the fact that bullying stopped in 43% of cases is unrealistically high. To us, without seeing the wording of the items querying respondents about this, it seems that CareerBuilder-type followers are not typical targets. The tactics and results reported in the CB survey reflect a much more aggressive target than the general population. And bullies, in fact, respond positively to aggression.

If Targets could have confronted, they would have. The big problem with telling people to confront when they did not do so spontaneously (for the “sake of their self-esteem,” or because they have the “personal responsibility” to respond) is that doing so invite dangerous retaliation for the target.

B. In the CB survey, 28% took their concerns to a higher authority and reported the bully to their Human Resources department. While 38 percent of these workers stated that measures were taken to investigate and resolve the situation, the majority of workers (62 percent) said no action was taken. Of those who didn’t report the bully, one-in-five (21 percent) said it was because they feared the bullying would escalate.

In the 2007 WBI survey, only 15% of bullied targets ever filed a formal complaint with HR. We also asked about the employer’s response to a complaint when the bullying became known. In 44% of cases nothing was done and in 18% the situation worsened. Thus, both studies found that employers did nothing positive in 62% of cases.

We are curious about the results of those HR “investigations” reported in the CB survey. Perhaps they asked a follow-up question. We don’t yet know. Here’s a detailed look at what employers actually do from the perspective of the direct customers of those services — the targets themselves.

C. The most common culprit is typically the boss, according to the CB survey. An immediate supervisor was the bully for 14% of workers, 7% were higher-up managers, while 11%  felt bullied by a co-worker. Seven percent said the bully was a customer.

The boss bullying percentage seems extremely low. It speaks to bias in the sample that completed the survey. The WBI bully boss percentage hovers reliably in the 70′s (72% in the national 2007 survey) whether the survey is online with a self-selected sample or otherwise. It was clever to include customers in the CB study, but what about the equivalence of the WBI 10% subordinates who bully group?

At WBI we await the publication of the questions themselves by Harris. The firm posts results from their other surveys in the Harris Vault.

We look forward to seeing the wording of items and the response choices.

We compliment CareerBuilder on supporting the movement and disseminating their survey results to help convince  doubters in American society who think that bullying does not exist.

Gary Namie, PhD  — WBI

In August, 2010 WBI conducted a follow-up study to compare 2007 prevalence rates to 2010 rates.

Here are the results.

In both measurement periods, respondents were asked the following: At work, what is your experience with any or all of the following types of repeated mistreatment: sabotage by others that prevented work from getting done, verbal abuse, threatening conduct, intimidation or humiliation?

The obvious finding is that rates are stable. Bullying remains a problem for over a third of the population. Given the margin of error for the 2010 survey, the figures are essentially equivalent.

The decline in the reported current rate of bullying is probably best attributed to the fear and stigma that shrouds the phenomenon of workplace bullying. Bullied targets feel ashamed that it happened to them (though they did not seek it). That suppresses reporting.

There is an ever-present fear of retaliation for reporting it. However, this real-world experience should not govern choices on an anonymous questionnaire. Instead, we believe that into national polls is creeping an unwillingness for respondents to make declarations that best serve their personal interests. That is, there is an increasing reluctance to believe that workers deserve rights.

After 40 years of a steady diet of pro-corporate media messages that what is good for corporations is good for America and to believe otherwise is un-American, it seems individuals are uncritically accepting the message despite its harmful consequences to those same individuals. Unions have been vilified. Workers are told they are lucky to have work. Exposure to these messages convince workers to be submissive, to stop believing that they are entitled to work free from abuse.

To declare you are bullied may require more independence, pride, and self-assurance than we originally thought.

We originally hypothesized that bullying rates would have increased since the great economic recession. It sounds logical. However, in a separate question, we explored this question. Few respondents reported that their workplace situations worsened since late 2008. The potential explanation can be found in our report of that finding — Recession & Bullying: 2010 WBI Survey.

In conclusion, we accept the stability of workplace bullying prevalence since 2007 as evidence that the problem is still worthy of elimination. Much work remains to stop bullying for the 35% of affected Americans.

WBI Research Director, Gary Namie, PhD
© 2010, Workplace Bullying Institute

2010. Zogby International was commissioned by the Workplace Bullying Institute to conduct an online survey of 2,092 adults from 8/18/10 to 8/23/10. A sampling of Zogby International’s online panel, which is representative of the adult population of the U.S., was invited to participate. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender, education to more accurately reflect the population. The margin of error was +/- 2.2 percentage points.