Cubicle bullies: 'Mobbing' at work

By every measure, Megan is a high performer. Recruited five years ago into a company that delivers large-scale training programs, she proved herself to her employers on a series of complex projects as both a trainer and a project manager. She liked her job and the people she worked with. "It felt like a big family," she says.

The pace was fast and the work demanding, but Megan performed well. Four years after joining the organization, she was promoted. "Along with the increase in responsibility came huge stress, but I was willing to take that on because it was a team environment - a supportive, inclusive team."

Unfortunately, her promotion coincided with other stressors, including personal trauma and physical illness. She began to experience insomnia, agitation and headaches. "I was breaking down, I couldn't get out of bed. The whole team was moved into a cubical environment and the noise levels went through the roof, which was a major stressor. I was having many panic attacks a day, so I would have to try to find a place to be alone at work so no one would notice."

Her doctor eventually diagnosed her with depression and anxiety, and prescribed medication, but her symptoms persisted and Megan's co-workers began to notice the change. "As I became more and more ill, I could no longer maintain the joviality around the office. I had a tremendous amount of responsibility and it seemed to me that I was the only one taking the work seriously. They called me 'anal' but I just wanted to do the work well. I tried to laugh along with it, but eventually I couldn't."

Although Megan told several of her colleagues that she was experiencing severe depression, no one seemed concerned about her health. "The reaction was blasé. I said 'I'm depressed, I'm on medication' and the response was 'Oh, everyone's on medication.'"

Megan's behaviour continued to change and her workplace relationships continued to deteriorate, but no one seemed to believe that mental illness was the cause. Conversations would stop when she came into the office, she was not invited to meetings she normally had been included in, information essential to her job performance was withheld and some of her colleagues became angry that she was bringing down the 'happy family.' "Somebody actually said to me 'For God's sake, you look miserable.' She was angry with me. And I said 'Yes, I am - I can't cope.' And the response was 'Get over it, we're all stressed.'"

Megan eventually took eight weeks of sick leave and missed a very busy period at work. When she returned, she faced daily expressions of resentment from her colleagues, although a replacement had been found to carry her workload. Eventually, her situation became unbearable. "By the end of my stay there, my manager had not spoken to me directly in over a year and her office was only six feet away from mine. She would talk about me so I could overhear. At one point I said 'I'm sitting right here,' but she didn't stop." Eventually, Megan could take no more and sought and found a position at a new company.

The difference between the work demands at the two places was not significant. Megan still had high expectations placed on her and was required to work to tight deadlines. What had changed was that the new work environment understood Megan's condition and decided that the value she added as a creative and engaged employee was worth the time it took to accommodate her mental health issues. Very minor changes to the environment and to communication were all it took to allow Megan to slowly regain her health and maintain her abilities.

Megan's story is a prime example of workplace 'mobbing' - ongoing, systematic and often unintentional bullying of an individual by his or her colleagues. Some examples of mobbing can be very overt, taking the form of rudeness and physical intimidation. But often, it is much more subtle, involving social ostracism and exclusion. In fact, each individual incident may seem inconsequential, but over a period of time, mobbing erodes the self-confidence and self-esteem of the mobbed employee.

Mary Ann Baynton, the Director of Mental Health Works, an initiative of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario, stresses that it is not just the victim that is harmed by mobbing; the workplace also pays a price in a loss of loyalty and performance from the mobbed employee. Some research has demonstrated that the victims of mobbing waste up to 52% of their time at work in defending themselves and networking for support, thinking about the situation and being demotivated and stressed. She says, "Although few organizations recognize the problem, it's imperative to every business's bottom line that they protect their employees from mobbing."

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, many co-workers participate or are complicit in mobbing, succumbing to peer pressure that we more frequently associate with children and teens. And despite the fact that mobbing is far more prevalent than other destructive behaviors such as sexual harassment and racial discrimination, which are prohibited by legislation, in Canada only the province of Quebec has legislation to protect workers against mobbing.

Clearly, not everyone who is a target of mobbing experiences a health crisis, but many do experience symptoms such as back pain, muscle tension, headaches, digestive problems or other illnesses. In Megan's case, behavioural changes brought on by depression and anxiety provoked colleagues to alter the way they treated her, exacerbating her mental health concern and causing more dramatic behavioural changes that resulted in even more extreme forms of mobbing, creating a devastating cycle.

"Some people wouldn't even be aware of how their behaviour is impacting their colleague," says Baynton. "They just stop speaking to the person, because his or her behaviour has changed, and it is too difficult to know what to say."

Megan concurs. "They're not bad people - you'd meet them at a party and you'd really like them. It didn't have to happen like that. People said to me 'I really see what's happening, and I'm so sorry, but I can't say anything.'

Mobbing is also particularly common when mental health issues are a factor because of the way mental illness is frequently stigmatized. In some cases, such as Megan's, because depression and anxiety are 'invisible' disabilities, many don't believe the changes in behaviour are related to a health issue. In other cases, because of the way that people with mental illnesses are often perceived - as weak, incompetent, or even dangerous - many people feel justified in treating those individuals differently than they would treat other colleagues.

The impact that mental health issues have on workplaces is growing; according to the World Health Organization, depression will rank second only to heart disease as the leading cause of disability worldwide by the year 2020. As the incidence of mental health problems in the workplace increase, associated cases of mobbing also rise. Baynton's program, Mental Health Works, has developed resources to respond.

The initiative has produced a presentation specifically for staff members, "Awareness of Mental Health in the Workplace". This presentation provides concrete ways that colleagues can recognize and talk about mental health issues, and improve the overall health of their organization. In addition, Mental Health Works has a variety of workshops that provide more in-depth training for supervisors, managers, union reps, human resource personnel and occupational health professionals to address areas of communication, facilitating a successful return-to-work, developing accommodations and the flagship, award-winning training entitled "Complex Issues. Clear Solutions."

Baynton says that it's essential for every worker to be able to recognize and respond appropriately to potential mental health issues. She also notes that employers and managers must understand that interpersonal relationships at work affect the health of every staff member, either positively or negatively, and that they can contribute to a positive work environment if they have the skills and knowledge to identify and respond to issues before they escalate.

Megan's experience provided an unfortunate lesson to others in the organization. "There was another guy suffering from depression and he said to me that he was thinking of telling them, to see if he could get accommodation but after he saw what happened to me, he wouldn't."

According to Baynton, this should alarm Megan's former employer. "If staff feel they can't request accommodation as a result of the work environment, the organization is opening itself up to the possibility of legal liability by not meeting their duty to accommodate employees with disabilities."

As for Megan, she's moved on, both in her career and in her health. The dedication and commitment that so impressed her colleagues at her first job is very much in evidence today and her new manager recently offered her a promotion. "I feel great," she says. "The environment is very different - the working relationships are supportive and professional. For me, it's a clean slate."