Bullying in the workplace has been on the rise in prominence and we've seen prosecutions for bullying starting throughout. No industry is untouched from bullying, small to multinationals, across the globe.

Yet it is still so common when you ask people 'what does your workplace do to manage bullying?' to have a reply something like 'Oh our HR are so good, we can report it to them'.....................

And so how is this preventing bullying? Which is the legal requirement under Workplace Health & Safety legislation across countries?

When psychosocial risks, which is what bullying is, was still in obscurity, a few years ago, it may have been common, though still not proficiently correct, to report it to HR, HR would investigate and 'talk' to the bully, and usually someone just apologised or 'bullying training' was brought in.

THIS WILL NOT PREVENT BULLYING

Because psychosocial risks are not a HR expertise domain. They are a RISK MANAGEMENT, with H&S LEGISLATION expertise on different PCBU, Officers, Supervisors & Workers responsibility required expertise, combined with Organisational psychology domain. If you want to manage it correctly. Towards prevention & mitigation.

If you want to continue on the journey of bully -> report -> investigate -> training -> more bullying later (because you haven't addressed the cause of bullying, only the symptom), the 'report to HR is a great' strategy.

If you want to actually risk manage to prevention and mitigation, which is the legal requirement, then H&S RISK MANAGEMENT AND Organisational psychology expertise will be needed.

Note the AND.

Note that Organisational psychology assessments with some actions suggested is NOT Psychosocial RISK MANAGEMENT, it is only an evaluation, which is not meeting compliance.