Bullying Wastes Time
Time is a valuable resource, and bullying wastes time. Thousands of hours are spent a year on school, community, and business anti-bullying programs. Teachers, administrators, executives, community leaders, and even Congress spend time every year addressing bullying issues and receiving training to address bullying issues. Moreover, when bullying does occur, time must be taken to address the issue whether the bullying occurs at a school, in a workplace or in the community. Investigations, treatments and reprimands take valuable time away from other important activities.
Bullying Wastes Talent
Talent is human capital. Workplace bullies, especially, tend to target high performers. Why? Because the high performer is making the bully or the bully's friend look bad or perhaps the bully is insecure and/or jealous. Imagine all the individuals that are bullied in the workplace and all of their ideas or talents that are not utilized. Instead, all of their talent is wasted because someone bullied them out of a program, a project, a job, or even a community. Perhaps, the talent of those individuals could have provided the next-level breakthrough an organization was hoping to achieve. The talent of that student could have opened doors to new ideas or perhaps even new discoveries. The talent of a community leader could have been used for greater economic development. Unfortunately, because those individuals are bullied and are forced to leave their work, their school, or their community, the benefits of their talents are never fully realized.
Bullying Wastes Money
Billions of dollars a year are spent on bullying prevention programs, research, training, litigation, investigations, policy development, therapies and treatments. Even with all the money spent, bullying continues in schools, workplaces, and communities. Money continues to be thrown after a problem that will just not go away. Each time someone bullies at school, valuable teacher and administrator time is taken away from the classroom to address bullying issues. Multiple individuals become involved from the classroom teacher (maybe more than one), a school administrator, the counselor, possibly a secretary who makes the call home to the parents. Perhaps, the parent leaves work to come to the school to address the problem. The same occurs in the workplace. Valuable employee time and organizational capital is wasted on dealing with workplace bullying. Bullying decreases productivity, causes job loss, creates vacancies, costs rehire fees, and training. Furthermore, employee hours are spent addressing bullying much the same as in schools. Supervisors, managers, directors, coworkers, human resources personnel, bullies and victims all lose time away from their work to address bullying concerns. Time lost from work is money lost by the company or organization.
Bullying Wastes Energy
Bullying is exhausting. A great deal of mental, physical, and emotional energy is spent on bullying issues. Teachers, administrators, managers, employees, parents, and community members may get fatigued from dealing with bullying issues. Bullies who continue their behavior despite best efforts have those counseling the bullies wondering what solutions will work. Then, more energy is spent trying to figure out the solution through training, research, evaluations, and therapies. In addition, energy is spent trying to console victims or convincing victims that the bullies' behaviors are not reflections of the whole school, the whole organization or the whole community. Energy may be lost trying to regain the human capital when victims are forced to leave schools or communities or organizations because of the bullies. Bullies find no problem with wasting the energy of others because that means bullies get more attention. The bullies then not only have power and control over their victims, but over authorities as well.
In order to truly stop bullying, programs need to be put in place where bullies are no longer allowed to waste time, talent, money and energy.
Sources
Highmark Foundation. The Cost Benefit of Bullying Prevention: A First-Time Analysis of Savings. Found online at: https://www.highmarkfoundation.org/pdf/publications/HMK_Bullying%20Report_final.pdf
Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Results from the 2016 Study of Faculty Worklife at UW-Madison. Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty. Found online at: http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Report_Wave5_2016TT.pdf
Bullyonline.org. Myths and Stereotypes about Workplace Bullying. Found online at: https://bullyonline.org/index.php/bullying/134-myths-and-stereotypes-about-workplace-bullying
Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2008). Bully Victims: Psychological and Somatic Aftermaths. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 5(6), 62–64.
Bullying Wastes Talent
Talent is human capital. Workplace bullies, especially, tend to target high performers. Why? Because the high performer is making the bully or the bully's friend look bad or perhaps the bully is insecure and/or jealous. Imagine all the individuals that are bullied in the workplace and all of their ideas or talents that are not utilized. Instead, all of their talent is wasted because someone bullied them out of a program, a project, a job, or even a community. Perhaps, the talent of those individuals could have provided the next-level breakthrough an organization was hoping to achieve. The talent of that student could have opened doors to new ideas or perhaps even new discoveries. The talent of a community leader could have been used for greater economic development. Unfortunately, because those individuals are bullied and are forced to leave their work, their school, or their community, the benefits of their talents are never fully realized.
Bullying Wastes Money
Billions of dollars a year are spent on bullying prevention programs, research, training, litigation, investigations, policy development, therapies and treatments. Even with all the money spent, bullying continues in schools, workplaces, and communities. Money continues to be thrown after a problem that will just not go away. Each time someone bullies at school, valuable teacher and administrator time is taken away from the classroom to address bullying issues. Multiple individuals become involved from the classroom teacher (maybe more than one), a school administrator, the counselor, possibly a secretary who makes the call home to the parents. Perhaps, the parent leaves work to come to the school to address the problem. The same occurs in the workplace. Valuable employee time and organizational capital is wasted on dealing with workplace bullying. Bullying decreases productivity, causes job loss, creates vacancies, costs rehire fees, and training. Furthermore, employee hours are spent addressing bullying much the same as in schools. Supervisors, managers, directors, coworkers, human resources personnel, bullies and victims all lose time away from their work to address bullying concerns. Time lost from work is money lost by the company or organization.
Bullying Wastes Energy
Bullying is exhausting. A great deal of mental, physical, and emotional energy is spent on bullying issues. Teachers, administrators, managers, employees, parents, and community members may get fatigued from dealing with bullying issues. Bullies who continue their behavior despite best efforts have those counseling the bullies wondering what solutions will work. Then, more energy is spent trying to figure out the solution through training, research, evaluations, and therapies. In addition, energy is spent trying to console victims or convincing victims that the bullies' behaviors are not reflections of the whole school, the whole organization or the whole community. Energy may be lost trying to regain the human capital when victims are forced to leave schools or communities or organizations because of the bullies. Bullies find no problem with wasting the energy of others because that means bullies get more attention. The bullies then not only have power and control over their victims, but over authorities as well.
In order to truly stop bullying, programs need to be put in place where bullies are no longer allowed to waste time, talent, money and energy.
Sources
Highmark Foundation. The Cost Benefit of Bullying Prevention: A First-Time Analysis of Savings. Found online at: https://www.highmarkfoundation.org/pdf/publications/HMK_Bullying%20Report_final.pdf
Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Results from the 2016 Study of Faculty Worklife at UW-Madison. Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty. Found online at: http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Report_Wave5_2016TT.pdf
Bullyonline.org. Myths and Stereotypes about Workplace Bullying. Found online at: https://bullyonline.org/index.php/bullying/134-myths-and-stereotypes-about-workplace-bullying
Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2008). Bully Victims: Psychological and Somatic Aftermaths. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 5(6), 62–64.
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