The Truth About Workplace Bullying: Why Most Training Programmes Miss the Point Entirely

Related Articles: NameCoach Insights | Focus Group Resources

The statistics say 67% of Australian workers will experience workplace bullying at some point in their careers. But here's what those statistics don't tell you - most of what passes for anti-bullying training in corporate Australia is about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

I've been consulting on workplace behaviour issues for seventeen years now, and I can count on one hand the number of organisations that actually get this right. The rest? They're ticking boxes, covering their legal arses, and wondering why their "comprehensive anti-bullying programme" hasn't stopped Karen from Finance making new employees cry.

The fundamental problem isn't that people don't know bullying is wrong. Of course they bloody know it's wrong. The problem is that most workplace bullying isn't the cartoonish, obvious stuff that training videos love to showcase. It's not some bloke shoving people into lockers like we're still in high school.

Real workplace bullying is sophisticated, subtle, and systematic. It's the manager who consistently excludes certain team members from key meetings. It's the colleague who "forgets" to pass on crucial information. It's the senior executive who uses their position to make someone's life miserable through death by a thousand cuts.

And here's the kicker - half the time, the perpetrators genuinely don't think they're bullying anyone. They'll tell you they're being "direct" or "holding people accountable" or my personal favourite, "managing performance." I once worked with a department head in Brisbane who insisted she was just being "efficient" when she systematically undermined every suggestion from her deputy. When we dug deeper, it turned out she felt threatened by the deputy's experience and was unconsciously sabotaging her to maintain her own position.

The Training Theatre Problem

Most anti-bullying training follows the same tired formula: define bullying, show some examples, talk about company policy, job done. It's workplace theatre at its finest. Everyone nods along, fills out their compliance forms, and goes back to doing exactly what they were doing before.

I was reviewing a training programme for a major mining company last year - can't name them, but let's just say they're big enough that you'd recognise the logo. Their anti-bullying module was a twenty-minute e-learning course that participants could complete whilst simultaneously checking their emails. The final quiz had questions like "Is it okay to physically assault a colleague?" with multiple choice answers. I'm not making this up.

The real issue is that effective anti-bullying programmes require organisations to look inward and acknowledge some uncomfortable truths. They need to examine their culture, their power structures, and their tolerance for "high performers" who happen to be absolute nightmares to work with.

Too many companies protect their bullies because they deliver results. I've seen this pattern repeatedly across Sydney, Melbourne, Perth - everywhere really. The sales director who hits every target but leaves a trail of traumatised junior staff. The project manager who gets things done on time and under budget but creates such a toxic environment that turnover in their team is 200% above company average.

These organisations know exactly who their problematic people are. HR knows. Senior management knows. Sometimes even the board knows. But nobody wants to deal with it because these people are "productive."

What Actually Works

Here's what I've learned actually makes a difference, based on implementations I've overseen that have genuinely changed workplace cultures:

Start with leadership accountability. Not just lip service about values, but actual consequences when leaders enable or ignore bullying behaviour. I worked with a tech startup in Melbourne where the CEO publicly fired a star performer who was terrorising the development team. The message was clear: results don't excuse behaviour. That company's employee satisfaction scores jumped 40% in six months.

Make it about psychological safety, not just bullying. Google's research on high-performing teams found psychological safety was the number one factor. When people feel safe to speak up, make mistakes, and challenge ideas without fear of retribution, bullying behaviour naturally diminishes. It's harder to systematically undermine someone in an environment where openness is genuinely valued.

Train bystanders, not just targets and perpetrators. Most bullying happens with an audience. If you can create a culture where colleagues feel empowered and supported to call out problematic behaviour when they see it, you've solved 80% of the problem. But this requires backing from management - not just in policy documents, but in practice.

I remember working with a government department where we implemented peer intervention training. Six months later, reports of bullying had dropped by 60%. Not because there were suddenly fewer bullies, but because the social dynamics had shifted. Bullying behaviour stopped being tolerated by the group.

The Uncomfortable Reality

The truth is, most organisations don't really want to eliminate workplace bullying. They want to minimise their legal liability and create the appearance of taking action. Actually addressing the root causes means confronting power imbalances, challenging entrenched hierarchies, and potentially losing some high performers who can't adapt to more respectful ways of operating.

It means acknowledging that their "results-driven culture" might actually be code for "we tolerate terrible behaviour if it makes us money." It means recognising that their promotion criteria might be systematically rewarding people who are willing to step on others to get ahead.

The organisations that succeed in creating genuinely respectful workplaces are the ones willing to do this hard work. They're the ones who understand that sustainable high performance comes from engaged, supported teams - not from fear-based management and survival-of-the-fittest cultures.

The rest will keep rolling out their compliance training, measuring success by completion rates rather than cultural change, and wondering why they keep having "isolated incidents" that seem to happen with suspicious frequency.

After nearly two decades in this space, I've become somewhat cynical about quick fixes and magic solutions. But I've also seen what's possible when organisations genuinely commit to change. The difference is profound - not just in terms of workplace culture, but in actual business results. Turns out that treating people with respect isn't just morally right; it's also incredibly good for the bottom line.

Maybe it's time more Australian businesses figured that out.