Stress Bullies: Adult bullies are often acting out on stress either at home or in the workplace. They are unable to deal with these feelings and take their aggression out on others. This person may not normally be a bully but cannot handle the problems of stress. These bullies tend to be short tempered and are very easily agitated. This type of situation is usually temporary.

The Client Bully: These bullies can be very hard to deal with. Nurses, teachers and people in the service industry tend to fall victims to this type of bullying most often. These people are bullied by the people they are serving. Nurses are bullied by patients, teachers get bullied by students and general customers bully people in the service industry. Often there are strict guidelines that these jobs have to follow so dealing with a bully can be a real challenge. Many people who are power bullies take advantage of people in these professions.

Power Bully: This type of bully uses an employee’s fear of losing their job to intimidate them. They get people to skip breaks, lunches and work longer hours, on a regular basis out of fear. They places unreasonable tasks upon the employee, knowing that they will be unable to finish in a normal day and will have to work longer hours. The victim complies because they are intimidated. This type of bullying often occurs in smaller work places, where there employees do not have resources like an union to fall back on.

Promotion Bully: This type of bully is a person who gets a minor promotion and suddenly gets ideas of grandeur. They become ‘power happy’. They realise that they have been given some authority and begin to exercise that authority but they do not know how or when to stop. Often they are not adept or have the skills to approach the employees in a positive, appropriate manner. This bullying can be easily remedied by sending these people on a basic people skills course.

Controlling Bully: This bully is usually in a position of some authority. They have an obsessive need to be right. The only way of doing things is their way and they will become angry and abusive if any dares to challenge their way of thinking. They feel threatened by change, often feeling like it shows their own inadequacies.

Gang Bully: This type of bullying often targets someone new or different in the office. A group of employees who are friends will target a victim. They will exclude the victim from ‘water cooler’ conversations, lunch activities, use gossip and rumours to intimidate, isolate and humiliate their victim.

They will attempt to undermine the person’s work and make them feel like an outcast. Quite often this type of bullying is hard to stop because the group will stick together, and it is easier for an employer to replace one person who does not seem to fit in rather than the entire team.

Unfortunately no matter what profession you are in you are bound to come across a workplace bully of some kind. Few States or Provinces have any kind of laws or regulations on workplace bullying. Workplace bullying can be very hard to define or prove. Your best strategy for handling these people is to get information on verbal skills and techniques that will enable you to get the bullying to stop. Bullying should never be tolerated.

The number of incidents, the amount of times incidents occur and the pattern of the incidents will all add up to prove that bullying is occurring. Keeping detailed records of these things is very important. These records should include the date, time, witnesses and exactly what was said. Also the result of the action or if any action occurred should be recorded. All e-mails, memos and notes should be copied and kept as proof of bullying. Be sure that these records are not kept anywhere that the bully may have access to.

Sometimes the direct approach is best. With a reliable witness, a supervisor or manager, directly approach the bully. Let them know in no uncertain terms that their behaviour is not going to be tolerated. Let them know that you are aware that they are trying to bully you and that it is not gong to work. Get the situation out in the open.

Discreetly approach other employees and find out if they are experiencing the same kinds of problems. It is better if more than one person is involved because it adds credibility to the charges and prevents it from becoming a ‘he said she’ said situation. Many employees are afraid to come forward for fear not only of the bully but of losing their job. Often it is easier for a group.

Take your case to the highest available person in the company. Or if you are part of an organization or union go to them with all of the documented evidence. You might also include a detailed report on the effects of bullying in the workplace. Bullying in the workplace causes low moral, higher staff turnover, lowers productivity, and potential law suits and all of this comes at the expense of the company.

Above all when dealing with a workplace bully, do not ever retaliate or threaten the bully. Do not ever put yourself in a position of having to defend yourself. You definitely do not want it to look like you are the one doing the bullying. But be aware, that people who report bullying do not often get the results they expect, especially if they do not have very good documentation and back-up.

But if you have a job worth fighting for and a good company, they will realise the advantages to correcting the situation. A bully in the workplace affects everyone and the sooner the issue is dealt with the better the workplace will be for everyone. And at no point should bullying ever be tolerated.

The main difference that separates bullying from harassment is that harassment has physical factors such as uninvited touching, intruding in one’s personal space, and/or the damaging of one’s possessions. Bullying differs in the fact that it is almost always emotional or psychological and it often involves verbal and/or written communication and actions. This elusive nature of workplace bullying makes it a great deal more toilsome to stop than harassment.

Another difference between bullying and harassment is that adult bullies will target anybody, even popular thriving people. In fact, by and large, adult bullies direct their antics at people they perceive to be better than themselves and not at people who are thought of as weaker. On the other hand, one who harasses generally singles out those who are dissimilar than the majority whether it be race, gender, and/or other distinct differences. Harassment of these minorities is often identified and even expected, whereas bullying of people who do not have these divergences is more difficult to distinguish. Probably the best way to differentiate between the two is to remember that harassment is founded on discrimination whereas bullying is based on jealousy and/or insecurity.

It should be noted that only one instance of harassment is required to distinguish it as harassment. This differs harassment from bullying since bullying is oftentimes an ongoing problem. Harassment can happen repeatedly but it does not have to, whereas bullying always takes place more than once and typically many times. Harassment it also normally more apparent and involves things that are easy to spot as a inappropriate. Bullying can be much more subtle and even the victim may not even recognise they are being bullied until after it begins to come about regularly. Unfortunately, this often means that harassment victims are acknowledged quickly and sympathized with, while bullying victims are often not recognized at all.

An interesting fact about adult bullying is that it largely comes about in the workplace. Harassment differs in that it almost always takes place both inside and outside of work. Harassers frequently take pleasure in targeting other people, while bullies bully to conceal their own insecurities and to rule out the threat they perceive in other people.

So as you can see, there are some distinguishable differences between bullying and harassment. However, what is most significant is that we are able to identify both of these iniquities and do what we can to eliminate them from the workplace.