What changed to make people think abusive behaviour is acceptable in the workplace?

What changed to make people think abusive behaviour is acceptable in the workplace?

I’ve been working with the NHS in general practice for a few months and was horrified when I realised how many of the staff in lots of surgeries suffered abuse of many kinds from patients.

But why is this happening? Is it since Covid, or was it rife before that?

This brought me to the question of how many people in other sectors suffer from verbal or physical abuse, and the results I found were shocking.

In a crime study carried out in 2021, 389,000 people in the UK received some workplace threat across all sectors. At this point, I’d like to add that healthcare workers were more likely to receive threats than any other sector.

I want to explore why people's attitudes towards verbal abuse of staff in general practice and other sectors have shifted and what can be done to address it.

Verbal abuse of staff can take many forms, from bullying and belittling comments to aggressive behaviour.

The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) defines work-related violence as: “Any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in the circumstances relating to their work”.

This may include physical attacks, verbal abuse, or threats in person or online.

The consequences of these incidents are multiple. The victims suffer harm, injury and pain, and the impact on their overall well-being cannot be underestimated, from self-esteem to stress and post-traumatic stress disorder. There is also the effect on the organisation from staff recruitment to low morale, resulting in reduced performance business and reputation.

So why is this happening, and what do we do to protect staff?

In some cases, I think the various lockdowns had a massive impact as there were higher levels of stress and anxiety due to all the restrictions being put in place, leading to people not feeling that they were in control of their own lives, subsequently leading to more anger and frustration.

In the businesses, staff recognised these increased stress and anxiety levels and didn’t want to add to them.

When they were verbally abused, they brushed it under the carpet due to the situation in general.

Now, we are out on the other side of the pandemic, businesses, no matter who they are or what sector they’re in, need to support their staff better if this behaviour continues:

1. Write a policy on what to do in the event of threats of verbal or physical abuse, create posters for staff defining what this kind of abuse looks or sounds like, and put notices in the workplace stating that any behaviour of this sort will not be tolerated and have protocols in place to either remove or ban the people in what form you deem suitable.
2. Ensure your staff know you have their backs and care about their welfare. This is such an important thing to do. Ensure that they understand the importance of reporting abusive behaviour and managing it. Provide data internally to your staff to demonstrate the number of abuse cases, how many have been reported, and the outcomes. Doing this will provide them with comfort and trust in your support and abilities.

Just remember that any type of abusive behaviour is not suitable for any organisation or any situation and needs to be stopped.

Please don’t put up with it, or you will lose staff due to a feeling of a lack of support from you.

Put the suggestions in place that I have suggested, and make sure you follow up on all reports of abusive behaviour and take these things very seriously.

Thanks for reading

Liz

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