Niki is Insperity's director, service operations. She specializes in employee onboarding, human capital management and HR infrastructure.
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As remote work has become more common, employers face the concern of increased cyberbullying between employees. If unaddressed, pervasive cyberbullying can infiltrate a company’s culture, causing problems with employee engagement and productivity.
Despite those serious risks, organizations may underestimate the rates of cyberbullying in the workplace. According to Workplace Bullying Institute's (WBI) most recent survey, 61% of remote workers (bullied and witnessed) are affected by bullying, 50% of respondents reported experiencing or witnessing mistreatment during online meetings and 70% of the online mistreatment occurred in front of others.
As remote work continues to increase and virtual communication plays a pivotal role in business operations, leaders should take proactive steps to help curtail cyberbullying. Here are a few things for leaders to consider:
Understanding The Impacts
The detrimental effects associated with cyberbullying can be extensive, impacting targeted employees, witnesses, employee retention, potential job candidates, company reputation, company culture and the bottom line. Victims, and even bystanders, can develop mental health issues, decreased engagement and reduced job satisfaction, which can lead employees to leave the company.
If cyberbullying is not addressed quickly and the situation makes its way to social media and the press, a company’s reputation can also be at stake. That can create obstacles when it comes to hiring top talent and retaining employees.
Establishing A Zero-Tolerance Policy
To prevent cyberbullying and protect your company culture, establish a zero-tolerance policy that can lead to disciplinary action. First, create or update anti-bullying policies that define bullying, cyberbullying, discrimination, harassment and inappropriate behavior and reflect your zero-tolerance stance.
These policies should also establish best practices and outline expectations for acceptable use of social networking sites. Share the changes with employees via an all-employee email from HR, posts on the company intranet and reminders during team meetings.
Teaching Employees About Cyberbullying
Employees need to be equipped with the knowledge to recognize workplace cyberbullying through education and training. Whether by impersonating a leader, supervisor or co-worker, outing secrets and personal information to large groups of employees or trolling by posting negative comments on social media posts, cyberbullies can be persistent in finding ways to intimidate their victims.
Threatening emails, public humiliation of co-workers on social media platforms and intimidating text messages are relevant examples to present to employees. When employees understand how to identify cyberbullying, they are more likely to report it. The sooner incidents are reported, the quicker HR can find resolutions and improve the culture for all.
Evaluating Video Conferencing Practices
Video conferencing continues to rank as a preferred communication method for businesses to connect with remote workforces and is the most widely-used platform for cyberbullying, according to WBI. For companies that rely on video conferencing to communicate, a deep dive may be needed to examine and evaluate best practices. Depending on their contracts with video conferencing services, employers can review transcripts and videos of recorded meetings to get a snapshot of activities/use if issues arise.
Additional ways to curtail cyberbullying over video conference include reviewing a pre-approved list of guidelines prior to meetings, reminding participants about the effect of facial expressions on others’ feelings, maintaining an awareness that overly relaxed environments could lead to unintentional but hurtful offenses, designating mystery participants to periodically join group meetings for evaluation purposes and limiting or banning virtual social gatherings that include alcohol if there is a history of team members overindulging and displaying bad behavior.
Taking Care Of People
One important way employers demonstrate they are taking care of their people is by ensuring their safety at work, including in remote conditions. If the culture is compromised by cyberbullying, bullied employees and witnesses should easily be able to report the incident. A confidential reporting system operated by a third-party vendor is one solution, especially if the offender is in an executive or managerial position.
Once notified, employers should take swift action to investigate the situation in a confidential and fair manner that makes employees feel safe. Employees' mental health and well-being should be a top priority for leaders. Regular check-ins and access to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can support their emotional needs. When employees feel protected and secure within a company, they are more likely to be free from distractions and better able to focus on their jobs.
When business leaders take steps to help guard their workforce against cyberbullying, they enhance their organizational culture and, thus, their ability to attract and retain top talent.
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