Call us today 0845 177 0700


RELATED ARTICLES

SOCIAL PROFILING REVEALS NUGGETS OF TRUTH HIDDEN BEHIND CVs

HOW CAN YOU IDENTIFY A BULLY BEFORE YOU RECRUIT ONE? ONLINE SOCIAL PROFILING

WATCH: LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE VIDEO

Download HOBRA
Fact Sheet

Call us today 0845 177 0700


The SP Index are thought leaders in Online Social Profiling and are the UK's leading supplier of compliant profiling.

If you would like to know more about Online Social Profiling contact sarah.poynton@sp-index.com  or call 0845 177 0700


Feel free to share your feedback on this article @SP_index and include the hash tag #onlinesocialprofiling.


www.sp-index.com  

www.linkedin.com/in/sarahpoynton



ENJOYED THIS POST?


Sign up for our newsletter to receive a summary of all new posts from the team at the SP-Index.



WORKPLACE BULLYING - HOW DO YOU RECOGNISE AND PREVENT IT?


A workplace problem that is estimated to cost UK Companies upwards of £2 Billion per year and yet identifying and dealing with workplace bullies remains to be an elusive skill. Workplace bullying causes distress, humiliation and offence to the victim. As well as the personal impact on the individual, workplace bullying effects your bottom line, your culture, your performance and ultimately drives your customers and best talent to your competitors.

It is estimated (CIPD 2013 Annual Report) that 83% of UK companies have a policy that deals with workplace bullying. It is unclear if these policies have been set in place to prevent or cure occurrences of workplace bullying. Over the years, my experience of asking HR professionals why they have implemented a new policy is often answered with an admission of doing it because everyone else is doing it and not wanting to be caught out or left behind. These policies are called upon in order to deal with cases of bullying after they have occurred. By this time the damage has been done, HR are involved, company time has been wasted, company money has been spent, company staff have left, the list goes on and the costs just keep going up and up!

Many people say that some form of bullying is unavoidable, "it will always exist because that is the human way". Creating a culture where positive behaviour is promoted and supported rather than waiting for bad behaviour to occur is the way to build a workplace that is inclusive and full of positive interaction. The reality though is that a leopard can't change its spots; once employed the leopard and its behaviour are there to stay, even with the introduction of expensive and time consuming training and awareness courses for employees.

The digital era has changed the face of workplace bullying. Social Media has bought with it different forms of bullying tactics. Online bullying is often intangible, in some instances the person being harassed may not even see all the posts or comments about them but their colleague's do, more often than not online workplace bullying is happening outside of working hours and away from the office.  Regardless of how someone is being bullied it is widely accepted that the employer has a duty of care and a responsibility to do its best to prevent these situations arising.

Employers struggle to keep up with the evolution of the online social world and as a result are often far behind its employees in their monitoring activity in regard to online bullying. Of the 83% of UK companies that have bullying policies less than half extend those policies to online workplace bullying.

So what if I told you that there were a way to ensure that you never recruited a bully again, would you believe me? What if there were a robust, accurate and fair way to test for bullies during the recruitment process, would you be interested to understand more? What difference would such a test have made to your current team, would you have chosen different people? If you could remove the bullies would your company be a better place to work?

Online Social Profiling companies such as the SP-Index has developed sophisticated search and scoring technology which allow companies to do just that; pre-screen for bullying, harassment, racism, sexism, ageism, and other serious discriminatory styles in job applicants prior to them being embedded into to your team. Compliant with all current UK legislation SP Index can keep you compliant and reduce risk of not only recruiting a bully but recruiting someone that presents a risk to your business, in any way, on the web. By focusing first on new staff joining the organisation and then implementing employee monitoring in a compliant and non-intrusive way, alongside advice and guidance to their clients on relevant and up to date policies and procedures, SP-Index has proven to offer hard financial savings to business' as well as additional cultural improvements across all industries. Research shows that the average cost of preparing a case for tribunal linked to bullying can run as high as £18,000 when you factor in employee downtime while suspended on full pay, HR time, employee disruption, legal fees and more. Not all cases of workplace bullying will achieve this huge price tag of course, but if you had just 1 the ramifications could be huge.

The cost of a Premium SP Index report is only £90 +VAT and can be used to help you choose the most positive human addition for your business. Based on publicly available content across a digital footprint (which by the way is constructed by the individual on the web for the sole purpose of being seen by others) the results of a report will flag evidence of explicit nudity, indiscreet language,  bullying & harassment, racism, violence, endorsement of illegal activity, endorsement of negative blogging about employers, and more.

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE BULLYING - THERE IS NO EXCUSE!