Introduction: The search for the directive
I have been studying anti -bullying policy at universities for several years. For many months I tried to discover an anti-bullying policy at Penn State University. I am interested in Penn State because many of my family members are graduates at the school.
I spoke to the PSU -HR office and the office for public relations and asked about this guideline. They told me that university guidelines are not available for people outside the university. Then I sent email inquiries to half a dozen members of the board of trustees. Because of their backgrounds, I chose them what a possible interest in it. None of them answered my request. To be friendly, I will not identify them. I just wanted to give up.
Finally, I sent the General Counsel of PSU from E -Mail to calculate the right to know the right to the right. I applied for a copy of the university's anti-bullying guideline or a confirmation that the university does not have such a directive. An Associate General Counsel replied to my request. She did not confirm that the school had no such policy. Instead, she referred me to her responsible code of conduct. It is not an anti-bullying policy.
I have been studying bullying guidelines in the workplace in federal, state and municipal cards and universities for four years for more than 20 years. I have written, advised and talked about these guidelines for many years. I think I can draw a reasonable conclusion that PSU has no anti-bullying policy. And they have about 37,000 employees.
What is the problem?
In an organization without anti-bullying policy, a strong instrument is missing to deal with abusive behaviors that are normally not prohibited by law. For every large employer, whether government, non-profit or non-profit organizations, will have guidelines for combating sexual harassment as well as discrimination and harassment according to the EEO laws for every major employer. These guidelines cover important problems, but they not Cover the entire range of improper bullying or harassment behavior at the workplace. The lack of a guideline is a risk.
One of my tasks as a supervisory economist in the Osha office for regulatory analysis was to estimate the risk of undesirable events (from chemical exposure or physical dangers). I used my background and statistics for this task. (To appreciate the costs for compliance with compliance, we were all economists. Osha cannot issue standards without showing the costs of the rules.) Let's take a risk.
A kind of risk
There is always the risk of stopping a person with a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcissists are involved. They tend to humiliate, worsen and sabotage other workers – not everyone, only one or two people at the same time. You drive away other workers, especially those who are wiser or better training, better experience, better social skills and even better appearance.
The experts differ in the percentage of people with NPD. I saw estimates of 5%, 1%and 1/2 of 1%(0.5%). For this purpose, I take 1% reasonable. In this case you have a 99% chance of not choosing a new employee with NPD. Imagine that you have to draw green marbles from a large run with 99% green and 1% red marbles. The likelihood that you choose a green is 99%with every draw.
Similarly, you have a 99% chance not to choose a narcissist with every rent. But the chance of choosing a green marble (no narcissist) every time in 100 picks is 100 times the probability laws .99 times. This is written as 0.99^100, and it corresponds to .3660 or 36.6%. Assuming that NPDS 1 to 100 are, after 100 picks you have a little better than 1 chance in 3 that you have not set a single NPD. However, if you have 1000 employees, the chance of 0.0043%is that you have not set a single NPD (Red Marble). This has a chance of 99.99%that you have chosen at least one. However, Penn State has 37,000 employees and they have no anti-bullying policy. You don't have the easiest way to deal with abusive bullying, harassment supervisory authorities and employees.
With medium -sized organizations with 200 employees, the chance of 13.4%of not choosing anyone with NPD. This is an opportunity of 86.6%that you have at least one. But waiting, NPDs are not the only interferers at their workplace. There are evil, hay and jealous people who do not meet the criteria of a mental disorder. This makes the chance that at least some problematic people will hire much larger, and you have to get a small way to deal with them much larger.
Another problem that requires an anti-bullying policy
The former FBI special agent Eugene A. Rugala has worked a lot of violence at the workplace. One of his reports, “violence at the workplace – problems in response,” it says:
“Mass murder at work by angry employees are media -intensive events. These mass murders are serious, but relatively rare events. It is the threats, harassment, bullying, domestic violence, stalking, emotional abuse, intimidation and other forms of forms and physical violence that have been left continuously. (This report can be found at https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publications-workplace- Violence-workplace-Riolence.)
How does an anti-bullying policy help?
A good policy can help in many ways. A good policy recommends that matters of sexual abuse and other physical violence should be reported to the police before calling the HR department. Other forms of improper behavior should be reported to the manager or the HR department (or the employee aid program, if you have one). The NIH -Zivil program for violence at work covers bullying and points to when they call the police and when they should be called to the HR department. [https://hr.nih.gov/sites/default/files/public/documents/working-nih/civil/pdf/civil-trifold-brochure.pdf]
A good policy also recognizes what is not bullying/abusive behavior. It would find that factual, professional and civil criticism is not bullying. It should be noted that public humiliation is never civil, but psychological violence.
And a good guideline informs the supervisor and the HR department that they are exposed to discipline if they know about bullying behavior and do nothing about it. The Directive of Howard University makes this clear. The Executive Order No. 39 by the Mayor of Nashville does the same. I show how important this in “two scandals that offer bullying lessons at work”. https://www.workerscompensation.com/expert-analysis/two-scandals-that-offer-sons-regards-workplace-bullying/>
Diploma
Penn State is the 9TH The largest employer in Pennsylvania from 2024*. However, there is no politics to tackle predictable problems that universities in Virginia, Tennessee, Utah, California and Minnesota and in some other countries. It is a surprising short circuit.
The lack of such a guideline can be a problem for your company, your agency, your charity or school. If you have more than a few dozen employees, check it. There are many free instructions for creating an anti-bullying guideline and what you should include. I and others wrote about it.
I would like to thank the General Counsel PSU office for answering my question, although the state law of knowing the law, PSU (and pitt and temple) freed from most of its requirements.
