6. Negotiating a policy

Policies and procedures are a necessary step towards tackling bullying and harassment at work, even though they are not sufficient, on their own, to eradicate the problem. Any policy should be jointly negotiated with trade unions and must have demonstrable support from the top of the organisation to be successful.

Unions and management should work together to promote awareness, both within the organisation and externally, to customers and suppliers and where appropriate, members of the public.

Many employers now have policies on bullying and harassment.

However, the existence of paper policies and procedures does not necessarily mean that bullying and harassment are being dealt with. The research findings in Chapter 1 of this booklet strongly suggest that despite the proliferation of anti-bullying and harassment policies, this type of behaviour in the workplace is widespread and appears to increasing in some cases.