In Part Two of this series, Ray Williams describes the costs associated with workplace bullying and what can be done about it.
Workplace Bullying: The Cost to Organizations
- According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety Health (NIOSH) mental illness among the workforce leads to a loss in employment amounting to $19 billion and a drop in productivity of $3 billion (Sauter, et al., 1990).
- In a report commissioned by the ILO, Hoel, Sparks, & Cooper did a comprehensive analysis of the costs involved in bullying They estimated a cost of 1.88 Billion Pounds plus the cost of lost productivity.
- Based on the replacement cost of those who leave as a result of being bullied or witnessing bullying, Rayner and Keashly (2004) estimated that for an organization of 1,000 people, the cost would be $1.2 million US. This estimate did not include the cost of litigation should victims bring suit against the organization.
- A recent Finnish study of more than 5,000 hospital staff found that those who had been bullied had 26% more certified sickness absence than those who were not bullied when figures were adjusted for base-line measures one year prior to the survey (Kivimaki et al., 2000). According to the researchers, these figures are probably an underestimation as many of the targets are likely to have been bullied already at the time the base-line measures were obtained.
