An online survey of over 300 female managers in February 2009 by Jenny Morris of Orijen, has found that bullying is surprisingly prevalent. She found that 81% of participants have experienced or witnessed of workplace bullying, with 63% of participants having experienced bullying themselves, and an alarming 23% currently experiencing bullying.

Over half the bullying lasted for more then 6 months, and a sickening 27% of participants left the organisation they worked at because of the bullying.

Between the four options for response by HR (fixed the problem in a way that helped the target, did nothing, responded in a way that worsened the situation and took action that had no effect) the results were pretty even (29%, 25%, 26% and 20% respectively).

Her gender specific questions found that female participants were bullied slightly more then men. Also women that bully coworkers are much more likely to bully other women (70%) rather then bully men (39% of all respondents).

These findings are similar to a sphinxx survey of our members that found that 30.4% of our women have been bullied by fellow women, 25.2% of our women were bullied by men.

These stats are concerning, and we look forward to the publication of her Jenny Morris’s findings to inform workplaces of the prevalence and importance of combating workplace bullying.