Understanding Adult Bullying

We primarily tend to think of bullying as a problem among groups of children or teenagers. But what if you’re an adult student and the perpetrator happens to be your PhD supervisor? What if you’re subjected to mistreatment by your colleagues at work or even your boss?
We are pleased to welcome Dr. Kara Ng for an exciting talk about bullying in the workplace and academia. Join us to find out more about different types of bullying in professional and academic settings, what you can do if you find yourself a victim and the role that bystanders play in those dynamics.

About the Speaker
Dr. Kara Ng is a Presidential Fellow in Organisational Psychology at Alliance Manchester Business School (University of Manchester, UK). She is interested in understanding why and how people do ‘bad things’ at work. Specifically, her main research area is in workplace bullying and the role bystanders can play in either worsening or improving it. She is also involved in projects designing and evaluating workplace interventions in various topics, such as mental health, team agility, and construction safety. Her research has been published in top journals (Human Relations, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology) and has presented her work to international and national audiences (European Court of Auditors, Nordic Institute for Advanced Training in Occupational Health, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).

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I have been bullied all my life, and at the workplace (well interestingly enough, not all workplaces). Part of the issue is that you are alone and vulnerable, and the bully is well connected and has a lot of supporters, so you are pretty stuffed. You can't leave the job as you need the money which adds extra mental heath problems. I do recommend keeping a secret diary away from the workplace, this gives you a pattern. In the diary, put names of witnesses too. I reported this woman's behaviour to my boss and initially he questioned why I even had details of her behaviour as he thought that was bullying lol That was ridiculous. I said I was told to do so legally lol I mainly won my case as a previous manager reported her for bullying his daughter years before at the same company. It was quite extraordinary that my boss didn't bother to even check out her records. This is only one of stories, but it was a successful story. She certainly got into trouble. I moved to another office nearby so we didn't work together. Unfortunately she was never sacked which surprised me a lot.