Now, how to get it to stop. A victim of harassment is limited in what they can do, right? They have to have help to make this work. If they don't get that help, they're probably going to fail. So let's talk about what happens to happen in the workplace to support the extinction process right? Now a victim's role is to remove the reward whatever it is, they were giving them and it might not be much at all, you know, I'm not this is people think of this as victims.

It's not victim blaming, the reward might actually be the status that they get with other people for their behavior there may be doing a performance using this. Their victim has a prop and it's not about the victim at all. It's about how they're perceived by other people. That happens a lot. Alright, so what the victims role is to is to remove the reward and they do that by responding neutrally to the harasser. And what they're trying to do is respond in a neutral non emotional way.

Right neutral response, remove the reward and emotional response is usually seen as a reward. So non emotional neutral to alert the harasser that what they just did wasn't okay. All right. And it's best to actually have something practice that you can say out loud, something along the lines of that behavior is just not acceptable. And you notice I said that in a very calm, neutral tone of voice almost robotic, that sort of behavior is not appropriate. You might choose something from your value your company's value statement.

In this company, we treat people with respect. So if someone says something horrid, you look at them, you make eye contact, if at all possible. And you say that in this company, we treat people with respect. You're not calling out the behavior and you're not telling another horrible person, you're just reminding them of what the behavioral expectations are for your company. All right. It's critical that this statement be practice it'll actually come out of your mouth, that it is calm, it's rational and without emotion, and most people have to practice this and roleplay so that in the moment, it could happen.

And again, I recommend People that if at all possible, they make eye contact, if you can't make eye contact, look at their hair, look at their ear, look at the chin, whatever you do, don't look down, right? Try to make eye contact, if that's not possible with Pastor ear to the wall, whatever. Alright, the second thing the victim needs to be doing is reporting what is happening every single time you don't want to let them get away with this behavior. Right. So once you start putting the bully on notice, once you remove the reward, you need to document every interaction that happens from then on out. And I actually recommend starting this documentation process before you start the removal of the reward so that you have a paper trail to go with this.

Harassment and bullying in the workplace is ultimately a legal matter. So properly documenting the harassment is key because harassment is behalf turn of behavior over time, a single instance won't do it. This is what's so frustrating about reporting you go to and you say, Well, I'm being harassed. We'll give me an example and you give them an example, but it's a single instance. That's and that is not harassment. So I recommend creating a documentation long.

And I included in the handouts on the online course. For you to fill out what you want to do is what happened. What exactly happened? Not this person bullied me or harassment what exactly they say where exactly did they say? When exactly did they say it? Where?

Who exactly witnessed this? wasn't an email, can you print it out and have documentation on it? Um, was there any physical intimidation that went along with this? Like, did someone stand over your desk and you know, be really intimidating with you? You know what exactly happened? You don't want to make it he said, she said, it's just a matter of fact, on this date, at this time in this location, this person said this exactly, and these persons witnessed it.

Alright. And the reason I want you to do this and created documentation long is that it isn't enough to complain once about bullying and have it go away. That's Just not how it works. All that does is trigger the extinction problem extinction process. And what the triggering of the extinction process means is you're now escalating the behavior, you just triggered an escalation of the behavior. All right?

By documenting that you're now documenting that escalation of behavior, because you're expecting it to happen. It's part of the process. This process is going to take place over time the harasser is going to escalate their behavior over time they're going to retaliate. Your documentation long is going to capture all that retaliation and escalation. And again, knowing that this is going to happen is going to prepare you for it to happen and allows you to have the documentation ready so that you can document everything that goes on so that you can prove the pattern of behavior that's going on. And the other reason I want you to fully document it is because it's very easy for managers and equal opportunity office.

To brush off one time complaints, because the law requires a pattern of behavior, it's much harder for them to look at a well documented pattern of harassment and not do anything about it. Because they look at that pattern of harassment and go, Oh law, so waiting to happen, right? Even if they're not sympathetic, which actually they all our, almost all of them, not all of them, but in most cases, they're sympathetic. They just didn't know how bad it was. And they were so busy with the he said, she said they didn't really grasp the totality of what it is that was happening. And that's why you need to document every single incident, however tiny and obscure it is because it's a pattern of behavior you're trying to prove.

All right. If they don't take your allegations of harassment serious the same documentation log is going to help you file a claim if it becomes necessary. Like if, if the problem isn't resolved in your office, your employer doesn't do something to help you get it resolved. Then you have the documentation you need for that as well. Now harassment and bullying and retaliation. They do not occur in a vacuum.

This is social behavior. Other people are involved as well. You have co workers and bystanders who witnessed the behavior. They need and should be empowered to respond and intervene in real time to let the harasser know what they did was not okay. Right. I mentioned this a little bit earlier, it might not be the victim victims response that is being is that would be the reward.

It could be the bystanders response that is rewarded. So bystanders have to remove their part of the reward and let the bully know the status that they're getting. And the fear that they hope to engender in everyone else that they control. The social dynamic in the office is not going to be tolerated. It's not gonna work we see right through you, and that's not okay. And again, the way you do this is the same way you do it.

If you're the victim, you make eye contact, you have something planned to say that thing that you're going to say is very simple. That's not how we treat people in this office. You make eye contact and you wait for the other person to respond. Alright? Now we all have a tendency to let things slide. But this actually rewards the harasser and an emboldens them.

Because not only does it create a variable reinforcement pattern by not responding, it also creates a cultural norm of acceptance and silence, right? If a bully is able to bully someone in the office, and nothing happens, and everybody is looking at that going, Okay, well, this is just accepted behavior. And that's not what you want people to learn. You want people to learn, this is not acceptable behavior. And to do that, you have to be willing to stand up and say, This is not acceptable behavior. Not that you're mad at this person.

Not that they're a horrible person. You're not saying any of that. This is just it's a statement of fact, this is not acceptable behavior. And our expectation in this workplace is that people will be respectful period, right? And this person either gets with the norm that you want They don't and that's on them. All right, what we want to do is create a new cultural norm where the sort of behavior that we don't like is not accepted anymore.

And it's critical. The other reason to do that is it's absolutely critical for the victims to know that they are supported. Because that's what's going to give them the courage to ride the blowout out, because if they speak up, they're gonna get retaliation if another person steps up. They might get retaliation too. But if both of them stand together, they can get this thing to stop. Right.

The other thing that this does is it lets the harasser know that the status they were hoping to get the in group out group status the controller of the in group that they were hoping to be by denigrating a coworker and making them out group is not materializing. Not only is it not materializing. But their status is being reduced by their bad behavior. All right, you're adding a cost the unit just removing the reward. You're adding a cost for the behavior. Notice we're still not punishing We're not creating a negative situation for them, we're simply removing the reward and increasing the cost for them and that's very different from punishing them.

And the punishment is not something you should do, but we have to talk about the managers. So to discourage harassers, bystanders have to speak out in a calm, rational way, let them know what they did was not okay. plan something to say. Practice it and issue it calmly in an a matter of fact, sort of way in in a non confrontational way. Just make eye contact or look close to their eyes if you can. And yes, you do risk retaliation.

And the reason for that is bullies are almost always doing this as a performance, right? They're trying to control other people through aggression. And if they can prove that they can control one person through aggression, then they their job of controlling other people through additional fear is made easier. And the only way to stop that is to stop allowing them to do this which means you have to be willing to stand up to them and not reward remove the reward. Because if you're silent, you're rewarding them. All right, because they're viewing that as I win.

Alright. bystanders and co workers have the most power in the workplace to stop harassment if they're committed to the process and consistent and creating a new cultural norm where harassment simply is not tolerated. You don't have to be mean to the person. The expectation is that they're an adult, they're professional, and they can behave professionally. And if they can't, then so be all right. Now it just takes like two people to do this.

You can create a new cultural norm with one or two people. So be that person take it on, you will be glad you did, you're going to feel better about yourself. Now the third area, like I said, is the managers, the HR staff, your EEO officers, if you have them, they also have an important role to play. They're responsible for not not just making sure that there's an adequate reporting process so that they can document everything in case firing the person becomes necessary. But their response to these reports either supports the extinction process, or it makes things worse. So it's really important that managers understand what their role is.

When things are first reported, our instinct is to treat the problem as a conflict and to be lenient. As a result of that. We don't know if this is an ongoing problem. We want to trust people that want something behaviors pointed out that they shouldn't do it anymore. But leniency actually makes things worse, because it creates a variable reinforcement process. What you need to understand is if someone's reporting harassment, a there's a good likely likelihood it's occurring.

It might not be but there's a good chance that it is. And that if it is if it is, it's a pattern of behavior, it's habitual. All right. And if it's habitual in order to get it stopped, we can't just issue a one time Hey, stop it, that doesn't work. That's not how behaviors stop. You have to be consistent in your response, you have to be consistent in the cost that you're giving to this person for behaving badly.

And that cost is last lack of static last, last, loss of status, lack of trust in their ability to behave professionally. Alright? Because the last thing we want to do is being lenient with them. And I know, lenient, sounds compassionate, it's not all that does is actually strengthen the behavior. It allows the bully if they are habitual, to play their managers against each other, and it allows them to play a game, you don't want them to do that. You want to be consistent with them, you want to treat them fairly, you want to give them a fair chance to behave properly.

But you got to be consistent in that in your expectations about behavior and the consequences for those behaviors to give your staff the best chance of getting rid of the unwanted behavior in the workplace. Bullying harassment should never be tolerated ever, ever. No exceptions. No We'll let it go this time, but next time, I'm going to have to do something No, that's variable don't do that. every instance must be dealt with consistently and fairly, every single time. And the response needs to be fairly immediate or as immediate as your processes allow.

Now, in most cases, for the manager, there's going to have to be, you know, research that's done right. You can still let the person who's being accused know that a complaint was filed, not who filed it, but that you're investigating them that is often enough to let them know they didn't get away with it. What you want them to know, is they're not getting away with that. And that consequences will eventually happen if they continue. If they're guilty. If they're not guilty, then you don't really have to worry about this and your consistency will still help.

All right. But as quickly as possible, you need to let them know that this is being investigated. So they know they're not getting away with it because if they think I can do this and yeah, this person responded, but I'm not being reported to my manager. That's a variable for them. All right, and it has to be consistent to get it to stop now