Blogs

Standing Up to Bullying

Within BM bullying is not tolerated, in any form. As we mark ‘Standing Up to Bullying day‘ Andrew and Ian take some time to talk about their experiences and how they ensure any accusations are dealt with swiftly.

Andrew – Operations Director

Like so many other adults I have experiences throughout my childhood of being the subject of bullying and also seeing some of my school friends subjected to this too. It became one of the main drivers of choice of high school for my son and thankfully the zero tolerance to bullying at his school enabled him to strive, succeed and be free to express himself without fear.

I am very proud I have a role within BM where I can ensure the BM values of, zero tolerance to bullying and harassment, which very strongly align with my own, are enforced.

Obsessive about our People

At BM we live our FOODIE values every day. Part of these values are ‘Obsessive about our people’. We have many ways in which we ensure we maintain a culture which is friendly, inclusive and above all respectful.

This is evidenced with our online training, conflict management and equality and Diversity training modules, celebrating anti-bullying week and regular team talks regarding these subjects and more. This all helps promote a culture where bullying and harassment is not tolerated by BM in any form. Of course it would be naïve to think that bullying and harassment will never occur amongst teams so we have a our Employee Assistance Programme available to everyone as a free resource with a free to call phone line and also a website.

The very few incidences we have of bullying and harassment are dealt with swiftly and fairly in BM to ensure everyone in our teams, at every level, can feel part of our #bmFamily💜💚

Ian – Operations Director

Over the course of my career I have worked with and a large variety of personalities and have had to deal with many ‘collisions’ between team members.

Generally when you get people together and get them to talk and tell each other how they feel then 99 times out of 100 the situation is resolved. Mis-communication, mis-understanding is usually the factor but if this is not dealt with swiftly it can easily escalates into bullying territory.

Having several experiences of this early in my career has given me the skill to recognise signs and not to ignore those signs as it tends to escalate. It’s important to tackle things right away.

However I am not able to be in all places, at all times, so you need to make yourself approachable. This way people have confidence to speak to you if they are unhappy or something is bothering them. One of our fundamentals is for all BM team members, is to make a point of going round to meet as many of the team as they can whenever they visit a client location. This goes a long way to building relationships and letting people know you are there to support them if they have any concerns.

Within the #bmFamily💜💚 our teams have an amazing support ethic. If someone is having a hard time, for whatever reason, the team do what they can to support and reassure. I have seen this particularly throughout the recent pandemic.

My Top Tips

Be approachable, lookout for signs and listen to peoples concerns. This is key to ensuring bullying does not become a cultural norm within your business.
If you do come across bullying then deal with it quickly to reassure all team members