Mobbing is a form of workplace bullying in which a group repeatedly targets one person through behaviours such as exclusion, rumours, undermining, or intimidation. Workplace mobbing can negatively impact the well-being of the employee, and also business performance. UK employers should be able to identify any signs of mobbing and take steps to prevent this from happening in their workplace.
Table of Contents
- Key Facts
- What Does Mobbing Mean?
- Why Does Mobbing Happen?
- What Does UK Law Say about Workplace Mobbing?
- What Can You Do About Mobbing?
Key Facts
- Mobbing is coordinated or repeated workplace bullying in which a group targets one person through exclusion, intimidation, rumours or undermining. Bullying may be carried out by a group.
- In the UK, 25% of employees experienced conflict or abuse at work in the previous 12 months.
- Among employees who experienced conflict, 48% reported being humiliated or undermined, the same report found.
- Track whether concerns are actually resolved. 70% of employers believed their procedures were effective, but only 36% of affected employees said conflict was fully resolved.
What Does Mobbing Mean?
The practice is not new. An old study illustrated workplace mobbing in factories in the 1940s. The group’s top performer was normally called a “rate-buster.” Afraid that their high productivity would cause their unit’s bonus rate to be cut, the workers reached an informal consensus to only produce to a certain level. The problem is that top performers refused to be held back by this group norm. While these so-called rate busters were just responding to the individual wage incentives put in place by leaders, they were harassed, threatened, and sometimes physically harmed by their co-workers, all because they refused to conform to the peer pressure to underperform.
Nowadays, mobbing can be difficult to identify. Essentially, it is a systematic behaviour from a team or a group of people against certain individuals at work. It can manifest in different ways, making it essential for employers and managers to monitor their teams and ensure this behavior does not go unchecked.
What is mobbing at work?
As mobbing is a form of bullying, particularly in the workplace, it can take place in many forms. Examples include excluding a team member, repeated disagreements focused on one individual, or physical aggression towards one particular person. The results of workplace mobbing can be devastating: mental health issues, low job satisfaction, reduced employee engagement, high workplace conflict, and high turnover. Consequences to the organisation can also be severe. The loss of talent, toxic workplace cultures, low employee performance, and the potential for costly litigation are all feasible outcomes. This is why employers should know how to combat mobbing and learn how to create a workplace that counters this type of behaviour.
What are the signs of workplace mobbing?
- Repeated exclusion from meetings, messages, work-related events or informal team interactions.
- Coordinated criticism, rumours or attempts to undermine one person’s credibility.
- Unfair workloads, withheld information or barriers to training and progression.
- Hostile comments in person, by email, on calls or through social media.
ACAS identifies exclusion, malicious rumours, repeated criticism and deliberate overloading as potential bullying behaviours.
Negative outcomes of mobbing
Workplace mobbing can damage inclusion because repeated exclusion and undermining make it harder for people to raise concerns. In its 2024 UK research, CIPD found that 20% of employees agreed that people in their team sometimes reject others for being different. This could negatively affect the company’s reputation, and lead to legal disputes or a hostile workplace. Additional negative consequences include:
- Overall decrease in motivation: Employees who witness mobbing may fear becoming the next target, leading to a sense of insecurity and demotivation in the workplace. This could lead to issues such as absenteeism and lower rates of employee satisfaction.
- Higher turnover: Workplace mobbing may drive affected employees to leave their positions, along with others seeking a healthier work environment. This frequent turnover can be time-consuming and costly, requiring ongoing recruitment, onboarding, and training of new hires.
- Decrease in employee well-being: Mobbing can affect individuals differently. However, it often leads to anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles. This, in turn, diminishes employees’ overall well-being
HR teams and employers are responsible for maintaining a workplace free from bullying. Acas states that employers have a legal duty of care to protect workers from harm, including by dealing with bullying issues. Not only is it an obligation for HR, but it makes for a much more productive and enjoyable place to work when these behaviours can be prevented or stopped as soon as they are reported. Employees feel more valued and respected when they see their employer’s commitment to maintaining a safe and professional environment.
Why Does Mobbing Happen?
First up, let’s address why it happens. There are various reasons and theories why mobbing in the workplace may occur. We’ve shared a few examples below that may be classed as (unfair) reasons for bullying.
Prejudice
Unfortunately, victims may be targeted because of their gender, age, race, sexual preference, or religion. You also may be bullied if you have a disability or a medical condition. Whatever the reason, workplace bullies single out and target people who are different from them in some way. They also tend to discriminate against others.
Maintaining the status quo
The perpetrators of workplace bullying or mobbing may be worried about an employee who is disrupting the status quo of the company. This may be due to the employee outperforming others or trying to implement change within the business.
Competition
Many victims of mobbing are highly skilled and talented professionals. And unfortunately, the bullies see them as a threat rather than an asset. This makes the perpetrators of mobbing jealous and they turn to use bullying and harassment as a method of driving them away.
Sense of vulnerability
Bullies often target those who are not confrontational. People often perceive introverted, anxious, or submissive employees as easier targets compared to those who are extroverted and assertive.
What does UK law say about workplace mobbing?
In the UK, there is no standalone legal definition of workplace bullying. However, bullying can amount to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act 2010 when unwanted conduct is related to a protected characteristic and creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. Bullying may also create legal risk under employment, contractual, health and safety, and harassment law.
Since 26 October 2024, employers have also had a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. GOV.UK states that a tribunal can increase compensation by up to 25% where an employer has breached that duty and is found liable for sexual harassment.
The problem is that even though we have laws protecting against these toxic actions, most of the time it is not enough. Unfortunately, HR departments too often turn a blind eye to issues like this.
How should employers respond to a mobbing complaint?
- Provide a safe route to raise the concern, including an alternative contact where a manager is involved.
- Assess whether informal resolution is appropriate or whether the allegation requires a formal process.
- Appoint a neutral investigator who has not been involved in the complaint.
- Record the outcome, offer support and monitor for retaliation after the case closes.
Formal complaints should be investigated by someone neutral and not involved in the complaint.
What Can You Do About Mobbing?
Instead of giving you trends that could help, let’s talk about concrete solutions that you can start practising today. We call them the four B’s of Bullying.
Be specific
It is essential to adopt formal policies to prohibit workplace mobbing. While HR policies often pertain to individual harassment, they often do not speak to the issue of a group or peer harassment in specific ways. Organizations must explicitly address group bullying or mobbing targeting diverse employees, just as some countries create specific laws to combat hate crimes.
A central system can support a fair response by keeping your bullying and harassment policy, case notes, assigned actions, and follow-up dates in one place. Factorial, all-in-one business management software, can help HR teams document actions consistently while maintaining a clear record of how concerns were handled.
Be careful
It is imperative to recognize that workplace mobbing and bullying increase in highly competitive workplaces, especially when resources are limited. Management strategies that pit employees against each other to prove their own value can make peers feel threatened by high performers and cause them to engage in group bullying for their own self-preservation. Diverse high performers stand out in the workplace and can become easy targets of workplace mobbing. Facilitating inclusive workplaces in which there is collaboration, peer mentoring, and a balance between group and individual rewards, is an effective way to offset and perhaps prevent workplace mobbing, particularly the kind that targets diverse employees.
Training and accountability should be measurable. CIPD found that 38% of employers reporting barriers to managing conflict cited a lack of senior leadership role-modelling, while another 38% cited managers lacking confidence to challenge inappropriate behaviour.
Be proactive
In order to build inclusive organisations that resist group bullying, it is necessary to have engaged and proactive efforts by socially responsible leaders. Examine your own behaviour to ensure that you are setting a good example. Leaders must recognise and address workplace mobbing, especially when it targets women and minority groups. Managers should also avoid being swayed by rumors that mislabel top diverse talent as “troublemakers” or “not team players.” And finally, leadership must also not remain silent when they receive frequent complaints of microaggressions toward top performers. How a leader responds (or fails to respond) to these incidents and behaviours sends a powerful sign to other employees.
Be a Hero
As cheesy or cliché as this may sound, it’s the hardest one for a lot of people. Do not stay silent if you experience bullying or see it. Remember, when someone exhibits bullying behaviour and gets away with it, it reinforces the behaviour. Also, designate trustworthy points of contact or introduce a buddy or mentor programme, so that employees know who to contact when they need help.
Remember, you are a role model who can influence others, like it or not. Talk to employees and ask open-ended questions about the work environment, atmosphere, and how things are going. Do the same with supervisors. Encourage open communication and a willingness to intervene when needed. Everyone can be a hero.
Monitor outcomes as well as case volumes. 36% of employees who experienced workplace conflict said it had been fully resolved, so reporting data should be reviewed alongside employee feedback and repeat-concern patterns.
Ultimately, all leaders should treat workplace mobbing for what it is: “slow poison” for inclusive organisations. Leaders of inclusive organisations must proactively address the rise of workplace mobbing to retain diverse talent. By the way, the startup phase is a huge opportunity for businesses to build a culture of wellness from the very beginning. In the early phase, employees should still feel that their physical, mental, and emotional health is supported. And remember, workplaces will be workplaces. In most cases, you have a lot of different personalities thrown into one cauldron during working hours. Drama, gossip, power struggles, and office politics are often inevitable, at least to some extent. We may not get bullies to admit that they are wrong, but their harmful behaviour can be discouraged by individuals standing up for themselves in a workplace culture designed to support a bully-free work zone.
FAQ
What is workplace mobbing?
Workplace mobbing is a form of group bullying where a team or several colleagues systematically target an individual employee. This coordinated negative behavior can create a hostile work environment and negatively impact both the employee’s well-being and overall business performance.
What is the difference between bullying and mobbing in the workplace?
The primary difference is the number of perpetrators. Workplace bullying can be a one-on-one conflict, whereas mobbing specifically involves a group of people ganging up on a single colleague. Mobbing is essentially a collective and systematic form of bullying.
What are some examples of mobbing at work?
Examples include systematically excluding a team member from projects and conversations, spreading malicious rumors, constantly discrediting their work, or engaging in collective harassment and threats. It is any group behavior designed to isolate and harm a targeted employee.
What is mobbing behavior?
Mobbing behavior is the systematic and collective action of a group to harass, exclude, or harm a targeted colleague. This can manifest as social isolation, spreading rumors, constant criticism, or other coordinated efforts to make the work environment hostile for one person.
How to deal with mobbing at work?
Companies should implement specific anti-mobbing policies, build a collaborative culture, and ensure leaders proactively address complaints. Encouraging open communication and providing clear reporting channels helps employees feel safe to speak up, which is crucial for preventing and stopping this behavior.
