When does Banter become bullying?
High pressure, lots of orders, fraying tempers, agro customers … all adds up to a pretty
intense environment, and for many the banter is a good way to let off some steam. But
when does it overstep the mark?
New Zealand has been identified as having one of the highest levels of workplace
bullying in the developed world, and hospitality (especially kitchens) has been identified
as one of the hotspots.
“Bullying can be described as offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behavior, an
abuse of power that undermines, humiliates or injures the recipient”1. What makes
bullying so difficult to identify is that it is the feelings of the recipient which define whether
the behavior is acceptable or not. For example, you may think it is totally acceptable to
use the “F-Word” (like a very famous chef), but for some this is actually very insulting.
I once had a young colored trainee chef make a complaint of bullying against the Sous
chef for calling him a “Black B*”^”. Upon investigation it was found that the Sous chef
did say that. However, the comment was made after about an hour of the trainee chef
making some very colorful and personal comments about the Sous Chef’s wife.
So was this bulling or banter? Luckily in this case the trainee did eventually decide to
drop his claim. If he had not, yes the Sous chef would have been found guilty of Bullying
and/or racial discrimination. It only takes one occurrence to constitute bullying.
As an employer you have a duty to provide a safe working environment. Therefore you
need to be proactive in setting and controlling the “tolerance” level. However, take
comfort from the fact that there is a duty on the employee to highlight that they are
uncomfortable, so you don’t have to go as far as zero tolerance. But you do need to
act reasonably. Acting reasonably is a difficult test as it is very subjective. However, it
would be reasonable to expect that an employer:
1. Acted on any complaints they had received
2. Had been seen to take action when things were getting out of hand
3. Had taken steps to ensure that the tolerance level was acceptable
So how do you set your tolerance level, and how do you recognize a potential bullying
situation? Some practical ways to think about what is and is not acceptable are:
1. Would you be comfortable if a female relative heard the “banter”?
2. Would you be comfortable if the customers in the restaurant overheard the
“banter”?
3. Do you ever find yourself wincing at what is being said?
4. Watch all the staff, does anyone NOT join in?
5. Is there a significantly high staff turnover in some part of the business? Frequently
people will leave a situation they don’t like rather than “cause a fuss”.
If you are uncomfortable with the answers to any of the above questions, chances are
you need to take some action to put in place some appropriate boundaries.
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Department of Labour
So, the next step is actually putting those boundaries in place. It is always better if you
can get everyone’s buy in to change like this, because you are often asking people to
make a behavioural change (the most difficult type of change), so use peer influence to
help you.
My simple recommendation is as follows:
1. Put “acceptable Banter” on the agenda for your next team meeting
2. Talk to the team about the dangers of crossing the line between bullying and
banter, and though you don’t want to be the Fun Police, you do need to agree
what level of “banter” is acceptable
3. Use this article to set the tone if you want
4. Talk through what is and is not acceptable, and get everyone to agree what
those levels are.
5. Be specific. For example, using the F work may be OK if you are using it as a
descriptor (I burnt my F’ing hand). But it may not be acceptable to the group to
direct the F word at a specific person (You F’ off)
6. Once you have agreed the standards write them up and get everyone to put
their signature too it
7. You might even want to put it up on the wall. It is amazing how easily, but
effectively, peer pressure can bring people into line in a very light hearted way.
And if you need help there are always facilitators (like me – www.hrtoolkit.co.nz) who
can come and help you run this session and support you through the process.
If you do get a complaint of bullying, even apparently informally, take it seriously. Even
though you may think they are being “overly sensitive”, in the eyes of the law your views
don’t count, only the complainants views do. It is also important to note that, if someone
genuinely feels that they are being bullied it is had probably taken a huge amount of
courage for them to come to you with that complaint, so you need to show the respect
for that courage.
Yes bullying is a hard issue to recognise and deal with. But not dealing with it can be
very costly in terms of:
1. Damage to your reputation - people talk
2. Poor productivity - staff who are being bullied and also those who can see
bullying being ignored don’t work as hard as happy staff
3. Ultimately legal costs if you get case brought against you.