In every school building, there are posters encouraging students not to be silent in the face of bullying behavior. Schools have recognized that bullying is a real issue for our children and provide an extensive set of policies to help students stand up to bullying. But bullying isn’t just confined to the schools.

Increasingly, local and state governments have recognized the existence of bullying in the workplace and moved to help workers who are subjected to it.

Last July 2017, the Fairfax County Civil Service Commission concurred with the recommendation of Human Resources staff and, with the approval of the Board of Supervisors, language defining bullying and identifying it as a “Standards of Conduct” violation. It was entered into the Personnel Regulations.

Chapter 2 of the Regulations define Bullying as: “Unnecessary, unwelcome, unwarranted and repeated mistreatment of a targeted individual or group by an individual or group. The actions are sufficiently severe and/or pervasive as to create a work environment such that a reasonable person would consider it intimidating, humiliating, dehumanizing of offensive. Establishing behaviors such as bullying depends on factors such as severity, pervasiveness, context, work relationships, employee performance and intent of action. Bullying is separate and discreet as compared to harassment, discrimination and workplace violence.” (Chapter 2, “Definitions”, Fairfax County Personnel Regulations).

Since then, as more and more employees have entered bullying complaints, the County is still trying to decide if a formal policy (such as exists for harassment and discrimination) should be enacted. We think it should.