Workplace humour or bullying?

Auckland University released:

However, the academics’ research within four New Zealand-based organisations, which involved worker observation, in-depth interviews, document collection, and ad hoc discussions with participants, uncovered a culture around humour within one business that wasn’t entirely funny.

“I didn’t want to get into what I call the dark side of humour, but I found it, and our paper investigates the relationship between humour and bullying and suggests that this type of bullying can be even more insidious and difficult to address because the use of humour creates a smokescreen, which to some extent protects the perpetrator,” says Dr Plester.

In the (now defunct) business, which had less than 30 employees, the researchers observed sexualised, dominating, and hierarchical humour. However, all of the employees said they didn’t consider it to be bullying.

If none of the 30 employees thought it was bullying, then maybe it wasn’t?

I recall working in my 20s at an advertising agency where the Friday night drinks conversation was reasonably sexualised, but mainly by the women. One staffer asked all the guys if we were circumcised or not. Other times they would talk about how size does matter.

A notable feature of the company in which humour appeared to cross a line, says Plester was the ‘culture of fun’ that prevailed, and that was explicitly recognised by all staff. Jokes, pranks, physical horseplay, banter, and many so-called fun and humorous interactions were constantly enacted and displayed as part of the workplace culture, according to the study.

On the surface, life in the organisation seemed to be a whirlwind of fun and laughter. However, in confidential interviews, Plester heard some staff admit that some of the humour went too far, had the potential to cause harm, and in some instances, employees said that humour and fun had resulted in physical and psychological harm.

“There were people that got picked on more than others, they didn’t say they were being bullied, but there are reasons why you would do that. Belonging was more important than calling out humour that they found confronting or distasteful.

“Although the interactions we looked at were unanimously identified as humour by all staff members, our interpretation and construction suggest that these joking social behaviours can be perceived as bullying.”

It is hard to judge this workplace without details, but fun should never cause harm. But what is harm? At Parliament one of my colleagues (who may or may not have gone on to be a National Party Deputy Leader) was terrified of spiders. I changed her screen saver to a full size photo of a scary tarantula and she ran out of her office screaming and wouldn’t go back in until I removed it. Did that cause harm? Probably less harm that when I persuaded her to attend a fundraising premiere of LOTR: Return of the King with me!