Jessica Hickman was hospitalized after severe workplace bullying and started a business to prevent it. Nearly half of Australian workers experience bullying at least once, yet it remains the "elephant in the room" compared to the attention sexual harassment gets. She argues that anti-bullying policies on paper mean nothing without real leadership commitment and employees willing to speak up.
Chapters
Creating a business doesn't just happen overnight. I didn't really know how to create a business, or didn't know I wanted to create a business. All I knew was that I had passion and I wanted to share my message to stop anyone else ending up in a hospital bed like me. So some stats around bullying. When I share my message, people are either fully invested because it's happened to them or someone they know, or they're thinking, "It won't happen to me." I was one of those people. I thought I was strong, I was confident. I've been running bullying workshops in youth clubs since I was a young girl, and I thought that it would never happen to me. But it does. And the stats show that almost half the people in Australia will suffer bullying at least once in their working career. So if it's not you in this room, it's someone you care about— your partner, your parents, your children, whatever it's going to be. And then stats are not okay. And a recent study just done by WorkSafe shows the again. So we all know, and I've probably heard about the MeToo campaign. That was a pivot point where organizations started to get fearful and started to go into damage control where people were finally having a voice and speaking up about sexual harassment. Bullying and harassment is still the elephant in the room. It is an uphill battle for me as a business owner every day. People start to engage with me when they are about to hit the headlines or the media because they're about to go to court. But I want to change that. I want companies to be proactive. I believe bullying and harassment is exactly where mental health was 5, 10 years ago. Workplace well-being is now a buzzword in organisations. It's nice to have. Bullying and harassment is not there yet. So we've got a long way to go where we empower organisations to be proactive. People think that they have a bullying and harassment plan and strategy by having a policy that says we will not tolerate bullying bullying and harassment. That's not good enough. I was the person that inducted people into that job and said bullying and harassment will not be tolerated here. Let's— and then step outside that training room and be bullied and harassed by the HR manager. So policy is not good enough. We need to actually start with the top and bottom-up approach and empower people from all levels of the organisation to not tolerate bullying and harassment and not be bystanders.
