15 November 2026 · 14 min read

Anti-Bullying Week: bullying does not stop at the school gate

This Monday, millions of children will go to school in odd socks. It is Odd Socks Day, the start of Anti-Bullying Week, which runs from 16 to 20 November 2026 under the theme "Break the Silence" (Anti-Bullying Alliance). The Alliance says that in 2025 over 5 million children, thousands of parents and hundreds of workplaces took part (Anti-Bullying Alliance, What is Odd Socks Day?).

Hundreds of workplaces, against millions of children. That ratio is the story. We treat bullying as something that happens in playgrounds and ends with the last bell, and then we hire the playground.

Every adult in your office was once a child in a class where somebody was picked on. Some were the one picked on. Some did the picking. Most stood and watched. The research on what happens to those children next is long, careful and uncomfortable, and it does not stop at the school gate.

The silence in the Thursday stand-up

Priya runs a team of nine. In the Thursday stand-up, Dev says his piece is two days late, and Marcus says, not quite under his breath, "shocker". Two people smile at their screens. Dev laughs too, a beat late. Nobody says anything, including Priya, who tells herself it was banter and that Dev gave as good as he got last month.

It is the third "shocker" this month. Dev has stopped putting his name forward for the client calls. He sends his updates in writing now, late in the evening, when nobody is around to reply to them. If you asked the team whether anyone is being bullied, all nine would say no, and eight of them would mean it.

That is what "Break the Silence" is about, and why it belongs in an office as much as a classroom. The children who shaped this year's theme, more than 200 of them according to the Alliance, spoke about the silence that can surround bullying (National Children's Bureau, 15 May 2026). The stand-up has the same silence, just better dressed.

What is workplace bullying?

Two definitions are worth holding side by side, because the difference between them is the difference between a school and an office.

The Anti-Bullying Alliance and its members define bullying as "the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power", and it can be physical, verbal or psychological, face to face or online (Anti-Bullying Alliance, Our definition of bullying).

Acas, writing for workplaces, says there is no legal definition of bullying and describes it as unwanted behaviour that is offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting, or an abuse or misuse of power that undermines, humiliates or causes physical or emotional harm. It may be a regular pattern or a one-off incident, and it can still be bullying if the person doing it does not realise or intend it (Acas, Bullying at work, updated 16 December 2025). Its examples are painfully ordinary: constantly criticising someone's work, spreading malicious rumours, putting someone down in meetings, piling on extra work, and leaving someone out of team social events.

The researchers who first studied it at work landed in the same place. Ståle Einarsen and Anders Skogstad defined bullying at work as being systematically mistreated through repeated negative acts by colleagues or supervisors, where the target finds it hard to defend themselves (Einarsen and Skogstad, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 1996).

Read those together and notice what changes. The child's definition needs intent. The adult one does not. Marcus does not think he is bullying Dev. Acas would say that does not settle it.

Where does bullying start?

Ask most people and they will point at a bully: one bad child, one bad manager. The research points at the room.

In 1996, Christina Salmivalli and her colleagues studied 573 Finnish children aged 12 to 13 and treated bullying as a group process. They found children in six roles, not two: the victim and the bully, but also the reinforcer who laughs, the assistant who joins in, the defender who steps in and the outsider who looks away. Children tended to underestimate their own part in the bullying and to see themselves as defenders or outsiders (Salmivalli and colleagues, Aggressive Behavior, 19961098-2337(1996)22:1%3C1::AID-AB1%3E3.0.CO;2-T)).

Fifteen years later Salmivalli, Voeten and Poskiparta looked at 6,764 children aged 9 to 11 in 385 classrooms. Where children defended the victim, bullying was less frequent. Where they reinforced the bully, it was more frequent. Their conclusion was that how bystanders respond influences how often bullying happens (Salmivalli, Voeten and Poskiparta, Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 2011).

Those are children, not employees, and the parallel is ours rather than theirs. But the six roles are easy to recognise in a team. The two people smiling at their screens in Priya's stand-up are reinforcers. Priya is an outsider who would describe herself as a defender. Bullying starts with one person, and it lasts because of everybody else.

Does childhood bullying follow people into adult life?

Yes, for a worrying number of them, and for a long time.

The longest view comes from Britain. Ryu Takizawa, Barbara Maughan and Louise Arseneault followed 7,771 people born in one week in 1958. Those whose parents reported them bullied at 7 and 11 had more psychological distress at 23 and still at 50. Those bullied frequently had higher rates of depression, anxiety disorders and suicidality, and at 50 childhood bullying was associated with a lack of social relationships, economic hardship and a poorer quality of life (Takizawa, Maughan and Arseneault, American Journal of Psychiatry, 2014). Fifty years.

In the United States, William Copeland and colleagues followed 1,420 people assessed several times between 9 and 16. Those bullied as children still had higher rates of anxiety disorders as young adults, after allowing for childhood psychiatric problems and family hardship. Those who were both bullied and bullies had the highest risks of all (Copeland and colleagues, JAMA Psychiatry, 2013).

A meta-analysis of 28 longitudinal studies reached the same place from a different direction: children bullied at school were more likely to be depressed up to 36 years later than children not involved, and the link held after allowing for up to 20 major childhood risk factors (Ttofi, Farrington, Lösel and Loeber, Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 2011).

All three are associations, not proof of cause, and the authors say so. Together they make one plain point. The adult sitting quietly through the stand-up may be carrying something that started decades before your company existed.

And what about the children who did the bullying?

Here the research refuses the satisfying story. Dieter Wolke and colleagues found that people bullied as children, including those who also bullied others, were at greater risk of poor health, wealth and relationships as adults. Those who only bullied were not, once other family and childhood risks were taken into account (Wolke and colleagues, Psychological Science, 2013). A separate meta-analysis found school bullies were more likely than other students to offend up to 11 years later (Ttofi and colleagues, Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 2011), which is about crime, not careers.

So the people who bullied at school do not, on the whole, pay for it later in health or money. The people they bullied do. Neither finding says the bully becomes your workplace bully. What they say is that the cost lands on the wrong person, which is exactly the pattern a team repeats when it lets "shocker" go.

From the playground to the office

Is there a direct line from being bullied at school to being bullied at work? Peter Smith, Monika Singer, Helge Hoel and Cary Cooper asked 5,288 adults in workplaces across Great Britain. People who said they had been bullied at school were more at risk of being bullied at work, and the risk was highest for those who had been both bully and victim at school (Smith, Singer, Hoel and Cooper, British Journal of Psychology, 2003).

The same paper says the links are modest, and that many victims of school bullying are not bullied later in life. That is the most hopeful line in this article, and the most useful one for a manager. The past raises the odds; the workplace decides the outcome. The authors point to important effects of context and environment, which is a researcher's way of saying the team around you matters.

How common is bullying at work?

It depends on how you ask, which is itself a finding. A meta-analysis of 86 samples covering 130,973 people put the average at 14.6% of workers bullied, about one in seven. It ranged from 11.3% where people were given a definition first to 18.1% where they were simply asked, with no definition (Nielsen, Matthiesen and Einarsen, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2010).

The UK picture this year comes from the CIPD's Good Work Index 2026, a survey of 5,074 working adults. Being undermined or humiliated was the most commonly reported kind of conflict at work, at 12% of employees, reported by 15% of women against 10% of men and 16% of disabled employees against 11% (CIPD, Good Work Index 2026). The CIPD counts that as conflict rather than bullying. A quarter of UK employees experienced conflict at work, and 51% of them just let it go (same report).

Let it go. Fifty-one per cent. That is the silence the children were talking about, measured in adults.

Why bullying at work stays silent

In the Institute of Business Ethics' 2024 survey of 12,000 employees in 16 countries, one in three of those who knew about misconduct at work did not report it (Institute of Business Ethics, 10 October 2024). The reasons are the ones Dev is running through every Thursday:

• It might be banter. If nobody else objects, maybe it is fine, and maybe you are too sensitive.
• It is never one big thing. Each act is too small to report on its own, and the pattern only shows when somebody keeps count.
• The person doing it is often the one people like. Marcus is quick and funny, and the room laughs with him.
• Speaking up feels like volunteering. Stepping in can feel like asking to be next.

Silence is not neutral. In Salmivalli's classrooms, defending went with less bullying and reinforcing with more. The psychological safety article goes further into why people keep quiet when they could speak.

Signs of bullying at work a manager can see this week

None of these proves bullying. Each one is worth a second look.

• One person is the punchline, again. The same name keeps turning up in the jokes, and the jokes only go one way.
• Somebody has gone quiet. A person who used to argue in meetings now agrees, or sends their views in writing afterwards.
• The work moves around one person. They are left off the invite, the thread or the team lunch, and nobody remembers deciding it.
• Criticism is public and praise is private. Mistakes are named in the meeting; good work is mentioned one to one, if at all.
• People laugh a beat late. Watch the target and the bystanders, not only the person talking.
• A capable person asks to move. Requests to change team or shift are often the first thing anybody writes down.

Many of these are also the early signs of a team turning sour more broadly, which what a toxic workplace does to a team follows from the first rude remark.

How to deal with bullying at work, if you lead a team

Break your own silence first

In Salmivalli's classrooms, defending went with less bullying. In a team, the manager is the most powerful defender available. "Let's leave the commentary out" said in the room, once and calmly, changes the audience. It does not need a meeting about it.

Name the act, not the person

"The 'shocker' comment wasn't fair on Dev" is about something that happened. "Marcus, you're a bully" is a verdict, and it starts a fight about Marcus instead of a change in the room.

Talk to the person on the receiving end, privately

Ask what it has been like, and listen more than you advise. If they say it is fine, believe them for now and keep watching.

Talk to the person doing it, and expect surprise

Acas's point that bullying can happen without intent is the most useful thing a manager can carry into this conversation. The person may not think of it as bullying at all, and the conversation goes better when it starts from what happened and how it landed.

Make the norm explicit

"Hard on the work, never on the person" is a rule a team can agree to and point to. It turns the next intervention from a personal judgement into a reminder of something everybody signed up to. A team charter is one place to write it down.

Know when it is beyond you

Some situations are not a team habit but a formal complaint, a health matter or a legal one. Acas publishes free guidance on bullying at work, and your company's own policy is the place to start. Anyone in distress should be encouraged to see their doctor.

Questions managers ask about workplace bullying

Is it bullying if they don't mean it?

It can be. Acas says behaviour can still be bullying if the person does not realise or intend it, and that it can be a one-off rather than a pattern. Intent matters to how you handle the conversation. It does not decide whether the person on the receiving end was harmed.

Is banter ever just banter?

Yes, when it goes both ways, everybody can opt out without a cost, and nobody is always the subject. The test is not whether people laugh but who stops speaking afterwards. Banter that only ever lands on one person has stopped being banter.

Can a manager be bullied by their team?

Yes. Acas names "upward bullying", where a manager is bullied by a worker or a group. The roles from Salmivalli's classrooms still apply: one person leading, several reinforcing, and the rest looking away.

Does Anti-Bullying Week apply to adults?

The week is organised mainly for schools, but the Alliance invites workplaces to take part in Odd Socks Day too, and hundreds did in 2025. The research in this article is the better reason: the habits a school is trying to change this week are the ones its pupils will bring to work.

How MeaningFuel helps with workplace bullying

Breaking the silence once is a speech. Breaking it every time is a habit, and habits are what a team forgets in a busy week.

An ordinary week of Respect, Courage and Emotional Intelligence

A company chooses the values and skills it wants to work on, and each working day everyone gets one short insight on one of them. Bullying is a problem, so it cannot be chosen for the daily culture. Respect, Courage and Emotional Intelligence can. In an ordinary week a reader might meet a line on who gets heard in a meeting and another on saying the awkward thing, on mornings when nothing has gone wrong. The idea is that being the defender has crossed people's minds before the Thursday it is needed.

Civility and Respect, for the team that needs it

Civility and Respect is the module about stopping incivility and bullying. Whoever runs the account or the team books it, it invites the people on that team, and those who join get one short lesson by email each working day. Over the module the team learns to tell hard from hostile, to describe the act rather than diagnose the person, to step in as a witness, and to repair their own slips. One lesson gives a witness four moves to choose from, so nobody has to be brave, only to pick one.

What leaders read

Insights shows how much of a team takes part and how the insights land, pooled, with nobody named. It will not tell a manager who is being bullied or by whom, and it is not a way to report it. What it can show is whether a team is engaging with the ideas at all, which is a different and earlier signal.

MeaningFuel does not investigate complaints, and it will not stop a bully on its own. It keeps the ideas in front of a team often enough that the next "shocker" is more likely to meet a defender than an audience. See how it works, or read about the culture model behind it.

• Bullying
• Incivility
• Speaking Up
• Psychological Safety
• Managers
• Workplace Culture