Workplace bullying is one of the most persistent and under-reported forms of misconduct that organisations face.
A 2024 report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that almost one in four UK workers have experienced some form of workplace bullying or harassment during their career. Yet the same research revealed a significant gap between employer confidence and employee experience: 81% of employers believed they were doing enough to address these behaviours, while only 36% of affected employees felt the matter was fully resolved.
This gap exists in part because bullying is difficult to detect through conventional management oversight. It is often subtle, cumulative and deliberately conducted outside the view of those with authority to intervene. Whistleblowing solutions offer a direct route for employees to raise concerns about bullying behaviour – including patterns that might not be visible to management – and for organisations to identify systemic problems that would otherwise remain hidden.
Why Bullying Goes Undetected Through Normal Channels
The characteristics of bullying make it particularly resistant to detection through standard HR processes. Unlike a single incident of harassment, bullying typically involves repeated behaviours over time – subtle undermining, exclusion from meetings, unreasonable workload allocation, public criticism, or the withholding of information needed to perform a role. Each individual act may appear minor or ambiguous when viewed in isolation. It is the cumulative pattern that causes harm.
Targets of bullying are often reluctant to raise concerns through their line manager, particularly when the bully is the line manager. They may fear being labelled as oversensitive, worry about the consequences for their career progression, or doubt that the organisation will act. The Freshfields Whistleblowing Survey 2023 found that the proportion of employees willing to report concerns to their direct line manager has declined – from 46% in 2020 to 40% in 2023 – a trend that is especially relevant for bullying, which frequently involves a power imbalance within the immediate management relationship.
Even where organisations have grievance procedures, targets may avoid using them because the process requires them to identify themselves, name the accused, and engage in a formal procedure that may feel adversarial. The result is that bullying continues unreported, with consequences that extend far beyond the individual target: increased absence, reduced productivity, higher staff turnover and, if the behaviour is widespread, a corrosive impact on organisational culture.
How Whistleblowing Channels Address the Detection Gap
Confidentiality and Anonymity
The most fundamental contribution of a whistleblowing channel to bullying detection is the ability to report confidentially or anonymously. By removing the requirement for the reporter to identify themselves – at least initially – the channel eliminates the fear of direct retaliation that suppresses reporting through conventional routes. This is particularly important where the alleged bully holds a position of power over the reporter.
Safecall’s Whistleblowing Benchmark Report 2024 noted a concerning increase in bullying reports as employees returned to office-based working following the pandemic. Importantly, the data showed that bullying as a proportion of HR-related whistleblowing reports has risen by five percentage points since 2020, reaching 17% of all HR cases. This increase likely reflects both the return of proximity-based bullying behaviours and growing employee awareness that whistleblowing channels are an appropriate route for raising these concerns.
Independence from Internal Hierarchies
When bullying involves a line manager, team leader or senior figure, internal reporting channels face a structural problem: the person the target needs to report to may be the person they need to report about, or someone closely associated with them. An externally operated whistleblowing service removes this obstacle entirely. The report is received by an independent third party with no relationship to the accused and no stake in the outcome.
This structural independence is not merely a theoretical advantage. Safecall’s data consistently shows that reporters who speak to an independent, professionally trained call handler are more willing to provide detailed accounts of their experience – including the cumulative pattern of behaviour that is essential for understanding bullying complaints – than those who submit written reports through internal systems. The 22.7% increase in reporters choosing to identify themselves when speaking to a Safecall call handler, compared with written channels, demonstrates the trust that professional, independent handling generates.
Pattern Recognition Across Multiple Reports
A single report of workplace bullying might be interpreted as an interpersonal conflict. But when a whistleblowing channel captures three, four or five reports about the same individual – or the same department – over a period of months, the pattern becomes unmistakable. Centralised case management systems enable this kind of pattern recognition by categorising and aggregating reports in a way that fragmented internal processes cannot.
This is particularly valuable because bullying behaviour is often directed at multiple targets over time. As one employee leaves or is reassigned, the behaviour shifts to a new target. Without a centralised reporting system that connects these individual cases, each is treated as an isolated incident and the systemic nature of the problem is never identified.
The Evolving Regulatory Context
The regulatory landscape around workplace bullying is tightening. The Worker Protection Act 2023, which came into force in October 2024, imposes a new positive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. While this duty relates specifically to sexual harassment rather than bullying more broadly, it signals a clear regulatory direction: employers are increasingly expected to be proactive in preventing harmful workplace behaviour, not merely reactive when complaints are received. Failure to comply can result in compensation being increased by up to 25%.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s proposals to incorporate non-financial misconduct – including bullying and harassment – into its regulatory framework for financial services firms reinforce this trend. From 2026, an estimated 37,000 regulated firms may be required to report serious non-financial misconduct. For these firms, a whistleblowing channel that captures and categorises bullying reports is not merely good practice – it is becoming a regulatory requirement.
More broadly, the Employment Rights Bill currently progressing through Parliament includes provisions that, if enacted, will strengthen protections for whistleblowers and may further expand the scope of employer obligations regarding workplace conduct. Compliance officers should ensure their whistleblowing programmes are positioned to accommodate these developments as they emerge.
What Effective Bullying Detection Looks Like
An organisation with an effective approach to bullying detection through its whistleblowing programme will typically demonstrate the following characteristics:
- Reporting channels that offer both anonymous digital submission and telephone access to a trained, independent professional – giving targets of bullying a genuine choice of reporting method.
- Case management that categorises bullying reports distinctly from general grievances, enabling trend analysis by department, location and accused individual.
- Triage protocols that recognise the cumulative nature of bullying – connecting multiple reports about the same individual or team rather than treating each in isolation.
- Feedback mechanisms that demonstrate to the workforce that bullying concerns are taken seriously and acted upon, reinforcing trust in the reporting process.
- Regular programme-level reporting to the board or audit committee, showing trends in bullying reports alongside other misconduct categories and corrective actions taken.
The goal is not simply to receive more reports – it is to detect bullying earlier, intervene before behaviour becomes entrenched, and create a visible deterrent that discourages bullying in the first place. An effective whistleblowing channel contributes to all three objectives.
Related Resources
- Whistleblowing Technology & Channels Hub – Overview of reporting channels and technology selection.
- What Types of Misconduct Should Whistleblowing Channels Address? – Defining programme scope across all misconduct categories.
- How Can Whistleblowing Channels Help Address Systemic Workplace Issues? – Using reporting data to identify organisational patterns.
- How Can Whistleblowing Services Help Reduce Workplace Liability? – The legal and financial case for early detection.
How Safecall Can Help
Safecall’s whistleblowing service provides the independent, confidential channel that targets of workplace bullying need. Our 24/7 telephone hotline – staffed by former UK police officers with over 25 years’ interview experience each – gives reporters the opportunity to describe cumulative patterns of behaviour to a trained professional, while our secure online portal provides a digital alternative for those who prefer to report in writing. With integrated case management that enables pattern recognition across multiple reports, ISO 27001 certification and UK data residency, Safecall helps organisations detect bullying earlier and respond more effectively.
To discuss how Safecall can strengthen your organisation’s ability to detect and address workplace bullying, contact our team or call +44 (0) 191 516 7720.
Sources and Further Reading
- CIPD, How Employers Are Tackling Bullying and Harassment at Work (2024) – prevalence data, employer vs employee perception gap – cipd.org
- Safecall, Whistleblowing Benchmark Report 2024 – bullying trends, return-to-office impact, channel preferences – safecall.co.uk
- Safecall, 2024 Whistleblowing Data: Discrimination Overtakes Harassment (2025) – bullying up 5% since 2020, discrimination tripled – smetoday.co.uk
- Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Whistleblowing Survey 2023 – declining line manager reporting – blog.freshfields.us
- Worker Protection Act 2023 – legislation.gov.uk
- Travers Smith, Trends in Workplace Investigations (2024) – FCA non-financial misconduct proposals – traverssmith.com