Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International has been accused of promoting a “toxic” internal environment of bullying and harassment, making it the latest high-profile charity to come under fire over its workplace culture.
That sound of political autophagy.
It’s as if there is something in the character of the type of people who work for these organisations – Oxfam, Amnesty International, etc – that reflects itself in how the entire organisation behaves. I mean, if they work for a ‘charity’, they must be “good people”, right?
You have to laugh at an organisation called “Transparency International” using gagging orders against staff who leave.
Proof that Progressives do in fact have a sense of humour.
It’s not bullying. You can apply for other jobs and leave. Actual bullying (like school) is so awful because you can’t.
I’ve worked for monumental cocksuckers and one day, I just gave them notice, went elsewhere.
Do these places actually have a horrific working culture with nasty bosses, or do they just employ too many whiny snowflakes who complain at the slightest discomfort?
My brief experience of the 3rd sector suggests the latter. Never had I met so many earnest do-gooders with zero real world experience.
Like what, do they encourage staff to give Chinese burns to the div kid or pop their heads into the girls toilets and shout “knickers!” or something?
We all know that lefties project.
Seems that it’s true in the work many of them choose to do, as well as outside of it.
BoM4
Wouldn’t surprise me though, if all these third sector wankers operate a “You’ll never work in this town again.” System.
Roue le Jour – when I was sacked from my charity job my boss did say you’ll never work in this town again.
And she meant it. Badmouthed me to all her contacts, every local charity was told all about how I was a bad worker.
Must have worked. I never had so many offers of work from a geographical area before.
I had only worked for that boss for over 5 years and kept the charity going all that time.
And a year later I was offered my old job back after that boss had been sacked for stealing.
While there are snowflakes in the 3rd sector you will find them pretty much anywhere. There are also good workers and people I am proud to call friends…..
An ex-rapist; a convicted terrorist (he’s a very nice old guy), a convicted sex offender (he liked to wee when he needed a wee), a bunch of ladies of negotiable affection, a couple of con artists, just normal average people….
Isn’t Murphy close to Transparency International?
Perhaps his affable, tolerant style of dealing with other people has been adopted by them?
Bullying is evil and can cause severe harm. Even if it does not, it is still evil.
Why should the victim of bullying have to walk away and get a new job? The bully should be punished, like they would if they were robbing, or any other crime.
Also it does not make you a snowflake to hate bullies.
Only creeps support bullying.
Most people in the third sector are good. You will find good and bad people everywhere.
The charity sector is I suspect far more rife with out and out corruption than the business sector is.
A friend of mine worked for a small charity, he was recruited as its CEO to revitalise it. He quickly realised the reason it was so moribund was that the Chairman of the Board of Trustees was using it as a way of boosting his academic career, by making the charity use his university’s services rather than cheaper alternatives, and run events at the university that were not really relevant to the charity’s aims. He was also running the board with less than the required number of Trustees, and the ones who were appointed were all his mates. When my friend tried to remedy these issues he was summarily sacked. Unfortunately he hadn’t worked for them for 2 years so didn’t have any employment protection.
Bullying is evil and can cause severe harm.
Ha Ha!
@Susie Scottish
Depends why they’re being bullied. I’d bully a good portion of the charitable sector into nervous breakdowns, given the opportunity.
Jim,
Feedback loops and incentives. You own a business selling widgets, you’re monitoring every month how much your salesman is spending and how much he’s bringing in.
The thing with many charities is that most donors have no idea what is being done with their money. They give to institutional charities that maybe once did something useful like built children’s home or fed starving Africans, but they don’t do that now. What they do is rather vague when you look at their websites. “We’re supporting children”. In that context, with no-one really measuring your output you can get away with a lot.
Real bullying is a bad thing.
However, in the real world, an organisation which puts up with real bullying by its employees is, de facto, very unlikely to do anything about it. Least of all punish them.
Such organizations can get away with internal incompetence generally because nobody can tell whether they’re doing a good job or not. There’s no direct competition. They don’t get money in exchange for products or services, so incompetence in delivery isn’t reflected in falling revenues and eventual bankruptcy.
So the sensible thing for an employee who feels they’re being bullied (or overworked, or underpaid, or put upon, or given shitty work – indeed, anything at all they don’t like) is to find somewhere better, and leave.
This always works. Expecting those in charge to punish offenders just doesn’t work. Organizations aren’t like home, where Mummy can see who’s being naughty, and stop them, and chastise them. The world isn’t like that.
Plus, there’s a reasonable suspicion in this case that they’re just a bunch of loser whiners.
From Transparency International’s most recent (2018) accounts:
They’re a thinly-disguised government executive agency, or a QuANGO; not an actual charity.
“However, in the real world, an organisation which puts up with real bullying by its employees is, de facto, very unlikely to do anything about it. Least of all punish them.
Such organizations can get away with internal incompetence generally because nobody can tell whether they’re doing a good job or not. There’s no direct competition. They don’t get money in exchange for products or services, so incompetence in delivery isn’t reflected in falling revenues and eventual bankruptcy.”
You are describing to a T the experience of a friend who works for the Probation Service. She was bullied by a co-worker, management did nothing about it to the extent she ended up having a minor stroke due to the stress, and now is on long term sick leave awaiting their verdict on her internal grievance complaint, the outcome of which is overdue by about 4 months. The entire organisation is utterly disfunctional, riddled with petty infighting, people off sick, management doing absolutely nothing. A private company who behaved like this would be bankrupt inside 12 months, and also taken to the cleaners for breaches of employment law, but this is the Civil Service, they can do what they like, the taxpayers cash rolls in regardless of how incompetent they are.
@Martin August 22, 2019 at 11:00 am
Your last para is an apt description of most MP & Peers
Bullying happens. Can be personalities, can be envy or fear causing it.
The person bullied tends to find another job because really why should they have to put up with being bullied in their job?
Management may separate people, does not prevent response nor does it prevent friends making life worse.
Had a deputy manager try bullying me once. One handed by the throat up against a wall with his feet several inches off the floor and him struggling for air as I explained what not to do… he never tried that with anyone again.
Sadly for most people such a response would mean sacking…
Most people in the third sector are good.
Might be true. might not be true. I suspect it’s true, but as the excellent Andrew M has pointed out, this claim would not apply to Transparency International which is majority government funded (even DfID is bunging them some of our £s under threat of court).
Depends on definitions of course, but if the first two sectors are those majority funded by market transactions and by government, and the third sector is that which is financed by other, then TI isn’t third sector.
Being good doesn’t stop you being a snowflake.
Indeed one of the reasons modern kids are a bit flakey is because they do, so want everyone to be nice all the time. When they meet a bully they tend to collapse rather than punch back.
I worked for a terrible bully. I left for a better job once it was clear he would block my progress because I wouldn’t fold to him like some of my co-workers would. He did have a lot of staff turnover for that reason.
@Martin August 22, 2019 at 8:57 pm
What you did was bullying of the worst kind – physical violence