These days, it's quite common for employees to be bullied at work. They might be bullied by management, other employees, or by customers.

If you're being bullied at work, or if you see someone else being bullied, you need to do something. It might seem like a difficult task to address the bullying, but in reality, it's not so bad.

The bullying can usually be stopped by talking to the offenders and helping them to see it from the victim's point of view.

If that doesn't work, you can try some other tactics. If the bullying is being done by a customer, just kick the customer out of your store. If your customers aren't going to treat your employees right, then they're not worth your time. If the bullying is being done by an employee, and talking to them didn't work, a formal write-up will probably do the trick.

It is easy to spot obvious bullying. However, something more common than outright obvious bullying is subtle bullying. This kind of bullying is much more difficult to spot.

It might sound like it's not a big deal, but employees are affected by this. According to a study, 1 out of 4 employees gets affected by subtle bullying from other employees. If you're an employer, then you need to take this matter seriously and keep monitoring the behavior of your employees. You need to ensure that you don't lose any of your loyal employees for this reason.

As an employer, you not only need to watch out for employees bullying their coworkers, but you also need to look at your management. For example, management may unnecessarily criticize an employee's work just because they feel like they need to be seen as domineering. Both as an employee or as a business owner you will find yourself having to deal with such things. In this article, we'll discuss ways to deal with subtle bullying at the workplace.

1 - Be confident

When your co-workers start giggling as soon as you pass, and talking silently with each other while keeping their eyes on you, then you need to alert yourself that they are probably bullying you. This behavior is common in the workplace.

In such cases, you don't need to pay attention to such people, and rather just act confidently. A lot of people start hesitating in such situations and act weirdly just to show that they are confident. You don't really need to do anything special. Pretend that you don't care about their opinions, and keep yourself preoccupied.

2 - Act nonchalantly when they approach you

Regardless of whether you are being criticized for your work by the employer, or your co-worker is making fun of your work, act nonchalantly. If you don't, the situation will only become worse. The same holds true when they try to bully you through any other means.

You can simply laugh off their attempts when they are criticizing you. Act confidently and even tell them that you're open to criticism. Don't give them the reaction they want, rather, act nonchalantly and kill their game.

Your co-workers may want you to hesitate. When you hesitate, your confidence level decreases. When your confidence levels decrease, you get criticized by the employer which adds to your hesitation. It's a vicious cycle which is something that they wanted to achieve.

3 - Build your own group of friends

If a lot of co-workers are criticizing you and making fun of you, then your first reaction should be to act confidently. However, it's difficult to act confidently when it seems like almost everyone is trying to break you down.

Maybe there are some things you can work on to improve yourself? Maybe you need to reconsider the way you behave or pay attention to your expressions? The way you act is often the reason for bullying. Of course, keep this re-consideration process private and change yourself for the better.

Usually, only a few workers bully their co-workers and they only do so when they see you alone. You should focus on building a friendship with your friendly co-workers and eventually turn those friendships into your own network of friends.

Try to avoid the workers who bully you as much as you can. Once you build your group of friends, it should give the bullies an indication that you're not alone, and they will hopefully think twice before bullying you again.

Don't let them see you sweating or see you upset because that's exactly what they want to see. When you act firmly, you actually make them suffer. Remember to always have sound morals and never stoop down to their level of behavior.