BUSINESS SUPPORT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
Having a joke on site is fine but not if it comes at the cost of another person’s
sense of belonging and psychological wellbeing
JUST BANTER?
C asting his
mind back 25 years, Neil Groom still remembers the
bricklayer who bullied him on site. “He would call me all of the names under the sun,” Groom says. “He said things like ‘You’ll never be a bricklayer as long as you’ve got a hole in your a***’ or nasty comments like that. It fed the negativity. Initially, it made me feel worthless and I wondered if I’d break.” Fortunately for Groom, he didn’t. It motivated him to prove the “tough Northerner with a hard background” wrong. Two and half decades later Groom runs a successful construction business, NJG Building Solutions Ltd in Hertfordshire. “You can destroy someone in seconds with a powerful remark. The thing is, though, once the bond with the mentor is broken, you have no respect for them. But their words leave a mark on your subconscious mind and ripple into your future. “Maybe you only really notice its effects five or 10 years later when you’re about to make similar comments to somebody else. Recognising that is a profound moment.”
Master Builder 22
www.fmb.org.uk
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