Not every bully stands 6-foot-3 and weighs in at 319 pounds, asdoes former Miami Dolphins player Richie Incognito. They can be thepetite woman in sales support, or the skinny dude back in IT. Butif they decide to harass one of your key players, they might aswell be throwing a cross-body block on staff morale.

The alleged hazing of Dolphins player Jonathan Martin cost theDolphins two key players when Martin quit and Incognito wassuspended for his bad behavior. The significance of the situation,bullying experts say, is that it was so egregious it came to light.Most times, these experts agree, bullying goes on unchallenged bymanagement or even unnoticed. The cost of this unreported bullyingcan be high —although not as high as if someone quits and sues thecompany.

How much workplace bullying occurs? One estimate by ZogbyInternational says perhaps 35% of workers have experienced bullyingat work at one time or another. The Society for Human ResourceManagement surveyed employers in 2012 and said that more than halfreported an incident of bullying at work.

“The cost of employee bullying is substantial, as studies haveshown that cowed workers tend to be less productive than theirpeers, and also account for high rates of absenteeism, turnover andmore frequent schedule change requests, all of which add to anemployer's HR challenges and also hurt productivity,” attorneyMichael J. Volpe, a partner in Venable's New York office, andVenable associate Nicholas M. Reiter wrote recently.“Additionally, employers often see their insurance premiumsincrease due to more workers' compensation claims filed on behalfof the bullied employees.”

The pair said that legal claims filed against employers byvictims of bullying generally cited harassment focusing on thevictim's race, disability, religion or sexual orientation.

The most common causes of action are “discrimination,harassment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotionaldistress, defamation, assault, false imprisonment, negligentsupervision, and negligent hiring, among others,” they wrote.

It does no good for the employer to claim ignorance of thesituation, because, after all, it is up to an employer to create asafe work environment for all employees.

“In many cases, an employer's lack of knowledge about thebullying is irrelevant because the employer may be held vicariouslyliable for its employee's conduct,” is how Volpe and Reiter putit.

“For all of these reasons, employers can (and should)proactively protect themselves against the legal risks of workplacebullying,” they said. Their guidelines include:

1. Write an employment policy that uses the word bullying,defines it and prohibits it at work. “This policy should include aneasily understood reporting process for employees to assertinternal complaints of bullying.”

2. Make sure everyone know that no retaliation will be toleratedagainst someone who reports bullying. This guarantee must be inwriting.

3. Ensure employees that claims of bullying will be takenseriously and investigated objectively, and the person reportingthe bullying will not be identified. Confidentiality is imperativeif the policy is to work.

4. Additional measures to protect your employees and yourcompany from bullying include “conducting anti-bullying trainingsessions for their workforce, internal audits of bullyingcomplaints, and background checks for potential new hires who mayhave a history of workplace violence, harassment, or other bullyingbehavior.”

Attorney Philippe Weiss of the law firm Seyfarth Shaw consultswith companies and trains them on the subject of bullying. He'seven had some NFL teams as clients, although he's quick to notethat the Miami Dolphins were not among them.

“This [Miami] situation serves as stark reminder thathigh-impact training on and awareness of bullying, hazing andharassment is crucial in all work environments, whether you have alocker room or board room – or both,” Weiss noted. “The key, ontraining, is two-fold. One: creating and delivering core messageson the impacts of bullying or hazing that participants cannotignore. And, two: imprinting simple, powerful and effectiveresponses to the intimidating or demeaning conduct of others(whether they are pro athletes or co-workers).”