What is Bullying and Harassment at the Workplace?
Workplace bullying and harassment are those unwanted repetitive and unreasonable actions of individuals or teams/groups targeted at another colleague or employee with the intention of intimidating , humiliating and thereby creating a mental and physical health risk for that employee (s).
Workplace bullying and harassment is often or typically an abuse or using one’s power and authority to dominate and control another.
Bullying and harassment are those behaviors that seek to humiliate, offend, embarrass another employee often in front of others. Bullying and harassing others creates feelings of “weakness” in whoever it is aimed and undermines the employees ability to perform at the workplace.
Differences between Bullying and Harassment
Bullying and harassment at the workplace are used interchangeably. But they have some differences between them:
- Most incidents of bullying are psychological with some cases being physical whiles harassing is more physical examples being touch, contact, damage to possessions and attacking one’s work
- The victim experiencing the bullying is because he or she is effective or competent at what they do, also may be popular at the workplace.
- Harassers tend to attack the individual differences of his or her victim, e.g. race, gender, ethnicity, tribes, marital status, sexuality
- Bullying is repeated for longer period and may go unnoticed by the victim whiles harassment may be a one time thing or a few. times but easily noticed
- Bullying is often done privately and can affect the victim physically, mentally but harassing can occur in the public space. Bullying seeks to dominate and control the victim whiles harassment is an attempt to cause distress and discomfit for the victim.
The different types of Bullying and Harassment
- Persistent criticisms of an employee
- Spreading false rumours and gossips
- Attacking an employee verbally
- Talking in a condescending manner to an employee
- Withholding critical information to an employees role at work
- Humiliation, ridicule and teasing
- Offering a employee a task below their level of competence
- Cyberbullying : using social media or office platforms etc. to send false rumours, gossips, embarrassing notes to humiliate
- Shouting at or reprimanding an employee unnecessarily
- Ignoring the opinion of an employee
- Playing pranks or insensitive jokes on the employee
- Reminding an employee constantly of their earlier mistakes or failures
- Imposing unrealistic deadlines
- Persistently criticizing an employee
- Imposing unreasonable workloads
- Making threats of violence or engaging in actual abuse
The Effects of Bullying and Harassment at the Workplace
Workplace bullying has a negative impact on the health and well-being of employees. It can also have a negative impact on workplace productivity and performance
Some of these can affect the employee’s health and performance
- Higher blood pressure
- Mood changes
- Panic attacks
- Anxiety and depression
- Headaches
- Muscle tensions
- Bullied workers cannot perform their jobs to the best of their ability.
- Inability to work or concentrate on the job
- Low self esteem
- Having trouble making decisions
- Low productivity
Possible Signs that Bullying Exists In An Organisation
- Failure to perform effectively at work
- Failure for the victims to meet organizational goals.
- Increased frequencies of grievances, resignations, and requests for transfers.
- Increased absence due to sickness.
- Increased disciplinary actions.
- When other employees are aware of bullying in the workplace and do not take action or report these behaviours, then they also become bullies and are responsible for the repercussions of these negative actions
Addressing bullying and harassment at the workplace
The employee must:
- Recognize that you are being bullied or harassed
- Employee must understand that he or she is not the problem for being bullied
- Recognizing that bullying is about control, and therefore has nothing to do with your performance.
Steps for dealing with bullying
- Keeping a diary recording the type of bullying (e.g., dates, times, places, what happened actually and if others were present).
- Keep copies of bullying and harassing documents, hold onto copies of documents that contradict the bully’s accusations against you (e.g. reports, performance docs etc.).
- Report to head of Human Resource or top managers
- Expect the bully to deny your accusations
- Have a witness with you during any meetings with the bully or harasser
- Report the behavior to an appropriate office
Addressing Bullying/Harassing by the Employer
- Employers must establish a Zero Tolerance of bullying and harassment. Bullying and harassment must be part of the organization’s policy
- An open door policy must be encouraged so that employees can report freely and confidentially
- Confidential ways of reporting must be created at the workplace
- Perpetrators must be punished for bullying or harassment
- When bullying is witnessed or reported, the bullying/harassment behavior should be addressed immediately
- Hold awareness campaigns often on Bullying and harassment
- Improve management’s ability to address and deal with conflicts of bullying and harassment
