“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” – Dr. Martin Luther King
Workplace bullying might have been in existence even before the advent of industrial relations, when work was conducted in guilds and homes. The master – disciple relationship that existed would have used bullying tactics to induce fear and increase productivity. However people who may have suffered the ignominy of such ill-treatment preferred to have remained silent.
It was Heinz Leymann, a Swedish Professor who pioneered research on psychological abuse, and coined the term ‘mobbing’ to describe hostile behaviour targeted at workers. This was based on his studies of nurses who tried to commit suicide due to events at the workplace. Later in 1992, Andrea Adams, a British journalist, brought to notice, the harassment meted at work and coined the term “Workplace Bullying”.
Today bullying is not just an individual or psychological problem but more importantly an organizational problem since it stems from organisational culture. Often employees who become victim are likely to quit. But in reality and based on research it’s not only the victim who is likely to quit but even the co-workers are also likely to leave their jobs.
Bullying and harassment often arises when managers try to hide their incompetence with intimidation. There is some distinction between bullying and harassment but essentially both are forms of personal abuse. Harassment, whether it is racial, sexual or otherwise, is usually incident specific, while bullying is persistent and unwelcome behaviour which impacts the emotional, psychological and mental health of the victim besides ruining their careers.
Bullying also increases due to gloomy market conditions, recession, insecurity, cultural clashes and collisions of generations at workplace. Counter cultures, deviant behaviours, impatience and intolerance fuel workplace conflicts. Bullying can cause damage to individual employees and even greater damages to organisations. It disrupts peace at workplace which causes antagonism, distractions, poor teamwork, lowered productivity, increased trust deficit amongst employees, and makes the environment toxic. Victims often become diffident, and suffer from low self- esteem. Workplace bullying has indeed become a serious destructive force that vitiates the professional lives of employees and makes organisations toxic.
It is not necessary that only a manager or immediate superior bullies their subordinates. Bullying can occur wherever people work together. There have been instances of even subordinates ganging up against managers and bullying them.
Often performance is intertwined with our emotions. Employees do not perform at their best in an environment riddled with fear and oppression. Organisations that fail to monitor and create an environment which is conducive, healthy, congenial and free of bullying suffer from increased absenteeism, turnover, recruiting problems, poor reputation and lawsuits.
There are several definitions for Workplace Bullying but with the changing nature of work, it becomes little daunting to acutely define the term. However to put it simply, workplace bullying is the repeated unreasonable behaviour directed towards an employee or group of employees that creates a risk to health and safety.
A broad range of direct or indirect behaviours can be classified as bullying.
Examples of direct forms of bullying include:
Examples of direct forms of bullying include:
• Verbal abuse
• Berating or putting someone down
• Spreading rumours or innuendo about someone
• Interfering with someone’s personal property or resource or work equipment.
Examples of indirect bullying include:
• Unjustified criticism or complaints
• Hiding or withholding information that is vital for effective work performance
• Deliberately denying access to information or other resources
• Deliberately excluding someone from workplace activities
• Causing inconvenience to a particular worker or workers
• Setting timelines that are very difficult to achieve
• Excessive scrutiny at work.
Preventing Workplace Bullying:
In recent times, few countries have introduced numerous legislations to prevent workplace bullying and have rightfully enforced severe punishments. In addition it is necessary for every organisation to come up with a comprehensive workplace bullying prevention policy and guidelines. There are various agencies and forums that strive to highlight these issues and find solutions to prevent bullying at workplaces. Organisations like Workplace Bullying Institute and International Association on Workplace Bullying & Harassment (IAWBH) are doing phenomenal work in preventing workplace bullying. There are few steps that organisations must take to prevent workplace bullying.
Workplace Policy: It is important to implement an emphatic policy on preventing bullying at workplace. The policy should define standards of acceptable and non acceptable behaviour and make a clear statement that inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated and warrant disciplinary action.
Workplace Procedures: Workplace procedures should outline how reports of bullying will be dealt with, and should set out broad principles to ensure the process is objective, fair and transparent. The procedures for registering complaints must be shared with all employees along with the names, designations and contact details of individuals who are authorized to receive complaints. The process should also encourage and provide support to both the parties – the victim and the perpetrator.
Evaluate Deviant Behaviour and not just Results: It starts with leadership and managerial behaviour. Behaviour determines action and therefore it is important that along with business results greater emphasis is also given to interpersonal skills and evaluating deviant behaviour.
Avoid Hiring Tyrants: Using behavioural interview techniques, psychometric tests, assessments, reference checks and gathering feedback will help in hiring the right people in organisation.
Single Incident: Bullying thrives in environments where input from employees is limited. Even a single incident of unreasonable behaviour may have the potential to escalate into bullying and therefore shouldn’t be ignored as it can probably create a risk to employee morale, health and safety. When employees realise that no one will bother to investigate, correct, or curtail the problem they soon recognize that by speaking up they may actually increase the risk of repercussions from the perpetrator. Therefore a single incident has to be investigated.
Acknowledge: It essentially starts by calling bul¬lying by its proper name and not concealing under the guise of “tough managerial style”, “task master” or explain it away on supposed cultural grounds or gender proclivity. It is possible that the harasser may not be aware that his or her conduct is offensive. A simple request to cease the offensive conduct may be all that is required to correct the situation before it becomes severe.
Training: Bullying has been linked to situations of role conflict, role ambiguity, parochial and ethnocentric attitude. Employers should make sure that employees understand their role, role expectations, levels of authority and empowerment and have the appropriate skills and resources to do their job. Organisations must therefore encourage and promote diversity. Regular training on conflict management, counselling, managing difficult employees, social skills and interpersonal skills to employees will go a long way in preventing deviant behaviour. All employees including managers and leaders must undergo training so as to acquaint themselves about behaviours that constitutes bullying and harassment.
Skip Level Meetings: Organisations should introduce skip level meetings to encourage employees to share their grievances with higher ups.
Coaching & External Counselling: Sometimes bringing an external counsellor, behavioural trainer, and leadership coaches can help in counselling employees who are victims of bullying and also those who are the perpetrators of bullying.
Encourage reporting & Non-victimisation: It is important to protect and ensure that anyone who raises an issue of bullying including the witnesses are not victimised or punished for doing so. Former employees must also be protected. Documentation is important to any formal investigation. Even if the matter is not formally investigated, a record should be made of all meetings and interviews detailing who was present and the agreed outcomes.
Confidentiality: The process should ensure complainant confidentiality and also ensure confidentiality for other parties involved. Details of the matter should only be known by those directly concerned.
Natural justice: The principles of natural justice should be followed in all formal investigations.
Monitoring and Review: To best prevent bullying at work, risk control measures must be regularly monitored, evaluated and reviewed.
Robert Sutton, professor of management science and engineering from Stanford in his famous Mckinsey article, “Building a civilised workplace" highlights that there is more financial damages in having jerks and bullies at work. The article also brings to light that company with jerks and bullies may suffer from reduced level of creativity and innovation, as well as impaired or dysfunctional cooperation within and outside the organisation.
Workplace bullying can be curtailed by creating an egalitarian structure. Organisations must relentlessly strive to foster a workplace culture, where everyone treats colleagues with dignity, trust, respect, and where all process and systems are established to minimise the occurrence of bullying and harassment.
