What is Workplace Bullying?
Workplace bullying is the repeated mistreatment of a specific employee or a group of employees through acts of aggression designed to display power in an organization.
Workplace bullying comes in different forms and types, including offensive remarks, mocking someone for their physical appearance or work ethic, or even intimidating someone for any reason. For example, targeting practical jokes towards an employee comes under the umbrella of workplace bullying.
In fact, workplace bullying includes any behaviour that is meant to threaten, offend or humiliate an employee irrespective of their designation, gender or any other parameters. Hence, it is essential to understand the various nuances related to workplace bullying and avoid it.
Is Bullying a Workplace Issue?
If you are bullied in or around the workplace, or by someone from the same organization, it is an issue of ‘workplace bullying’. Every employee should be able to work in a safe and secure work environment, free from any form of bullying or misdemeanour. However, if they are harassed in any manner, it becomes a workplace issue and should be investigated.
Bullying is more prominent where power dynamics come into play, and hence, it becomes an issue in workplaces as a hierarchy is established in the workplace. For example, a 2017 research by the Workplace Bullying Institute found the following facts:
- 61% of bullies are either bosses or managers with their victims being their team members.
- Both men and women usually bully female staff members.
- Similarly, individuals from minority groups were bullied more, comparatively.
With these statistics, it is evident that people with more power have more incentive to be bullies. Hence, it is more rampant in workspaces, where power dynamics play an important role. Similarly, it is observed that peers do not indulge in direct bullying, settling for backstabbing and gossiping instead.
What are some Examples of Bullying in the Workplace?
Workplace bullying can come in different forms due to the different kinds of individuals and their varying power dynamics. As a result, it may not be evident for everyone when they are being bullied. However, it is essential to understand all kinds of bullying to ensure that one does not partake in it even unintentionally considering its harmful effects on the victims and the workplace.
Some of the common examples of workplace bullying include:
- Threatening an employee.
- Verbal, physical and mental abuses.
- Humiliating or embarrassing a staff member.
- Using intimidation tactics.
- Spreading rumours and gossip about an employee.
- Excluding an employee without any reason.
- Taking credit for other’s work.
- Excessively monitoring someone’s performance to find reasons to abuse them.
- Unjustified criticism and berating an employee.
- Targeting practical jokes on an employee specifically.
- Sharing misinformation to ensure that an employee’s work is hampered.
- Sharing incorrect deadlines or invalid instructions.
- Denying leaves without any valid reason
- Belittling someone’s performance and opinions.
- Manipulating others to feel inadequate.
- Setting unrealistic expectations and unattainable goals.
- Blocking an employee from accessing their resources.
- Tampering with someone’s personal belongings.
- Sharing someone’s personal secrets publicly.
- Intruding an employee’s privacy by spying or stalking them.
How can Bullying affect the Workplace?
Bullying can cause various issues in the workplace ranging from reduced performance to loss of business. Hence, it is essential to resolve this issue in its infancy. Workplace bullying can have a wide range of negative consequences for the victims and the organization, which can lead to losses for the business too.
Some of the major issues affecting the workplace due to bullying are:
1. Increased Costs
Due to workplace bullying, the victims can file legal grievances, which will lead to increased costs in the form of legal fees and associated investigations. Similarly, such cases also tarnish the goodwill for the organization among the employees leading to disengagement. It can also lead to a loss of trust in your brand among your customers once they find out that your employees are being bullied in their workplace.
2. Health Issues
Similarly, employees can have numerous mental and physical health issues due to bullying, such as:
➔ Physical Health Effects
- Feeling sick to come to the office.
- Having high blood pressure and increased stress towards work.
- Sleep issues such as insomnia, irregular sleep patterns, etc.
- Frequent headaches.
- Decreased appetite.
➔ Mental Health Effects
- Worrying about work constantly.
- Losing interest in work
- Losing interest in hobbies and other fun activities.
- Chronic depression and anxiety.
- Suicidal thoughts (in extreme cases).
- Lowered self-worth leading to poor performance.
- Doubting oneself.
3. Decreased Productivity
Bullying can also lead to decreased productivity as the victims feel they are incapable of doing their work due to the snide remarks from their bullies while the bullies will try to offload their work onto the employees working under them or onto their peers. Employees would also have reduced morale to work in an organization where bullying is commonplace.
4. High Turnover
Employees often leave an organization due to bullying, despite other positive factors. It leads to increased costs in recruitment and training for the organization. High employee turnover rates also result in a shortage of skilled workforce, as well as lowered morale of the remaining workforce, leading to reduced quality of products and services.
5. Poor Team Co-ordination
Since the individuals comprising a team are being changed constantly, it results in poor team coordination. Having poor team coordination can severely hamper the quality of your products, as the team will face difficulties in achieving their targets. Due to a lack of coordination, team members would spend more time and effort on communication, resulting in lowered profitability.
6. Reduced Loyalty
If an organization is not tackling workplace bullying head-on, the employees will have reduced loyalty towards the organization. Even if they are not directly affected by it, the staff members realize that they will have to face it at some time or the other, which reduces their engagement with their company.
7. Lowered Branding
Workplace bullying can also lead to lowered branding as your changing staff members will result in poor coordination, leading to reduced quality. Due to reduced quality, your reputation in the market will be hampered, leading to people eventually favouring other brands over yours. Hence, it is essential to stop workplace bullying as soon as possible.
What are the Different Types of Workplace Bullying?
Different types of bullying affect the workplace; while some of these are evident such as verbal abuse, some may not be as evident, such as retaliations. Hence, it is essential to understand the various types of workplace bullying.
Based on its impact and the way it is imparted, workplace bullying can be divided into the following types:
➔ Verbal
Verbal bullying is the most common form of bullying in the workplace. It can take several forms such as mocking someone, humiliating them for their physical appearance or any other aspect of their personality, playing pranks and practical jokes with the intent of harming their reputation, gossiping, etc. It can also be verbal abuse in the form of foul language and chastising them.
➔ Intimidation
Intimidation is the use of different techniques to threaten or frighten the employee to do what the bully wants. It also refers to using one’s access to spy or stalk an employee and reveal sensitive information about them to the rest. Similarly, the threat may also be to exclude the victim from their team or their responsibilities to ensure submission.
➔ Work
Workplace bullying related to employee performance comes in different forms such as blaming others for poor performance or even sabotaging other’s work. However, it is not limited to only performance management, as taking credit for other’s work is also included in work bullying. It also includes stealing other concepts and presenting them as one’s own.
➔ Retaliation
Retaliation refers to the after-effects of revealing anything about the bully to others. It can be done either by the bully or by others. Common forms of retaliation include blaming others for one’s mistakes or sabotaging their work to ensure their failure in the workplace. The perpetrator can accuse the victim of lying, or even refuse them promotion or other benefits.
➔ Institutional
Institutional bullying happens when a workplace encourages bullying by not taking any action against it. In some instances, some organizations might even encourage it to expedite work. This form of bullying often includes impossible deadlines, forced overtime, specific exclusion, time off refusal, etc. It is the worst form of bullying since it actively encourages behaviour that is detrimental to business growth.
What can we do about Bullying?
Bullying is a highly damaging process for any organization. Now that you have a robust idea about how bullying occurs in an organization, you can concentrate your efforts on solving this issue to ensure that the negative effects of bullying do not ensue in your company.
Hence, we are sharing a few steps that you can take to ensure that workplace bullying doesn’t occur in your workspace:
1. Documentation
It is essential to document the bullying and its associated effects. The employee should make a note of the bullying behaviour, along with the date and time when the bullying took place. One can even mention others who were witnesses to the incident, to let the investigation go smoothly. Having a dedicated HR software can also help in mitigating the bullying in the workplace to an extent.
2. Evidence Collection
Similarly, as with any investigation, it is critical to collect evidence of the bullying. Hence, the victim should save any notes, comments, or emails they receive, which can prove that the bullying happened. They can even record calls or voice recordings to bring justice. This evidence will surely strengthen their case when they complain about it to the right authorities.
3. Reporting
Speaking of complaining, the next step after collecting enough evidence is to report the incident or incidences to the right authorities, such as HR or your supervisor. If you are unsure about your supervisor or if the culprit is the supervisor, then you can approach the HR department with a written complaint, along with the collected evidence.
4. Confrontation
Finally, once you have undertaken the steps above, you can confront the bully. If they are superior to you in designation, you can let them know that you have complained against them. You can also sternly ask them to stop their behaviour or confront the HR team if the perpetrator continues their misdemeanour.
5. Legal Guidance
If your employer is unable to provide a resolution to workplace bullying, you can seek legal counsel. You can contact a lawyer outside your work, who will help you understand the various options that you have to bring your bully to justice. However, do note that seeking legal counsel should be your final option if even your HR is unable to resolve the issue.
6. Work Policy Review
As an employer, you need to review your work policies and implement stricter actions against bullying if you are finding multiple instances of bullying in your workplace. You should also ensure that the employee handbook outlines the actions that would be taken if any employee is found guilty of indulging in bullying in the workplace.
