Workplace Bullying Undermines Firms
CHAMBER VOICE
By IAN FERGUSON
MUCH attention has been given to bullying, and the aggressive behaviour and unfair advantage some assume over others. Typically, when we hear the term 'bullying', we associate this juvenile behaviour with students acting out in a classroom. Children are very often the culprits behind the ongoing poor treatment of their peers, which often leaves deep emotional scars that follow the person who has been bullied well into their adult years. Think about it: Most persons can remember a hurtful name they were called in school and, more than that, the perpetrator of those venomous words. Bullying has seemingly become a real threat to many, and is a destructive force in attacking a person's self worth, causingn them bodily harm or, in some severe cases, driving them to suicidal thoughts and attempts.
What
is most sad about bullying is the fact that most bullies never receive
the professional help they need to maintain a normal life. As a result,
the primary school and high school bully becomes the corporate and
workplace bully. The Human Resources professional will state that an
employee's working condition impacts his cognitive, social and mental
well-being. Simply put, a normally high-producing employee, who becomes
the victim of a bully, can easily be reduced to a blundering, socially
inept and emotionally imbalanced individual.
Workplace
bullying is commonly viewed as the tendency of individuals or groups to
use persistent aggressive, or unreasonable, behaviour towards a team
member (usually a subordinate). Workplace bullying can include tactics
such as verbal, non-verbal, psychological and physical abuse, and
humiliation.
Workplace
bullies often operate within the established rules and policies of
their organisation, and are therefore difficult to address. Most persons
who report bullying in the workplace identify someone in leadership or
management as the offender. There are some common threads to acts of
bullying. In most cases, the attacks are repeated and persistent,
humiliating and intimidating, and manifest themselves as aggressive
attacks that are intended to be personal.
Workplace bullying comes in the form of five deliberate actions by a person or group of people. These five acts include:
- Insulting an individual's professional standing with belittling opinions, public humiliation, false accusations without evidence, and intimidating use of discipline.
- Attacking a person as an individual by undermining their personal integrity, using sarcasm, inappropriate jokes about the person, teasing, name calling and unnecessary insults.
- Isolating the target, preventing access to opportunities, ignoring the talents of the individual and deliberately keeping them out of the loop in e-mail communications and the like.
- Overworking the individual via undue pressure, imposing impossible deadlines etc.
- Demoralising and discrediting the work of the individual by failing to acknowledge their good work, reminding them repeatedly of past blunders and assigning meaningless tasks to them.
Whether
we are referring to malicious gossip and rumors spread in the
workplace, or anonymous letters forwarded to co-workers, the one thing
that is constant and true about bullying is that those who commit these
atrocities are in a very dark emotional place. My mother says it best:
'Hurting people hurt people.'
If
you suspect you are the victim of workplace bullying, speak with your
company's Human Resource specialist. If you are a bully, seek some form
of assistance in rectifying this self destructive and organisational
hampering behaviour.
NB:
Ian R. Ferguson was educated locally, regionally and internationally,
having earned a Master's Degree in Education from the University of
Miami. During the course of his nearly 20 years in education, talent
management and human resources, he has served both the public and
private sector in senior management roles. He currently serves as
manager of the Chamber Institute, and as a local consultant in the
field, having assisted hundreds of local and regional businesses in
improving business and service excellence through their human capital.
July 02, 2012
