Bullying in School Playgrounds and in Workplaces - Essay Example

? Bullying Bullying Bullying takes place both within children in school playgrounds and in workplaces. In the workplace, it is presumed that bullying leads to health-related and social problems for employees and also creates difficulties for managers. While there is no globally conventional formal description of workplace bullying, a number of investigators have attempted to define bullying. Several group all acts of malintent and harmful boss behavior aimed at workers as bullying. In addition, bullying activities may be implied in iterative protocols or programs and humiliation designed as being in the benefit of worker coaching and development. Others group behaviors into several patterns, branding a number of those behaviors as bullying, illustrating that there are several ways to adequately deal with specified patterns of behavior. Like childhood bullying, workplace bullying entails the tendency of groups or individuals to employ persistent unreasonable or aggressive behavior against a subordinate or co-worker. Workplace bullying may include tactics such as humiliation and, verbal, physical, psychological and nonverbal abuse. This form of aggression is specifically challenging because, unlike the usual types of school bullying, bullies in the workplace frequently function within the developed policies and rules of the society and organization. In addition, bullying in the workplace is in most instances reported as having been carried out by management and takes a broad range of forms. Bullying may be overt or covert, may be known by the majority or may be missed by supervisors in the organization. Negative consequences of bullying are not restrained to the individuals who are targeted, and may cause decrease in an organization’s culture and worker morale (Randall, 2001). This paper will analyze bullying at the workplace while looking at the examples of bullying, consequences of bullying for the employees, and the organizations they perform their duties. Bullying is an expression of aggression and the acts may be both subtle and obvious. It is significant to understand that the following examples of bullying do not highlight all forms of bullying in the workplace, nor is it a checklist. The examples are provided to highlight the number of ways bullying may take place in a work setting. In addition, it is imperative to comprehend that bullying is typically perceived to be a pattern of behavior where a single or more actions will assist highlight that bullying is present. Bullying may include, and not limited to the following: Interfering with an individual’s work equipment or personal items; spreading malicious gossip or rumors; blocking applications for leave, training, or promotion; isolating or excluding an individual socially; criticizing an individual constantly or persistently; intimidating an individual; undeserved or unwarranted punishment; intentionally impeding or undermining an individual’s work; threatening abuse or physically abusing; belittling an individual’s views; eliminating areas of work without explanation; using profanity or yelling; persistently modifying work guidelines; developing a feeling of worthlessness; creating unattainable deadlines that will make the worker to fail; intentionally providing incorrect information or concealing significant details; assigning unbearable workload or duties so as to create needless pressure; making offensive statements or jokes; and invading an individual’s privacy by stalking, spying, or pestering (Rayner, Hoel & Cooper, 2001). Nonetheless, sometimes it is difficult to determine if bullying is taking place at the workplace. A number of researches assert that there exists a thin boundary between bullying and stout management. For instance, comments that are purposefully and are meant to offer positive feedback are frequently not perceived as bullying, but instead, are meant to help workers with their duties. Bullying has a number of negative consequences to the employees. Numerous workers value their jobs and do not like conflicting situations. This means when bullies are in leadership positions with the capacity to impact the employees’ working life, employees tend to be afraid of marginalization, retribution, or losing their employment positions. When the employee has to support his family or meet other financial expenses, confronting a bully may feel as if an individual is committing financial suicide. In this case, getting used to the abusive relationship is presumed to be the safest option. Persistent aggressive actions intended to humiliate, offend, degrade, or intimidate an individual impact the physical and emotional health positions of employees. Studies indicate that employees who have undergone bullying experiences in the workplace habitually present with dermatological disorders, headaches, panic attacks, gastrointestinal problems, burn-out, exhaustion, anxiety, and insomnia. These employees are usually desperate and unhappy. In addition, the employees are angry, tearful, confused, sad, or irritable. Also, studies conducted on worker productivity illustrate the employees who are bullied waste not less than 50% of their work time. They spend this period taking sick leave because of stress-connected illness, defending themselves, being stressed and unmotivated, thinking about the situation, and networking for support. A large number of organization leaders are not keen to deal with bullying for the identical reasons as their employees. They do not possess the abilities to deal with bullies, they hope the problem will end by itself, and they are afraid of the bully’s reaction. Nevertheless, organizations with proper management outperform those who do not by almost 40% (Oade, 2009). Bullying also impacts the organization. There is an overall understanding that workplace bullying causes destructive and negative effects on the organization. Bullying in the workplace may cause poor public image and adverse publicity; diminished commitment; decreased morale; increased absenteeism; minimal vision and creativity; lack of worker motivation; and elevated personnel turnover. Psychologically abused workers in the work place have minimal mental energy or time for engaging in productive activities. Aggressive acts makes these employees burn-out, exhausted, disillusioned, and not able to perform their duties efficiently or effectively. In addition, bullying may severely impact an organization’s bottom line through indirect and direct costs. The costs linked to these acts may be tremendous. In addition, workplace bullying may cause violence in the workplace. This may lessen or terminate an organization’s production activities, resulting in significant losses. Workplace bullies possess the following characteristics, complete insensitivity to others, selfishness, insecurity, inadequacy, self-obsession, among others (Hare & Babiak, 2006). Bullying only persists in an organization if management tolerates it, either through inefficient techniques to tackle it, lack of comprehension of the issue, and a lenience of inappropriate, disrespectful behavior. References Hare, R. D., & Babiak, P. (2006). Snakes in suits: When psychopaths go to work. New York: Harper Collins. Oade, A. (2009). Managing workplace bullying: How to identify, respond to and manage bullying behavior in the workplace. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Randall, P. (2001). Bullying in adulthood: Assessing the bullies and their victims. New York: Routledge.  Rayner, C., Hoel, H., & Cooper, C. L. (2001). Workplace bullying: What we know, who is to blame and what can we do? New York: Taylor & Francis. Read More