Workplace Bullying - Essay Example

?Workplace Bullying Introduction Workplace bullying is the tendency for individuals or groups to use persistent aggressive or unreasonable behavior against a co-worker or subordinate. This means that there is someone or somebody that being placed on the spotlight but at this time the mere theme for it is much offensive for the subject for the pleasure of the bullying person or group bullies. It is important to understand workplace bullying because it involves the issue of self-esteem and other psychological considerations. It is in line with this that the proponent of this paper tries to find out the characteristics of workplace bullying prior to understanding it in detail. Furthermore, the proponent tries to find some preventive measures that an organization can actually do about workplace bullying. Characteristics of workplace bullying In order to understand the characteristics of workplace bullying, it is important to understand first the characteristics of bullies and their victim. Perpetrators in the workplace bullying are commonly found to be higher in rank than the target (Tuckey, Dollard, Hosking & Winefield, 2009). This result consists of different implications but the most triggering one is the inclusion of power. Thus, this definitely suggests that a boss can be a perfect person to be identified as one of the workplace bullies. However, the daily work interaction does not only happen between a boss and the workers, but with their co-workers. This means that bullying literally happens among co-workers themselves. The perpetrators of the victim in the workplace bullying in this case may be powerful enough that the latter could not resist from being harm. The perpetrator may have potential influence or power allowing him to create more allies in the workplace bullying. This was critically presented from the ‘Glee’ where two professors are making fun of the strange-looking soccer football coach. The other professor was so dominating and has the influence to find for her allies against someone else. Thus, it is clear in this case that workplace bullying has become aggravated by attempting to create a group against the victim. The bullying becomes so intense and powerful in this case which is enough to destroy one’s morale or self-esteem. Bullying therefore cannot have substantial strength against its victim if it has no enough power or consolidated force which would be enough to harm one’s emotional make up. This power which is generated when one or two bullies come into unison is so strong that it would be enough to destroy emotional stability of a person. Workplace bullying therefore is trying to create extreme pleasure at the expense of the victims. This is a self-centered view of looking at happiness or pleasure by not taking into account what the others might feel or experience. There is no thinking of undesirable impacts in workplace bullying at the point of view of the bullies, but it is just about to fulfill their longing for fun or pleasure at the expense of their victim. This can be considered as work violence because one’s emotional stability has been harmed. There is harm involved in here though not physically but emotionally considering that there are different personalities combined together in order to create a strong effort to destroy one’s emotional stability. It is in line with this that it is important to understand different personalities of bullies. Kohut was able to identify different characteristics of a bullying boss or co-worker and these include different personalities such as narcissistic, antisocial, ASPD, antisocial narcissist, PPD, histrionic, borderline, obsessive-compulsive, dependent, schizoid, and avoidant (2008). It is therefore implied that in order to determine the degree of workplace bullying is to understand the behaviors and personalities of bullies and of the victim. Workplace bullying therefore is characterized by the inclusion of different extreme human personalities and behaviors that stand as important factors in order to effectively implement it. It is important to understand this because it is through knowing it there would be substantial idea on how to bully-proof one’s self. Organization’s preventive measures The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reported that there are over two million workers who are victims of bullying and this leads to substantial lost of employee productivity amounting to millions of dollars company loss (Kohut, 2008). With this information, it is alarming for the organizations to finally come up with a comprehensive plan how exactly to prevent workplace bullying to perpetuate among employees. This is a matter of company productivity and since the human resource is one of the most important resources that a company possesses, it absolutely makes sense to come up with preventive measures against workplace bullying. One important ways in order to bully-proof an organization is the implementation of core values. This means that failure to follow some of the core values at some point may result to disciplinary measures. Workplace bullying cannot be substantially considered harmful in an organization if in the first place it has not been defined as one. Thus, the management’s important move is to place it in its policy so as to allow everyone to consider feeding in their work system that it is important to develop respect, teamwork and other core values that may provide significant impact on the firm’s productivity. It is also important to conduct personality test and workshops allowing everyone to know each other. In this way, there is a good chance that a person may have substantial understanding about others. This is important because there are implications especially on dealing with others. Some person may try to express themselves as emotionally sensitive and in doing this, others will be given enough idea how to deal with such person. Another important step is to develop work culture that tries to prevent bullying at whatever level. The management must be able to create working culture because it is the basic foundation of everyone’s experience in the company. It is good to work in a company with harmonious relationship with each other. This can be essentially set by the management by trying to create programs appreciating more learning and growth rather than destructive attempts to ruin emotional stability of workers. Conclusion Workplace bullying is not just ordinary issue in the corporate world. The management must be able to see it as destructive force that prevents it from achieving its corporate goals. Considering that the human resource is the most important assets that a firm’s possesses, it is then important to take care of it so as to maximize potential of the operation in the achievement of its corporate goals. In order to effectively eradicate workplace bullying, it is important to understand its characteristics. In doing so, it is easy to trace its root cause and by understanding it, some remarkable measures of preventing and eradicating it will be uncovered for implementation. Workplace bullying is a challenging problem or issue in the corporate world. This is absolutely normal considering that each worker has distinctive characteristics or personalities. However, not everyone has the skills and awareness to understand each other. Thus, this is the most important task a firm should consider in order to protect its human resource from destructive forces that try to target emotional stability. At some point, the destructive potential of workplace bullying is so strong that it eliminates a certain portion of the human resource’s productivity. References Kohut, M. R. (2008). The complete guide to understanding, controlling, and stopping bullies & bullying at work: a guide for managers, supervisors, and employees. USA: Atlantic Publishing Company. Tuckey, M. R., Dollard, M. F., Hosking, P. J. & Winefield, A. H. (2009). Workplace Bullying: The Role of Psychosocial Work Environment Factors. International Journal of Stress Management, 16(3), 215-312. Read More