The Impact of Workplace Bullying - Assignment Example

The paper "The Impact of Workplace Bullying" is a wonderful example of an assignment on human resources. Bullying is a cowardice act that is perpetrated by individuals who seek to hide their inadequacies. Bullying is a vice that has continued to ail the modern-day society from homes to workplaces. In the American workplaces, one out of four employees is bullied, thus making an excess of fifty million people who are bullied in their workplaces. Workplace bullying pertains to repeated actions that are committed by an unreasonable individual or individuals and are directed towards a particular person or a group of people with the aim of intimidating and creating health and safety risks (Tehrani, 2012). People who are inadequate in a certain area are responsible for bullying and it is perpetrated through verbal abuse, intimidation, carrying out threats, work interference, and other offensive behaviors. All these activities lead to different inefficiencies in the workplace, therefore, resulting in declining performance (Wiedmer, 2011).

Workplace bullying affects the victimized employees in different ways. The victims may experience a wide array of mental and physical health problems. The victims may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which is caused by high levels of stress, absenteeism, phobias, an elevated level of depression, musculoskeletal problems and digestive troubles. The victims may be unable to meet the organizational goals or they may skip work due to the ordeals, thus contributing to absenteeism. This results in financial problems when the person involved receives a pay cut or fired (Cowan, 2011). Workplace bullying also leads to a decline in the organization’s performance. This is because some employees are unable to reach their full potential due to the painful ordeals. In certain circumstances, the organization is forced to replace an employee, which leads to extra costs, for example, recruitment and advertisement costs. The organization also incurs costs when it starts to investigate matters pertaining to bullying. In case an employee decides to take legal action against the bully, the organization has to deal with the charges considering that the matter pertains to the workplace. Absenteeism increases in workplaces harboring bullies, as the victims ask for sick leaves, while others do not show up for work altogether. Some victimized employees may suffer from health problems, therefore, demanding for compensation, which is expensive for the organization. Bullying suppresses creativity in employees, as they may suffer from low self-esteem, therefore, finding it difficult to come up with new ideas or innovate in difficult situations. This leads to low production and high employee turnover. Some of these issues translate to poor performance, thus leading to losses (Wiedmer, 2011).

In the workplace, an employee can be bullied in various ways. Many bullies utilize covert methods of bullying, therefore, avoiding detection. Employees are bullied in various ways, for example, spreading false rumors and gossips, exclusion from the workgroup, intimidation, being targeted as the subject of practical jokes, privacy intrusion and receiving unrealistic deadlines (Tehrani, 2012). In my workplace, I have seen my colleagues bullying a new employee by subjecting him to various practical jokes. On certain days, the new employee would enter his cubicle and find his chair unscrewed, therefore, falling after sitting on it. He would also find his computer’s password changed and a demeaning image set as his screensaver. He was stressed and he tried to quit but the manager warned the perpetrators to cease. I also witnessed another form of bullying where a certain team isolated one of their team members. She was frustrated since everything she tried to do was dismissed. The others never listened to her and they ignored her suggestions. She finally quit the job.

The management can implement various techniques to provide a positive impact on workplace bullying. These include encouraging the employees to identify bullies and give an account of the bullying so that the company can take appropriate actions towards them. The company should implement an anti-bullying policy that would ensure that the bullies are fired (Tehrani, 2012). This would help to create a peaceful environment where all the employees can work towards realizing the organization’s goals. Secondly, the organization needs to take every bullying accusations seriously and ensure that proper investigations are made. This would ascertain the employees that they are safe from any bullying activity. The management should work closely with the employees to ensure that any bullying activity is discovered before escalation (Cowan, 2011).