Managing Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace - Research Paper Example

?Managing Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace Introduction This paper intends to discuss a very important issue that the workplaces often face- bullying and harassment. It is a tragedy that persons are bullied and sexually harassed by their coworkers and supervisors when they join the workplace to earn their bread and butter. Despite federal laws and legislations, it has not been possible to eradicate this issue from the workplaces because the victim himself may not want to talk about it or let others know what is happening, out of embarrassment or fear of losing the job. This paper argues that workplace bullying and harassment results in negative impacts on job satisfaction and psychological well-being; and, contemporary organizations need to employ anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies to address these issues. 2. Discussion and Analysis Let’s give a brief discussion about bullying and harassment. Bullying based on sex, gender, race, ethnicity, color, language, cultural background, socio-economic background, physical impairment, and etcetera, comes under the concept of discrimination. For example, age discrimination includes bullying such as not selecting an old age candidate for a job posting, abusing an old employee, firing or demoting him, not providing him employee incentives, or preferring others to him when it comes to important decision-making and problem-solving. Quid pro quo is the situation in which the person’s employment status is decided based upon his response to the sexual advances by his employer. It can also be described as “do this and I’ll do that for you”. Reverse quid is the situation in which the employer behaves like “do this or I’ll do that”. This more generally involves threats and punishments. Hostile environment is the environment that results from offensiveness shown by the victim as a response to unwelcome sexual conduct from the harasser, and this situation starts hindering the victim’s job performance. Sexual favoritism is another kind of sexual harassment in which one person is being favored by the harasser over other individuals who are more capable of doing a certain task. And lastly, a sexist or sexualized environment is one in which sexual harassment is more likely to be done because of commonness of sexual jokes, comments and because of viewing internet pornography. 3. Literature Review Branch, Ramsay and Barker (2013) conducted a research on workplace bullying. They assert that researchers have long been formulating theories and explanations about bullying and harassment at workplace, especially after the emergence of the concept of school bullying. They state that although workplace bullying and harassment have become widely known aspects of organizational cultures, yet organizations face challenges in implementing management strategies to manage these. Workplace bullying and harassment not only affect the victims but also have hazardous impacts upon the bystanders. Hence, it becomes necessary for the organizations to consider all impacts of workplace bullying and harassment in order to work out such strategies that cater with the needs of not only the victims but also the bystanders. Deery, Walsh and Guest (2011) studied the effects of workplace bullying and harassment on job satisfaction. Their research sample consisted of nurses in British hospitals. They compared two types of harassment: insider harassment that came from seniors and co-workers, and outsider harassment that came from patients. They also studied the effect of anti-harassment policies on workplace environment. They concluded that the nature of bullying and harassment changed with the nature of the harasser (insider or outsider); however, anti-harassment policies were found to have a profound impact as they resulted in considerable decrease in the harassment incidents at the workplace. This research helps understand that anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies at the workplace are crucial if the aim is to reduce workplace bullying and harassment. Bentley et al. (2012) assert that workplace bullying has proven to be a major problem in organizational setting, as it has a myriad of negative psychological impacts upon the employees. It is also a costly problem, since the organizations have to spend a lot on problem resolution strategies and filed cases. Not much has been studied about workplace bullying on the travel industry; and, to fill this literature gap, Bentley et al. (2012) studied a survey of 332 New Zealand travel industry staff and managers. They found that more than 10 percent of the respondents experienced workplace bullying. The victims reported that they suffered from “lower levels of constructive leadership, colleague support, and supervisor support, and lower self-rated performance” (Bentley et al. 2012: 351). The victims also suffered from high levels of workplace stress, lower emotional wellbeing, high absenteeism, and increased job dissatisfaction. However, the researchers also found that organizational efforts toward the improvement of communication among employees and development of healthy job relationships were considered as fruitful management techniques when it came to bullying and harassment. Law et al. (2011) emphasized upon the importance of Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) as a parameter of managing workplace bullying and harassment. PSC is defined as “shared perceptions of organizational policies, practices and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety, that stem largely from management practices (2011: 1782). The researchers conducted their study on Australian Workplace Barometer project’s participants, where the sample comprised 30 organizations and 220 employees. They found that PSC decreased with the increase in bullying and harassment incidents, and as a result, psychological health problems arose. On the other hand, work rewards and motivational work techniques improved PSC. The researchers suggest that a multilevel model of PSC is a necessary management strategy, as it is a lead indicator of workplace psychosocial hazards, psychological health and employee engagement. It also acts as a potential moderator of psychosocial hazard effects. Hutchinson and Eveline (2010) investigated the effectiveness of gender-neutral workplace bullying policy in Australian workplaces. They interviewed Australian public service administrations, managers, policy implementers, and employee advocates. They found that workplace bullying was a product of individualized behavior, in which gender had no role. Thus, anti-bullying policies should be gender-neutral. This research helps explain that organizations must employ gender-neutral polices that impose strict penalties upon those employees who are found to be involved in bullying and harassment. The above mentioned literature review helps decide that workplace bullying and harassment has profound negative impacts upon workplace environment and psychological health of employees; and, anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies are primary indicators of decreased bullying and harassment in the workplaces. 4. Relevance to Contemporary Workplace Workplace bullying and harassment have become a complex problem in contemporary workplace as more and more people of both genders and from diverse backgrounds are joining the workplaces. For example, feminist theories spread the awareness in women that they should work on equal terms with men, and should not remain confined within their homes. Hence, more and more women are joining the workplaces, which is good in many ways but one drawback is that sexual harassment incidents are on the rise. Also, people from diverse cultural backgrounds are found in the workplaces, and awareness about bullying has increased the sensitivity regarding simple comments and jokes. The greater the awareness, the greater the sensitivity, and the greater is the offense. Hence, contemporary workplaces call for an increased need for anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies and management measures. 5. Conclusion In short, workplace bullying and harassment are unwelcome issues which occur at most contemporary organizations. It results in negative work environment and psychological health impairments. Hence, the need of the hour is that organizations must deploy such polices that tend to address bullying and harassment in a more concerning way than ever before, since such incidents are increasing in the contemporary workplaces. References Bentley, T.A., Catley, B., Cooper-Thomas, H., Gardner, D., et al., 2012. Perceptions of workplace bullying in the New Zealand travel industry: Prevalence and management strategies. Tourism Management, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 351-360. Branch, S., Ramsay, S., & Barker, M., 2013. Workplace Bullying, Mobbing and General Harassment: A Review. International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 280-299. Deery, S., Walsh, J., & Guest, D., 2011. Workplace aggression: the effects of harassment on job burnout and turnover intentions. Work Employment & Society, vol. 25 no. 4, pp. 742-759. Hutchinson, J, & Eveline, J. 2010. Workplace bullying policy in the Australian public sector: Why has gender been ignored? Australian Journal of Public Administration, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 47-60. Law, R., Dollard, M.F., Tuckey, M.R., & Dormann, C., 2011. Psychosocial safety climate as a lead indicator of workplace bullying and harassment, job resources, psychological health and employee engagement. Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 43, no. 5, pp. 1782-1793. Read More