Why Is Workplace Bullying an Important Issue in Managing People at Work - Essay Example

Why is workplace bullying an important issue in managing people at work Introduction Organization bullying is defined as unreasonable conduct aimed targeting a specific individual or a group of persons in a workplace by inflicting injury to both health and safety of an individual. For a conduct to be term as bullying, it must be persistent and offensive in nature or acted discriminately with a deliberate attempt to hurt others. Workplace bullying is an immoral conduct of critical concern within an organization that requires taking keen interest by the management to avert unnecessary chances of loss to both individual employees to the organization as a whole. Other that interfering with the physical well being of a person, bullying also inflicts psychological injury leading to deterioration of the victim’s helath. Despite that fact that a victim of bullying can legally claim for compensation, there is no specific compensation-value for psychological injury and the management should view bullying as a serious offence of potential threat to the organizational returns (Quigg, 2011). Several societies globally have raised interest concerning workplace bullying with communities such as government bodies and labor unions tying to seek for the best possible alternatives to eliminate such a vice. Most of the scholarly articles classify that majority of employees have directly experienced workplace bullying while a good number have also observed such happenings in their work institutions (Quigg, 2011). Workplace bullying is of critical concerns when it comes to managing people at work because it subjects an organizations to produces almost nothing or generate productivity far much less below their required capacity thus hurting the organization productivity and leading to a serious loss. Characteristics of workplace bullying Oade & Palgrave (2009), clarifies that it is critical for the management to embrace bullying and harassment tolerance within an organization since they pose serious threats to the production returns. Besides, workplace bullying interferes with the ability of employees from effective and efficient performance inline of their duties. Any slightest negativity as a result of bullying is perceived to be of potential financial loss to both the organization and to the employees themselves. The varying nature of workplace bullying shows that employees are exposed to varied number of symptoms. At some instances, employees experience cannot be associated with bullying. However, some of the common characteristics of bullying in an organization are: High employee turnover without giving any justified reasons. Increased employee absenteeism Deliberately withholding organizational information or resource without any giving vital information. Discontent team characterized by low morale where everybody does what he perceives best for himself. Oade & Palgrave (2009), explains that, when bullying is allowed to prevail within an organization then it may results into a significant risk. Moreover, workplace bullying and harassment cause more psychological effects just like sexual assault leading to less commitment in line of duty with much anxiety. Since workplace bullying is an important issue concerning an organizational management, it is important to understand that not all managers who exercise their legitimate authority are bullying agents. Moreover, management may be required to excise direct power in ensuring that there is right workflow with responsible feedback from members of the staff (Woodrow &Guest, 2013). Ethical coercion or negligent by employees to adjust on certain behaviors to enhance performance does not in any way amount to bullying. However, appropriate measures should be adhered to so that performance problems are tackled appropriately and objectively in a way that do not amount to humiliation or threat to the employees. Cost of workplace bullying Statistics collected from national health and safety campaign highlight of Australia clarify that bullying and harassments in places of work are rife, and the effect is felt at both public and private institutions. Some of the institutions that have become so notorious include education, finance and manufacturing industry where workplace bullying affects both home and personal life of employees. Branch et al. (2013) illustrates that the majority of employees are seeking off out of duty just to ease the pressure of bullying and harassment they receive at workplace. Workplace bullying mostly starts by engaging repetitive immoral behavior that is purposely intended to marginalize and isolate an employee. However, it later turns to physical aggression thus causing serious damages to the overall organization (Branch; Ramsay & Barker, 2007). It is so natural that the employee of an organization automatically gets socialize into the routines of a particular institution. Therefore, any sudden chances of interruption from the normal routine would subject an entire organization into a huge loss. In essence, while introducing a new change to the organization, managers often act in a way that exerts pressure and discomfort to employee’s ontological security (Brink, 2009). Therefore, it is advised that managers should adopt appropriate and non-cohesive behavior during structuring that would ensure employees do not feel marginalized. If employees develop a notion of getting bullied, they may resort to going a slow or withdrawal from duties resulting into a negative impact on the organizational productivity. Besides, organizational routines that employees understand within their respective areas of work, they should also be given workspace and the necessary freedom so as to gain recognition as part of the organization. Open spaces enable employees to socialize while storming on how to enhance the organizational productivity effectively. Consequently, excessive constraint of employee space to some extent may amount to bullying thus reduces their ontological security. Closer encroachment to employee’s physical space within places of work amounts to distress hence transforming into a workplace bullying. The above is tantamount to increased cost of production with very minimal production quantity in return explains (Devonish, 2013). Susceptibility of bullying within the workplace environment Every employee including managers within the workplace environment is perceived to be a potential target of bullying. However, majority who are mostly affected are young or new organizational employees who may not have stayed within a particular company for a long time. In addition, people in wobbly jobs such as those who are not permanently employed or on contractual employment have also been pointed out to be at potential threat of getting coerced within work environment. All the above factors are attributed to by poor organizational relationship and negative communication trends that encourage bullying characters and tolerance of oppressive like behaviors. Galanaki &Papalexandris 2013) explains that workplace bullying should not only be associated with human resource management, but it also concerns organizational health management (OHM). It is deemed as a health hazard that is of more potential threat to health and safety of all the organizational stakeholders. Organizational health management is of principal concern to the organization since a sick employee loses focus of the organizational productivity and may easily the turnover from active duties. According to the international labor laws, workplace bullying may not be accompanied by physical aggression, but it is an illegal vice and poses potentiality of causing significant harm to either an employee or stakeholder.. In extreme conditions, bullying often increases chances of occupational violence hence ending up getting investigated as a criminal activity (Galanaki &Papalexandris, 2013). How combat presence of organizational bullying The most important approach of preventing workplace bullying is getting organizational members into various initiatives before the actual implementation. In an organized manner, the management should create a culture of no tolerance to bullying or related behaviors. If such an incident is reported then appropriate action should be taken to prevent repetitive occurrence in the near future. In addition, an organization should implement proper bullying policies and related procedures to address the occurrence within an organization. The policies should be simple and be exposed to all employees with consistent updates to ensure that all the clauses are within the recognition of international labor laws (Hutchinson, 2012). As part of ensuring health and safety of all the employees, management should get into a discussion with employees in a forum as it would help to identify and fix chances of bullying in the workplace. Besides, it is within the mandate of the organizational management to institute an instruction and training program that enhances positive relationship among the organizational employees and get them exposed on how to handle uncertainty and conflicts that are associated with bullying in a workplace environment. Ultimately, the organization should be responsible for ensuring proper job description that outlines roles and duties of every employee as it would avert chances of conflicts in line of duties. Most of all, the organization should keep records of grievances and productivity of its employees since it is vital for the evaluation process and can be used to determine chances of disciplinary action and so on (McCormack., Djurkovic & Casimir, 2013). Conclusion Bullying is classified as one of the most serious vice that affects organizations internationally resulting into a huge loss to both the employer and employees. The paper has pointed out various forms of bullying and their significant impact to the organization. From health and physical injuries to low employee turnover, bullying leads to distress and coercion among the employees hence low workforce mobility. However, the paper has pointed out that bullying can be appropriately mitigated by having positive campaigns and proper policies that would ensure everything is harmonized to the later. Reference list: Quigg, A.-M. (2011).Bullying in the arts: Vocation, exploitation and abuse of power. Farnham, Surrey: Gower. Oade, A., & Palgrave Connect (Online service). (2009).Managing workplace bullying: How to identify, respond to and manage bullying behavior in the workplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Branch, S., Ramsay, S., & Barker, M. (2007). Contributing factors to workplace bullying by staff—an interview study. J. Manage. Organ, 13, 264-281. Brink, A. (2009). The bully at work: What you can do to stop the hurt and reclaim your dignity on the job. Sourcebooks, Inc.. Branch, S., Ramsay, S. and Barker, M. (2013) ‘Workplace Bullying, Mobbing and General Harassment: A Review’, International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 15, pp. 280-299. Devonish, D. (2013) ‘Workplace bullying, employee performance and behaviors’, Employee Relations, Vol. 35, No.6, pp.630-647. Galanaki, E. and Papalexandris, N. (2013) ‘Measuring workplace bullying in organizations’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.24, No. 11, pp.2107-2130. Hutchinson, J. (2012) ‘Rethinking Workplace Bullying as an Employment Relations Problem’, Vol.54, No. 5, pp.637-652. McCormack, D., Djurkovic, N. and Casimir, G. (2013) ‘Workplace bullying: the experiences of building and construction apprentices’, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, Vol.51, Issue 4, pp.406-420. Woodrow, C. and Guest, D. (2013) ‘When good HR gets bad results: exploring the challenge of HR implementation in the case of workplace bullying’, Human Resource Management Journal, doi:10.1111/1748-8583.12021. Read More