Bullying in the Workplace and Its Effects on a Company - Essay Example

BULLYING IN THE WORKPLACE AND ITS EFFECTS ON A COMPANY Executive Summary Workplace bullying is very common today, it entails repetition of irrational acts by a person directing them towards an employee or colleague; additionally, the basis of these actions is to hurt, embarrass or lower the victims morals or personality. Often, the people in top-level or intermediate management take advantage of their power and use it to bully those below them in the hierarchical structure of an organization or a company. Bullying of an employee affects their emotional stability and stature in a certain setting i.e. employees bullied in their workplaces feel helpless and discriminated affecting their overall output. Workplace bullying has appalling penalties for both the victim and the bully but the most affected is the company that facilitates or tolerates cases of bullying. According to research conducted last year in the United States, bullying costs businesses up to ten billion dollars annually, some with the knowledge of it and others without; extensively, this results from lawsuits, reduced throughput, absence, resignation of staff and low self-esteem. Workplace bullying also affects a company’s image and reputation but financial losses are the severest effects of workplace because they are recurring based on the victim’s effort to take action against a company or an individual bully. The company’s management should focus on creating the best working environment by observing all aspects of health and safety, and providing the necessary support and resources for the employees to avoid cases of workplace bullying. Moreover, the management of the corporation should implement strategies and policies to prevent the same i.e. job interviews should include assessments that focus on behavior for identification of potential bullies or negative attitudes that abide company standards and principles. Introduction Workplace bullying has become very common in the 21st Century in almost every business or corporate environment; however, very few people are able to identify situations of workplace bullying because they confuse and relate it to harassment. Largely, workplace bullying entails repetition of irrational acts by a person directing them towards an employee or colleague; logically, the basis of these actions is to hurt, embarrass or lower their morals or personality (AHRS 2014). Often, the people in top-level or middle level management take advantage of their power and use it to bully those below them in the hierarchical structure of an organization or a company. Bullying, whether it is at school or in the workplace, is ever discouraged because it affects the victim’s emotional stability and stature in a certain setting i.e. employees bullied in their workplaces feel helpless and discriminated affecting their overall output. Significantly, most of the supervisors and managers use aggression to get the best out of employees; however, aggression is different from bullying, but it depends on the depth of the action. The difference is that bullying entails a series of harsh actions directed at a single person while aggression mostly involves a single act to every employee. Additionally, some of the organizational leaders are strict and arduous because they want the best employee output, this does not make them workplace bullies, especially when they follow the right corporate protocols that one should observe in such situations. Generally, anyone can be a victim or promoter of bullying at the workplace, the employer, colleagues, administrators etc. There are cases where a certain employee does better, prompting co-workers to gang up against them; evidently, this is a form of workplace bullying commonly known as mobbing. Concurrently, workplace bullying does not always have to be about the supervisors mistreating their employees; in fact, it is part of the supervisor’s job to intervene and ensure that there is no form of bullying happening in the place of work. Origin of Workplace Bullying Naturally, when people hear about workplace bullying, the first thing that comes to mind is that the management is responsible; well, not in all cases, today even people out of the management have the capability to bully their leaders as a form of blackmail or a result of past harassment. The laws and policies against bullying have become so critical that for a manager to practice workplace bullying they must have support from other corporate executives or managerial colleagues. There are researchers that argue that for a person to have been bullied they must have done something to ask for it, and people’s personalities determine whether a person will be a bully or a victim. However, other corporate welfare specialists are against the theory since it promotes the idea of bullying the frail, acquiescent or unassertive employees by the popular, talented and envious ones. Most of the top-level managers execute workplace bullying based on the notion that they want the work done by the employees to be of high quality; they have high expectations but lack the necessary skills to perpetrate the same. Naturally, such leaders are socially unstable and have anger management issues leading to insecurity in the workplace. However, other factors such as lack of the necessary equipment or working conditions also promote workplace bullying so that the employees can be effectual despite the circumstances (AHRS 2014). Businesses and companies opt for this because an increase in diffidence among the employees results to increase in throughput and decrease in overall costs. This might work for some cases but most of the time the outcomes are high stress levels and negative perceptions of work due to the unreceptive environs. Common Targets of Workplace Bullying Despite the notion, that everyone is prone to workplace bullying, the most common targets have various traits and characters attached to their personalities and behavior in their corporate workplaces. Most of them seclude themselves from the popular and all round employees spending most of the time on their desk or the designated work location. They are well aware of the employee rights and once they feel that someone has crossed the line they refrain from complying with their demands. This facilitates the bullying making extortion and acts of revulsion easier for the bullies. Most of the victims usually have more knowledge and skills compared to the bullies, making them easy targets due to the envy from colleagues or their supervisors. The common form of bullying that the more knowledgeable employees experience is their leaders taking credit for what the targets have accomplished. The targets feel betrayed in such situations and once they try to approach they right people they become more exposed to the bullying. The honesty and ethical backgrounds also contribute to the bullying because they tend to be frank and have a desire to help the rest of the employees, which their colleagues perceive as show-off. Finally, the way that the targets respond to issues is very different from the rest of the employees i.e. if their leaders approach them with aggression, they reply or act with a lot of composure and submissiveness creating the wrong impression. Corporate Bullying There are different types of workplace bullying depending on the initiator, the victim and the cause of bullying hence creating a vast basis of classification. Any form of bullying subjected to an employee targets their physical, psychological, emotional, sexual and race aspects. Decisively, corporate bullying is not common in most countries due to the strictness depicted by the many laws and policies that are against any form of bullying; however, it is one of the most critical forms of bullying. Corporate bullying is usually part of a company’s culture and most of the employees or some of the managers realize this after working there for a certain period. The company or business sets high expectations for the employees, and failure to meeting these means harsh consequences such as deductions in their salary or no allowances. In other cases, the corporation uses the bullying against the employees by assuring them elevation if they go against their colleagues. Effects of Workplace Bullying on the Business Workplace bullying has appalling penalties for both the victim and the bully but the most affected is the corporation or business that accepts cases of bullying. Some of the businesses are promoters of corporate and other forms of bullying without the knowledge, but in the long last everything including the productivity and economic standards feel the pinch (Calvin 2012). According to research conducted last year in the United States, bullying costs businesses up to ten billion dollars annually, some with the knowledge of it and others without; additionally, this results from lawsuits, reduced throughput, absence, resignation of staff and low self-esteem. The idea of being a tough boss can be consequential, especially when exaggerated because some of the leaders tend to practice their strength on the quiet and submissive employees who experience injustice hence affecting the whole organization. Some of the common effects of bullying in an organization include the lack of meeting organization objectives, requests for transfers, criticisms and multiple punitive actions; resultantly, once a company has started experiencing the same, its corporate reputation depreciates and minimizes the chances of getting prominent stakeholders. Moreover, increased workplace-bullying affects the people-management skills hence the targets and victims lack a voice of airing out their concerns and needs under the fear that it will result to more bullying (Leveson 2013). This gets out of hand once a victim gets the chance to speak out people in the national organizations in charge of employee welfare; definitely, this leads to ethical reviews or other repercussions against such a corporation, it might even lead to its termination. Once some of the employees or managers decide to put their personal interests first by bullying others, this means that policies and procedures of the corporation are unsound hence anybody is free to break them anytime. This notion comes as a deficiency for the management of the organization especially if the bullies walk away without any retribution hence it is significant that every employee, together with the management takes reporting bullying or any form of harassment earnestly (Lutgen 2007). Moreover, after the current employees have left due to resignations and transfers the company gets to incur other expenses concerning new recruitment and training of new employees. Decisively, apart from affecting a company’s image and reputation the financial losses are the severest effects of workplace because they are recurring; for instance, once there is bullying, an employee files a lawsuit that has its legal costs then the occupational health and safety laws board intervenes requiring the company to pay a fine. The time spent dealing with the bullying issues is also costly to any corporation and a court order might require such a corporation to increase the insurance and workers premium (Calvin 2012). Generally, the effects of workplace bullying can only be negative and the repercussions or consequences affect a corporation more that individual bullies. Conclusion Preventing the effects of workplace bullying on a company happens only if the management initiates programs or training related to bullying and other matters such as harassment or forms of assault. This acts as a foundation for having clear programs against bullying for everyone in the company, from the top-level managers to the subordinate staff (Mandel 2014). Moreover, the company’s management should focus on creating the best working environment by observing all aspects of health and safety, and providing the necessary support and resources. Job interviews should include assessments that focus on behavior for identification of potential bullies or negative attitudes that abide company standards and principles (Lutgen 2007). Resolutely, prevention of any form of corporate bullying is less expensive compared to the actions that follow bullying making it known to all the personnel that any case of workplace bullying will lead to certain consequences. Generally, workplace bullying acts as a hindrance to development, production and success of a corporation so the management should put much effort in encouraging teamwork and other factors that are against the same. REFERENCES Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRS) (2014) Workplace Bullying: Good Business, Good Practice. Retrieved on 11 November 2014, from https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/info_for_employers/pdf/7_workplace_bullying.pdf Calvin, D (2012) Workplace Bullying Statutes and the Potential Effect on Small Businesses: Ohio State Entrepreneurial Business Law Journal, 7(1): 168-192, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/oseblj/files/2012/08/11-Calvin.pdf Leveson, V (2013) Workplace Bullying Can Cause Real Harm; Business, New Zealand Herald, Retrieved on 11 November 2014, from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11163170 Lutgen, P (2007) Workplace Bullying Causes, Consequences and Interventions: Department of Communication and Journalism, University of New Mexico, Retrieved on 11 November 2014, from http://ombudsfac.unm.edu/Article_Summaries/Workplace_Bullying_causes_consequences_interventions_8-2007.pdf Mandel, J (2014) Five Ways to Prevent Workplace Bullying: Orlando Business Journal. Retrieved 11 November, 2014, from http://www.workplacebullying.org/2014/08/07/orlando-biz/ Read More