Bullying at Workplace - Article Example

Bullying at Workplace This literature discusses various theoretical and conceptual views on the topic Bullying at Work place and has tried to analyze it. As per the Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary fourth India edition bullying means: “frightening or hurting weaker person.” In an organization bullying can be from managers co-workers, or subordinates.” Bullying may be characterized as offensive, intimidatory, malicious or insulting behaviour an abuse or misuse of power through means intended to undermine, humiliate ,denigrate or injure the recipient.” (Advice Leaflet – Bullying and Harassment at Work: Guidance for Employees). From various articles published in this subject it can conclude that bullying has to be seen from two perspectives. One is from organizational perspective and the other from individual perspective. However the theories are mainly focused on individual who suffer due to bullying at work place. It is difficult to predict the occurrence of bullying in a typical manner. As a concept bullying occur due to various reasons varies from person to person and from situation to situation. However all the articles and cases in the subject suggest that the bullies (who engage in bullying)enjoys certain authority and the bully perceives himself certain inadequacies with respect to the targets (whom suffer from bullying).Bully feels the need of exercising control of the situation. Usually the above average performer in a group he is leading suffers bullying. How to distinguish that one suffer from bullying at work place? All the research articles referred for this study suggests that bullying affects the performance level of a person negatively. When an individual is treated at a work place in an humiliating and unfair manner, a genuine case of bullying can be observed there. There are various styles of bullying. Some of the common styles of bullying described in various article s are describe d below. 1) One who suffer from bullying given inconsistent instructions or inconsistent goals are set for them. 2) Bullying is exercised by singling out persons 3) Individuals are taken off from the responsibilities they enjoy or impossible deadlines are set for them 4) Those who suffer from bullying often get criticized in public .Or maliciously crafted rum ours about them are spread. 5) Ignore their achievements or show little concerns only for their performance and always keep them undermined or sidelined. 6) The recipients of bullying suffer personal insult or have to face disciplinary actions for unreasonable matters. Bullying can be done either openly or in covert manner .Activities like public criticism, humiliation etc are done in a open manner while activities like spreading rum ours or relieving of responsibilities etc are done in a covert manner. Another view on bullying relates to Marx Weber theory. Marx and Weber identified two categories of people live in the society namely bourgeois and preliterate. As per bullying theory also two categories identified as the superior or powerful people and the subordinate or weaker persons. As per Marx and Weber theory the society consist of two classes ,one having means of production and the other one having no means of production . Those with means of production tend to bully those with no means of production which in turns lead to struggle between the two classes .According to them this kind of bullying causes unrest in the society. These observations of Marx and Weber have significance in the modern work place where bullying by the authorities on the weaker section causes unrest in the organization. Effects of bullying in an organization Earlier in this topic it is mentioned that bullying has two dimensions viz. from the organization point of view and the employees’ point of view. From employers’ point of view bullying results in unproductive working environment, loss of performing employees etc. As mentioned earlier most of the time the performing employees suffer from bullying. Loss of good employees affects the overall performance of the organization in the long run and hence employers should take take serious view on the occurrence of bullying. However individuals who suffer from bullying need to take immediate steps to alleviate its effects as it can be dangerous to peaceful living. When one suffer from bullying it will reflect upon his performance level as it tend to decline and feel unrest at work place. Constant bullying bring in serious stress and related problems such as headache,muscle pain ,pain in the joints, ulcers , irritable bowel syndrome , nausea andother psychological disorders such as sleeplessness, wild swinging of moods, suicide tendency etc. Challenges in encountering bullying: There are certain challenges in encountering bullying. According to various views in this regard the persons suffer from bullying tend to lose his strength when exposed to bulling conditions by the time he recognize the situation. Bullying is not a one violent reaction by the superior but it is an accumulation of small incidents over a period of time. Individuals are singled out and most of the time they found it difficult to distinguish between bullying and genuine case of inadequacy in their performance. Those who suffer bullying scared to react to the situation as they fear job loss. Bully usually shows lot of expertise in off balancing the victim as to escape any counter reaction. According to few articles in this regard bully highlights small mistakes and belittle the performance of their victims so an outsider find it difficult to sense the case of bullying . The victims of bullying either assigned with too little responsibility or given impossible goals to achieve intended to affect their confidence level. As the victims become weaker and weaker after having exposed to these conditions over a period of time they become unable to resist the situation. Most of the time their complaints become feeble and it will go unnoticed. As the bullies are very smart to hide their tactics it will be difficult to know any others in the group suffer the same difficulties of bullying. Also there are only very little provision in the legal frame work in many countries to submit a direct complaint in tribunal against bullying as the bullying in many cases not become physical violence but psychological afflict. Few suggestions regarding handling bullying: Most of the articles in this regard establish a common view in handling bullying. Few suggestions are listed below. 1) It is important that the victims of bullying recognize that they suffer bullying. 2) The main problem is victims tend to remain isolated. It is important to see whether anyone else in the group suffer the same. 3) Always try to seek the help of somebody who can be reliable. It can be colleagues or an outside authority like advising agencies in this regard. 4) Employee unions or employee representing organizations are always helpful in such situations. Try to take a membership in such groups 5) Even though it may not be possible to approach directly a n employee tribunal , there are ample provisions are available to protect racial, gender ,age discriminations in many countries in their legislative acts. 6) In fact employers have the responsibility on health and safety of the employees include work related stress and its effects. Efforts can be made to bring in notice the case bullying in front of the employers if a supervisor or manager causes the problem 7) It is a must to keep a diary to note down the incidents from time to time so as to understand the nature of bullying. By analyzing the incidents it will become easy to handle the bully otherwise the victim tend to confuse about counter action. 8) Talk directly to the bully can result in improvement of the situation in some cases. If he is not listening take up the matter with bullie’ s immediate boss or the employer 9) If the victim suffer physical illness as a result of bullying approach a consultant 10) Self belief is always important. The victim should be self assured but should not be arrogant while dealing the problem 11) Personality development training such as improving assertive skill and stresss management skills will be helpful to deal the situation Comparative reviews of two articles on work place Bullying: Name of two interesting articles reviewed are: a) Why should we listen to employee accounts ? by Andreas P.D,Liefooghe and Kate Mackenzie Dayey b)By any other name American perspective on work place Bullying by Loraleigh Keashley and Karen Jagatic. While the first article speaks on their research conducted in UK and the second article based on various literatures published with respect to work place hostility. a)Why should we listen to employee accounts ? There are a number of articles and other publications in the topic work place bullying have been published .However this particular article make distinction because of its contents. According to its authors “as opposed to other contributions, we will not formulate a theoretical explanation in the strict positive sense . Rather we use wider theoretical positioning of both critical and post modern body of thought as a guide to chart some of the explanations that hitherto have not been heard.” A large section of this article is apportioned to mention the survey responses (conducted in an organisation UK Highstreet bank (banco) and explanatory commentary of the findings. A group of employees are surveyed as to observe their reaction and understanding about bthe term bullying at finding clearly justify the authors claim that “work plce. Summaay of the survey explanation that hitherto have not been heard”. Certain things mentioned in the summary like employees tend to relate bullying at work to that in school context, ambiguity felt about work place bulling by the respondents, organizational practices causes bullying according to some participants etc., are interesting. Authors in their explanation of research findings view that “as the term bullying is widely applied in the work place, we need to be aware of how it is being used. Employees are clearly using the term in a very different way from researchers employers, and other interest groups.” It is mentioned in the article that the group which was surveyed did not consider inter personal bullying at work rather tend discuss on organizational systems. The participants also do not view themselves as victims of bullying as individuals but they consider themselves as a group of victims .When they feel not heard of their grievances by the management they consider themselves got bullied. Speaking out the grievances in the appraisal process many employees consider may result in damaging their career. The author try to say that post modernism and critical management approach are helpful for them to justify “why it is important to be open to those who seen as powerless…….. To uncover the interests that may be served by different definitions of bullying” When you take a overall view about this article one can say this article is helpful to stretch the insights of researchers in the subject work place bullying. And this article is relevant because it differ from traditional approach. b) By any other name American perspective on work place Bullying This article is an in depth research on the subject work place bullying and highly useful for whom concentrate in the subject. As mentioned by the author “in this chapter we have sought to identify and share relevant concepts and research from the N. American literatures on work place aggression and abuse.” What makes this article useful mainly because of its systematic approach on the subject and clarity of explanation? Even though this study is restricted to N. American literature, the content has overall relevance from the point of view of research perspective. This article systematically approached various aspects of bullying such as behavioural, hostile relationship, influence of power, organizational culture etc. Around 13 to 14 definition about work place bullying is included in the subheading “the labelling and definitional dilemma” which is helpful to understand how different researchers view the subject. By citing examples work place shooting by Pierre Le Brun who shot 4 co workers April 1999 and few other examples the behavioural aspects of work place bullying is explained in this article. According to this article the culprit in this example was constantly bullied at work place which leads him to do the crime. This article makes the comment that such ‘’physical violence was merely the tip of the ice berg” concerning hostile behaviour at work (Newman and Baron 1997).” This article mentioned about a survey conducted by The Northwest National Life insurance survey (1993) that one out of four are bullied at the work place. few more statistics are given to emphasize the occurrence of bullying as 59 percentage of persons admitted suffer from bullying and 20 percentage about five or more emotionally abusive behaviour they suffer (Keashly and Jagatic20000. The article says that “it is clear from these different operationalisations of incidence that hostile work place behaviours of a variety of forms, as well as behaviour identified as bullying are notably part of many peoples working experience in N. America” This article reveals the difference concepts about hostile relation ship about various publications on the subject. Certain literatures do not consider persistent hostility instead they have taken into account of “single incidents or aggregate level of aggression.” But few literatures in this regard concentrated “exclusively on persistent hostility .The article discusses also duration of hostility by citing few survey publications. A web based survey reveals average exposure to bullying 16.5 months reported. This article aslso look in to “patterning and escalation of the hostility. For this section the article provide a number of literary views on the subject. It is viewed here, few articles in this subject do not distinguish between bully and the victim but few literatures give clear distinction between the actor 9 bully) and the target (victim). Anther aspect of the subject that the measurement of aggression is discussed in detail here Few interesting observations “Namie’s 2000……….77percentage of the actors were also having harassed others. ‘ This article finds that few literatures in the subject differ in the aspect of intention of actor to harm the victim. Few researchers think that there is a design and premeditation in bullying. But others feel it happened because of indifference or neglect. According to this article is a continuously debated subject. The influence of power is also discussed in this article. Article says “power is embedded in the manner in which authors discuss actor motive as well as the vulnerability or protective factors for targets.” Organizational culture and its influence on bullying at work is also discussed in this article. Article finds that there is indeed organisational culture related to relate to bullying but the direction of the relation is somewhat vague. “Effects of exposure to hostile work place behaviour” is also discussed in this article. Observation from many literatures in this topic are given. In the conclusion this article observes that” these hostile behaviours are more frequent, and if persistent can have profound negative implications for individual and organizational well being.” (Einarsen, Stale., Hoel, Helge., Zapf, Dieter., and Cooper, Cary. L. 2002). Works Cited Advice Leaflet – Bullying and Harassment at Work: Guidance for Employees. acas. http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=797 (accessed April 25, 2007). Einarsen, Stale., Hoel, Helge., Zapf, Dieter., and Cooper, Cary. L. 2002. Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace. Questia. Faster and Easier Research. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=108077818 (accessed April 25, 2007). Bullied at Work? Don’t Suffer in Silence. 2007. Trades Union Congress (TUC). www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/rights_bullyatwork.cfm (accessed April 25, 2007). Read More