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Workplace Bullying Hurts Both the Employee and Company

 

There’s a saying that bullies in the workplace are the same bullies one would have encountered at school, only much older.  In today’s competitive job market and working environment, more and more employees have become victims of work place bullies.  A nationwide survey sponsored by the Workplace Bullying Institute indicated that 27 percent of workplace respondents said that they were bullied at work, while another 21 percent reported to having witnessed a co-worker being abused or bullied in the workplace.

Needless to say, workplace bullying is painful for employees who became a victim of a work place bully.   Being subjected to humiliating situations and abusive bully behaviors are also detrimental to a person’s mental health.  In worst cases, it can even lead to suicide.

Addressing the issue of workplace bullying is not an easy task.  However, it is imperative for companies to learn how to deal with bullying and avoid such instances from happening in their organizations.  Turning a blind eye to such negative behaviors and not imposing policies covering bullying or having programs on anti-bullying, will eventually affect the company’s bottomline, productivity and employee retention.

What’s critical is for the organization’s leaders to accept accountability and have ownership over the issue, in order to combat workplace bullying.

To read more about the subject, click here.

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Here’s a Simple Principle on How to Tackle Being Bullied at Work

There’s this interesting article written by Elizabeth Cotton in The Conversation, where she listed down a simple principle, along with practical steps that a worker can follow in their battle against workplace bullying.  Cotton’s article is set against the backdrop of an endemic culture of bullying in the medical field, but the tips that she mentioned cuts across industries and generations.

One of the points that Cotton raised is that everyone has a hand in bullying.  It’s not only the work place bully or the victim who are involved, but other people who witnessed the abusive behavior contribute to the situation.  This reportedly includes politicians who would cut budget meant to launch programs to deal with bullying.  Whatever the role may be, Cotton said we all play a part in making bullying an established norm at work.

The article went on to describe how bullying works and some of the coping mechanisms that victims would typically follow such as withdrawal or joining forces with other people with the hope that it would afford some form of protection against the bullying.  What’s interesting is Cotton’s simple principle on how to deal with bullying at work.  Cotton wrote, “Tackling bullying requires sweating the small stuff and taking some small practical steps.”

It may sound simple, but it entails a lot of courage and conviction, especially for a bullying victim.  Still, the steps Cotton enumerated are things that can help to support the victim and help them regain a little bit of their humanity, while they contemplate the next big steps in dealing with work place bullies.

To learn about Elizabeth Cotton’s practical tips to deal with bullying, click here.