Workplace Bullying Definition
Workplace bullying, in simpler terms, is when a working individual experiences any form of abuse, be it verbal, physical, social or psychological, by his or her employer, manager, or fellow employee at the workplace.
Every employee wants to feel comfortable and safe in the workplace. Workplace bullying can not just affect their overall productivity but also can ruin your company’s reputation in the market.
You can literally lose your top-performing employees due to negative behaviour or harassment at work–even if they really like their job.
Here, we will discover:
Understanding Workplace Bullying Meaning!
Workplace bullying refers to the scenario wherein a person always harms or mistreats other employees, causing physical or emotional pain to them.
Workplace bullying can occur in all types of work environments, including offices, stores, cafes, restaurants, workshops, community groups, and government organizations.
Workplace bullying can occur against individuals who are volunteers, work experience students, interns, apprentices, as well as casual and permanent employees.
Needless to say, there are several legal resources for workplace bullying and certain forms of workplace bullying become criminal offences.
Types of Workplace Bullies
As already mentioned above, there are different forms of workplace bullies. Let’s take a closer look at each of them:
Insulting
This form of bullying typically originates from individuals in a position of authority. They might shout at staff or exploit fear as a means of managing them. A significant number of these bullies believe that they will face minimal or no repercussions for their behaviour due to their normally superior status.
Aggressive Behaviour
These individuals engage in behaviour where they offer remarks with utmost anger. Some even tend to harm others physically in the heat of the moment or harm them by employing caustic remarks without being aware of the fact that they are offending people.
Scheming Bully
This happens when people behave pleasant towards the employee in person, they tend to insult them when they are not around. They also adopt strategies such as engaging in gossip and disseminating false stories about the employee.
If the bully holds a managerial position, they may use their authority by imposing unfavourable work schedules on an employee, excluding them from crucial meetings, or burdening them with numerous challenging and time-consuming assignments without providing adequate direction on how to accomplish them.
Unintentional Bully
The majority of these bullies are oblivious to the extent of the unfairness or severity with which they are treating others. A significant number of individuals engage in impulsive and unfiltered discourse, neglecting to consider the consequences of their remarks before verbalizing them.
HR managers and employers must encourage their employees who are being subjected to inadvertent bullying to communicate or report the incident promptly. Here is when a big question arises– how can companies address or stop workplace bullying?
Let’s find the same in the next section!
How to Stop Workplace Bullying?
Certain bullies deliberately single out particular employees with the intention of insulting, demeaning, humiliating, or provoking them. Some individuals purposefully engage in bullying behaviour, potentially causing harm to their colleagues unknowingly. If you want to completely remove such instances from your workplace, here are the two most effective things you can do:
Build a Policy
The majority of workplaces implement a policy regarding how colleagues interact with each other. You too must design and implement one such policy in your organization. Nevertheless, drafting a comprehensive policy that explicitly outlines unacceptable, harassing activities is a means of recording the regulations.
Furthermore, it is imperative to establish a comprehensive protocol outlining the repercussions that would ensue in the event of a violation of your organization’s anti-bullying policy.
You can share the policy with every new hire so that everyone knows from the very beginning what is considered inappropriate and abusive in your workplace.
Similar to a mission statement, this document can function as an exhibition of the company’s principles and disposition towards its employees. It can establish an atmosphere that has absolutely no tolerance for workplace bullying.
Have a Plan to Address Bullying
Once you have established a clear policy and ensured that both you and your employees are well-informed on the relevant laws, it is quite probable that someone, someday will step forward to report an instance of workplace bullying.
You must be all ready and have a proper plan in place to manage such cases. Forbes reports that there ought to exist a clearly defined and easily available workplace bullying procedure for lodging complaints, particularly in the context of cyberbullying inside remote work environments.
Establish this plan in advance to guarantee that no bullying case goes unnoticed or unresolved. It will also help you to make sure that people who break the regulations are held responsible. This can involve issuing a written warning to first-time offenders, followed by a suspension if they repeat it again.
Needless to say, termination is the final step when dealing with a persistent bully or someone engaging in physical violence. It is advisable to seek guidance from an employment lawyer in such situations.