Abstract
Workplace bullying has attracted increased attention during the last decade due to severe consequences on employee’s health and corporate reputations. This research paper investigates the anti-bully protective legislation laws around the world including the United States. In addition, for the purpose of the research paper, the term for the person the bully bullies is “target” rather than “victim”. The paper will examine the extent of workplace “target” status from personality traits and the effects on health. Research will conclude the lack of management skills dealing when bullying, and the role of human resources in eliminating the problem. The characteristics and behaviors of a workplace bully are defined, methods and listing possible solutions. In conclusion, current laws and policies are not in place to protect the target in the workplace.
Bullying and Workplace Violence
Introduction
School, offices, phones, Facebook, MySpace, internet blogs, the news, movies, you name it you will see a bully of one type or another. It’s been happening for years; we just never made such a big deal of it. There is an immense concern regarding the negative use of communication. Targets of bullying at work anticipate the workday with dread and a sense of impending doom. Even though the workplace ensures high security, some employees tend to get away and steal through on a state of high alert. The victims of violence within workplace premises feel ashamed and vulnerable since they are unable to protect themselves or retaliate in any sort of manner. Bullying within workplace is a type of social hostility on job that goes beyond simple incivility and is marked by the characteristic features of frequency, intensity, duration, and power disparity (Burke, Cooper & Clarke, 2011, 250-251).
The Research paper on Workplace bullying 7
... several reasons why a person may be targeted. People that become the targets for workplace bullying are often independent thinkers and do not ... pinpoint specific reasons for workplace bullying but it is certain that there will continue to be research on this ethical problem. ... of the employee(s)” (Safety & Health Assessment & Research for Prevention, 2011). It can occur over the period of ...
Discussion
Bullying and workplace violence is considered as the key issue for maintaining a safer and healthier environment within social and organizational premises. Legislations have already been made in United States for the safety of workers and it includes protecting from sexual harassment, discrimination, harassment, assault, and stalking. Nevertheless, the employees engage themselves in non unprofessional communication that ultimately leads to verbal abuse, intimidation and ultimately leads to bullying and violence. Due to this negative aspect, the employees undergo major health problems or have no option other than to quit the job. Many times employees have no alternative than to commit homicide at work or suicide. This is due to the fact that the pressure on the employee continues to build up and thus he needs to take his frustrations out on either someone or ultimately himself. Identifying workplace bullying usually takes many forms and thus for this purpose isn’t the easiest one to identify. It is mainly because it happens at times when the coworker or a supervisor is out of sight. Bullying and violence in the workplace is problem that can seriously hurt or even kill employees and customers. Violence can affect the reputation of a company and permanently damage the lives of the victims and their families (Burke, Cooper & Clarke, 2011, 250-251).
The Workplace Bully
All employers should have policies in the workplace controlling and prohibiting the workplace bully. More often than not, the companies have policies for sexual discrimination, harassment, or diversity training. According to the Workplace Bullying Institute’s Web site, bullying is more prevalent in today’s workplaces than sexual harassment and racial discrimination. Even the best companies will have the occasional office bully and if you employ human beings, then even the best employers will have the occasional case. Corporations lack the policies or laws to protect the target, and consequently, corporate reputations are declining (Doerner & Lab, 2011, 350-351).
The Essay on Employee attitudeOrganizational Behavior
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Bully Definitions
The definition of workplace bullying varies due to the many extended checklists of characteristics and behaviors. Bullying can be described as persistent unwelcome behavior, mostly using unwarranted or invalid criticism, nitpicking, fault-finding, also exclusion, isolation, being singled out and treated differently, being shouted at, humiliated or monitored excessively. In the workplace, bullying usually focuses on unclear or fictional allegations of over a long period. A bully generally targets an individual “is distinguished by a pattern of deliberate, hurtful, and menacing behaviors”. This could comprise of shoving, pushing, threatening, and invading an individual’s personal space or standing to close. Frequent examples of bullying are conduct that intimidates, humiliates, and or undermines a person and repeated over time. This behavior is repetitive or part of an ongoing scheme and persistent, behavior that will not stop unless management takes an initiative (Donaldson-Feilder, Lewis & Yarker, 2011, 200-201).
International Laws
In the United States the law, regarding bullying is in its infancy and has lagged behind other countries. International, workplace bullying has been long been recognized and is a well-established corporate misbehavior. Workplace bullying legislation in other countries like Sweden and the only nation in the globe with statute law particular to bullying contain provisions on measures against bullying at work and adopted September 21, 1993. The act places the burden on employers to plan and organize work to prevent victimization and to make it clear to employees that workplace bullying is not acceptable. The company is also accountable for the early signs of detection regarding bullies’, prompt counter measures to deal with them and making support available to employees who are targets. Many other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Norway, have introduced regulatory responses to workplace bullying. Effective August 15, 2005, the state of South Australia implemented new workplace bullying laws, dubbed the “Safe Work” regulations.
The Research paper on Target Behavior Speech Articulation Children
Articulation Disorders In Children Articulation Disorders In Children Essay, Research Paper The articulation screening process begins during the kindergarten and first elementary grades. The screening is a broad sweeping attempt to identify children with articulation, or pronounciation, problems. The screening process uses dialogues between the tester and the child to observe articulation, overall ...
Workplace bullying, costs British industry more than 2£ billion and 19£ million lost working days each year, according to research by University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. The office bully destroys productivity and targets of bullying will take extra days off work each year, and does result in damage to the employer’s corporate reputation and in the future lawsuits (Einarsen et al, 2010, 250-251).
United States Legislation
The first attempt at adopting anti-bullying legislation in the United States came forward by an attorney and law professor at Suffolk University. His name is David Yamada; the founder of the New Workplace Institute, he wrote legislation and working to get anti-bully legislation passed in various states. In 1999 Yamada states:
“Anti-bullying statutes have been on the books in Europe for more than a decade and realized that there was nothing in the law to protect the victims in the United States. Besides discrimination law, the only other possible legal protection for victims is to file a personal injury lawsuit for the “intentional infliction of emotional distress. The courts interpreting those claims “call for the employer conduct to be so severe and the emotional distress to be so severe that the typical bullied employee cannot meet that standard” (Fisher& Lab, 2010, 600-601).
Since 2003, only eleven states has considered legislation introduced under the title “The Healthy Workplace Bill” and no more than 7 countries legislatures currently are discussing passing bullying bills for this year. The nature of the legislation is to stop workplace bullying but the law has not yet passed in any state. The states that have introduced “The Healthy Workplace Bill” include California, Oregon, Massachusetts, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoman, Washington, New Jersey, New York, and Montana. Many bullied employees quit and do not sue the company or bully because bullying is not technically against the law. Statutes prohibit sexual harassment, racial harassment, and physical assault at work, but specialists in the field say that unless a rampaging boss boils over into one of those areas, he has, in a legal sense, done nothing wrong (Griffin& Moorhead, 2011, 300-301).
Bullying in the Schools
Bullying and intimidation are a major social problem in many cultures. Since it is widely considered immature and mean to perpetrate violent or threatening acts, it is not surprising that incidents of bullying are usually found among young people where they gather to socialize. Schools are a hotbed of bullying activity, and many children are victimized. Bullying has two key components: repeated ...
United States Statistics
Approximately five years ago researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan reported that one in six Unite States workers experienced bullying on the job, while business consultant and anti-bullying trainer Richard Wellins believes that “one in 10 leaders across the country cross the line into bullying their employees”. A major problem with bullying is that few people see their own behavior as excessive. You may see someone as a bully, but the office bully may genuinely believe that his or her behavior is merely outspoken, forthright, or unwilling to compromise.
Affects on Health
Workplace bullying is often subtle but can destroy a target’s health, confidence, and career. Companies have good reasons to be worried about workplace bullies and are beginning to recognize and analyze the costs associated with stress, burnout, and depression at the workplace. Surveys conducted by the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute of Bellingham, Washington, nearly 90 percent of those targeted at work end up losing or leaving their jobs, while more than 40 percent of them suffer from clinical depression, and a quarter contemplate violence or suicide. The employers end up paying out millions of dollars to treat stressed and depressed employees or train their replacements and deal with all sorts of morale and productivity issues. Even minor aggressive acts are economically unhealthy for an organization. In a recent study from the University of North Carolina, 53 percent of workers that were targets of minor aggression stated that they were less productive, 37 percent stated their commitment decreased, and 22 percent of the targeted workers decreased their work effort.
Bully Values
A bully has high values in their own minds that contradict the rational corporate employee. A high value for a bully would be secrecy and the target whose sins are real or imagined added up on a scorecard for immediate cries for action. Another high value for the bully is in the persistence of bullying toward the target. According to Matt Witherridge operations manager at Andrea Adams Trust in the United Kingdom, which specializes in workplace bullying, “In isolation, many of the events that make up workplace bullying can be trivial – simply a remark here and there,” he says. “The important thing about bullying is its persistence”. Steven M. Paskoff, a business consultant and author of ”Teaching Big Shots to Behave and Other Human Resource Challenges’’, says bosses bully because the internal culture considers it the norm. ”Companies always ask me what they can do to make these people ‘get it,”’ he says of the times he has been called in to help curb a bully’s behavior. ”But it is not as if these individuals do not understand that their bullying behavior is inappropriate. They realize but do not pay attention. For one reason or another, they believe the rules do not apply to them”.
The Term Paper on Supervisors And Manager Employees Organization Mrwmd
I'd give you an A, not many mistakes. Just check on a few things. ORGANIZSATION CULTUREATMRWMD: DOES IT SUPPORT THE ORGANIZSATION MISSION? Table of contents? Introduction 1. The Monterey Regional Waste Management District (MRWMD) had humble beginnings in 1951 when forward thinking county officials had a vision of a better waste management system for the Monterey Peninsula, ending the era of ...
Target Personality
Do behaviors or personality characteristics of a target increase the likely hood of becoming a target of bullying? Targets of bullying are described as conscientious, paranoid, rigid, and compulsive, lack coping skills, conflict management skills, and even shy. The targets lack coping, conflict management skills, and are shy. Personality traits of those victims that provoke anger in others might be different to those that cause some victims to be vulnerable when faced with aggressiveness. Perhaps these differences relate to whether the victim experiences bullying. Stеle Einarsen, PhD, is a psychologist at the University of Bergen in Norway and has researched bullying among a variety of Norwegian personnel, including clerks, teachers, electricians, hotel and restaurant employees, psychologists, health-care workers and industrial workers.
Dr. Heniz Leymann, the leader in mobbing research, on the other hand, strongly opposes the idea that the personality of an individual can predispose them to become targets of workplace bullying. He argued that it is meaningless to suggest personality causes bullying as targets but develop changes in personality due to mobbing; the symptoms of bullying are misunderstood and interpreted as being that which the individual brings into the organization in the first place. Leymann uses the term mobbing verses the English term bullying. Targets described as cooperative chumps, bold, the best and brightest employees who are creative, hard-working individuals who are merely oblivious to office politics. For example, teamwork is a quintessential part of the business environment and incentives offered for the most productive group. The opportunistic bully takes advantage of his co-worker’s goodwill, and reaps more than his fair share of the reward.
The Essay on Manager Office Work Contract
I have always been an overanxious person, and I used to finish everything hurriedly-until I made a serious mistake in my workplace. Now I am a lot more careful and patient about what I do. I worked in a Japanese bank in China before I came to America, and my job was dealing with the customers' documents such as contracts. The incident happened at one Friday afternoon five years ago. I did ...
Written by Bob a city engineer he states so many people have told me, “Oh, just let it go. Just let it go.” What is interesting is people really do not understand or comprehend the depths of the bully’s evilness until it happens to them. Then they are shocked. I had people come up to me at work and say,
“Bob, we thought that it was just a personality conflict between you and so-and-so but now we understand.”
In addition, it is very hard for somebody looking from the outside in to try to resolve the situation or totally understand it.
Manager Questions
Distinguishing the substantial consequences of adult bullying is a crucial step in influencing executive makers of the policy to be cautious about the phenomenon. Managers asking themselves questions such as “What does it feel like to be bullied?” “Is it really that bad?” Answering such questions both theoretically and using common sense is vital to finding solutions for managers. Training consultant on workplace conflict, Walter Brennan accounted bullies as “vampires” who suck the self-confidence from people and telling targets to stand up to, the bully normally does not work. It is important that the managers must make it easier for the targets to report the bully and be aware what is going on around them instead of hiding away in ivory towers surrounded by Excel spreadsheets.
Bully Gender
Who bullies more men or women? The Campaign against Workplace Bullying announced the results of the United States Hostile Workplace Survey in the year 2000. The findings describe how cruel tactics of interpersonal control adversely influences the health and economic livelihood of many United States workers. The 1335 anonymous respondents completed the online survey between March and May 2000 at the campaign’s website, bullybusters.org. The self-selected research sample of bullied individuals is the largest in the world. The findings were that men and women were equally likely to bully others. Women target women in 84% of cases, men target women in 69% of cases (Kerr, 2010, 200-201).
Methods of Bullying
Bullying and harassment does not always occur face to face, and can be in the form of written communication such as using e-mail. An example is, ‘Julie’, experienced midwife, having worked within the same maternity unit for 15 years. While Julie was on maternity leave, her manager asked to have Julie’s e-mails diverted to her own e-mail account without permission and all posts whether private or work related and the e-mails were opened by the manager. Julie only found out about the diversion of the e-mails from an external source. Although allowed, corporate e-mails diverted without the prior permission still constitutes bullying simply because Julie did not know. Harassing phone conversations or offensive voicemail messages, notes left on desks or monitors as well as checking on work are other forms of workplace bullies. Bullying and harassment makes people feel anxious and humiliated, and may cause feelings of anger and frustration which may in turn he manifested as signs of stress and the inability to cope. Loss of self-confidence, self-esteem and stress caused by bullying or harassment can lead to job insecurity, long-term physical illness, and absence from work, and can result in employees leaving their job. When an employee is a target at work, performance is affected and relationships in the workplace suffer as a result.
Tactics to Deal with Bullies
A strategic solution for employees who deal with office bullies will consist of confronting them, using humor, reporting, or transferring. Try the “finger-on-the-lip” habit when provoked because it literally closes your mouth and the bully thinks that you are thinking and it helps you not say anything inappropriate. Many times, you can make a friend out of a bully. Another tactic is to rally your coworkers for a little public payback just for the office bully providing that the bully is not your boss. When the time is right, the bully has something at stake, and his boss is around, start raising doubts about his project’s success. Have your coworkers pile on, one by one and later, when his boss is not around, outline the bully’s choices for him. He can either become a team player or see each of his projects filibustered and he will back down. Also, build your confidence by questioning the bully and taking the initiative to question him. The old adage is true: if you stand up to a bully, he will back down. You cannot wage combat at the water cooler, however, or engage in a tug- of war of the wills. You have to learn new skills to deal with an office bully and like it or not the target is in a serious competitive game. During a bully outburst, remain calm and confident. If your heartbeat doubles when someone raises their voice, try new ways to restore your blood pressure to normal levels.
Solutions to Workplace Bullies
Solutions to workplace bullies for businesses would include the incorporation of bully policies along with sexual harassment policies or racial discrimination. In every business, an anti-bullying policy and the consequences should be in the employee handbook, a clearly defined workplace bully, and the bully culture. Workplace bully training that is included every year with ethnics, sexual harassment, or telling trade secrets. Videos that corporations spend millions showing office situations of harassment and ethics will also include the office bully. Realizing what bullying undergoes, consequently, is essential for prompting change. The legal implications involved and the regulations clearly written in employee handbook or part of corporate culture.
Human Resources Role
Are human resource managers taking action against the workplace bully and protecting their targets? Professor Charlotte Rayner, University of Portsmouth Business School has conducted major studies for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and trade union Unison on workplace bullying. She says human resource departments are ill equipped to deal with it.
“Workplace bullying is very damaging to productivity because it stops people doing their jobs properly, but it is difficult to spot, because the classic symptoms involve the bully not doing something, such as not saying good morning, or withholding information to make it difficult for someone to do their job. Look for long-term sickness, a bad back or irritable bowel syndrome brought on by stress. Be alert for offices where staff are on edge and scared of being reprimanded. You need to catch bullying early, if someone is not given support to do their job, creativity is stifled and they can’t take risks. That’s a recipe for organizational stagnation” (Namie et al, 2011, 180-181).
Motivators or Menaces
How can managers detect the differences between motivators and menaces? There are a number of differences between strong managers, motivators, and bullies. Managers and motivators encourage team members to get better, whereas a bullying manager or supervisor enforces targets and ideas without discussion or explanation. The bullying scenario worsens when a team fails to achieve standards of performance. A strong manager and good motivator will identify individuals who are struggling and provide support. A bully will put team members under unfair pressure to conform by ridiculing, shouting, demoting, or teasing. The most common reason for the failure to address workplace bullying was management’s unwillingness to acknowledge the problem and the prevailing management style. “A lack of management skills was cited in our research as the top factor contributing to bullying at work,” says Jo Causon, director of public affairs at the Chartered Management Institute. Causon cites stress and a suspicious atmosphere as evidence of poor management and a breeding ground for bullying.
Many office bullies are talented workers whose behavior interferes with the operations of the company. Unfortunately, bullying is not a childhood behavior restricted to the schoolyard and those terrifying moments when the teacher is not looking but in the workplace. Bullies can and do reach positions of responsibility and power, perhaps because their aggressive behavior is perceived as management strength. Bullies are here to stay and eliminating workplace bullies would be successful if specific corporate and legal laws identified and corporations actively participate. The dispute amongst bad and good company is not that good employers do not have cases of harassment but that the good employers have a policy in place and will look into and deal thoroughly, fairly and promptly, with reported incidences of office bullying.
Conclusion
All employers have a duty to provide a safe system of working. If the employee’s health suffers because of the bullying, he or she may be able to argue that the employer breached this statutory duty. Bullying is the single most important social issue of today in the workplace, homes, schools, and neighborhoods. Ideally, all managers trained to deal confidently with bullying and the workplace bully and until this happens, the problem is unlikely to improve.
References
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Doerner, William & Lab, Steven. (2011).Victimology. Elsevier. ISBN: 1437734863, 9781437734867. Pp 350-351.
Donaldson-Feilder, Emma. Lewis, Rachel & Yarker, Joanna. (2011).Preventing Stress in Organizations: How to Develop Positive Managers. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN: 1119996090, 9781119996095. Pp 200-201.
Einarsen, Ståle et al. (2010).
Bullying and harassment in the workplace: developments in theory, research, and practice. CRC Press. ISBN: 1439804893, 9781439804896. Pp 250-251.
Fisher, Bonnie & Lab, Steven. (2010).
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Griffin, Ricky & Moorhead, Gregory. (2011).
Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Cengage Learning. ISBN: 0538478136, 9780538478137. Pp 300-301.
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Workplace Violence: Planning for Prevention and Response. Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN: 1856176983, 9781856176989. Pp 200-201.
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The Bully-Free Workplace: Stop Jerks, Weasels, and Snakes From Killing Your Organization. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN: 1118067290, 9781118067291. Pp 180-181.
