bullying: at workplace

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Workplace bullying

It is the tendency of individuals or groups to use persistent aggressive or unreasonable behaviour against a co-worker or subordinate.

Workplace bullying can include such tactics as verbal, nonverbal, psychological, physical abuse and humiliation.

Workplace bullies often operate within the established rules and policies of their organization and their society.

Forms of Workplace Bullying

1. Serial bullying — the source of all dysfunction can be traced to one individual, who picks on one employee after another and destroys them, then moves on. Probably the most common type of bullying.

2. Secondary bullying — the pressure of having to deal with a serial bully causes the general behaviour to decline and sink to the lowest level.

3. Pair bullying — this takes place with two people, one active and verbal, the other often watching and listening.

4. Gang bullying or group bullying — is a serial bully with colleagues. Gangs can occur anywhere, but flourish in corporate bullying climates. It is often called mobbing and usually involves scapegoating and victimisation.

5. Vicarious bullying — two parties are encouraged to fight. This is the typical "Triangulation" where the aggression gets passed around.

6. Regulation bullying — where a serial bully forces their target to comply with rules, regulations, procedures or laws regardless of their appropriateness, applicability or necessity.

7. Residual bullying — after the serial bully has left or been fired, the behavior continues. It can go on for years.

8. Legal bullying — the bringing of a vexatious legal action to control and punish a person. It is one of the nastiest forms of bullying.

9. Pressure bullying or unwitting bullying — having to work to unrealistic time scales and/or inadequate resources.

10. Corporate bullying — where an employer abuses an employee with impunity, knowing the law is weak and the job market is soft.

11. Organizational bullying — a combination of pressure bullying and corporate bullying. Occurs when an organization struggles to adapt to changing markets, reduced income, cuts in budgets, imposed expectations and other extreme pressures.

12. Institutional bullying — entrenched and is accepted as part of the culture.

13. Client bullying — an employee is bullied by those they serve, for instance subway attendants or public servants.


Examples of workplace bullying tactics

1. Making someone and/or other people feel unwelcome and not letting them join in e.g. being in a clique and cliquey behaviors and being snobby and/or elitist. Another hurtful form of unwelcomeness is vilification.

2. Unkind remarks about someone's family, lifestyle, body, appearance, shape, weight, clothes and their personal life.

3. Invasion of privacy e.g. tampering with someone's personal effects, asking someone intrusive personal questions, e.g. about their love-life.

4. Being refused annual leave, sick leave and especially compassionate/bereavement leave without a genuine and a fair reason why.

5. Being subjected and called to disciplinary hearings/meetings without absolute proof and when they are suddenly out of the blue and especially WITHOUT moral support e.g. a Union rep/parent/friend/trusted colleague/other trusted person with you.

6. Discrimination and/or unfair treatment to someone because of disability/medical condition/age/race/ethnicity/how they live and sensitive issues about someone e.g. HIV positive and sexual orientation e.g. gay/lesbian etc.

7. Spreading stories and/or lies about someone and/or his/her friends/family.

8. Deliberately withholding/giving out false information to make a competent worker look unprofessional and in order to make him/her fail.

9. Playing practical jokes on someone/telling jokes to someone which they do not like and if it makes them uncomfortable and when they and others are NOT laughing and they DO NOT find it funny (especially those based on sex, body and race).

10. Sexual harassment of any kind e.g. persistently asking out for dates/romances, touching/staring at someone's body, forcing/coercing to have sex,(especially private areas), displaying explicit/pornographic pictures, cartoons, DVDs, videos, saying sexual comments and any unwanted touches (that the person isn't comfortable with) e.g. brushing against, hugging, kissing, patting, catcalls, wolf-whistling etc.

11. Beware of terms of endearment as not everyone likes them e.g. even terms like Dear, sweetheart, chick, babe, honey, hun, baby, babycakes, lovey, etc. CAN be offensive/uncomfortable to some people.

12. Harassment/stalking e.g. following the person around, always hanging around outside his/her home and/or workplace, favourite haunts like their local pub, shops etc.

13. Persistently emailing, phoning up, text messaging, writing typed/handwritten letters, Instant messaging, Facebooking, and looking at someone's personal and confidential information/giving out personal and confidential information without consent.


useful link: http://www.workplacebullying.org/
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