Definition Of Workplace Bullying & Its Importance

5-7 minutes 

Definition Of Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying, in simpler words, is when a working individual gets exposed to any kind of abuse, either verbal, physical, social, or psychological, from his or her employer, manager, or fellow employee at the workplace.

Everyone wants to feel comfortable, safe, and out of danger at work. Workplace bullying can not only affect their overall productivity but ruin your company''s reputation in the market as well. You can literally lose top-performing employees by reason of negative behavior or harassment at work, even if they really like their job.

Understanding Workplace Bullying Meaning!

Workplace bullying refers to the situation whereby a person continually hurts or abuses other employees either physically or emotionally.

Workplace bullying can occur in all work environments, which includes but is not limited to an office, shop, cafe, restaurant, workshop, community group, or government organization.

Workplace bullying can be directed toward people who are volunteers, work experience students, interns, apprentices, as well as casual or permanent employees.

Neadless to say, there are several legal resources for workplace bullying and certain forms of workplace bullying become criminal offenses.

Types of Workplace Bullies

As already mentioned above, there are different forms of workplace bullies. Let us look at each of them in detail:

• Insulting: This type of bullying usually comes from those in authority. They may yell at employees or use fear as a method of controlling them. Many of these bullies think that they will get away with little or no consequences at all for their actions due to the usually higher status that they hold.
• Intimidating Behavior: These people show behavior where they provide comments with extreme anger. Some even tend to harm others physically in the heat of the moment or harm them by using caustic remarks without being aware of the fact that they are offending people.
• Scheming Bully: This is when people are nice to the employee in person, but they insult them behind their back. They also use methods like gossiping and spreading rumors which are not true about the employee. If the bully happens to be an employee''s supervisor, he/she might utilize that power in any of the following ways: giving them unfavorable work schedules, not inviting them for any important meetings, or piling them with a huge number of challenging and time-consuming assignments without clearly guiding them on how to achieve them.
• Unintentional Bully: Most of these bullies are not even aware of the level of injustice or the vigor with which they are treating their victims. Many of these bullies engage in spontaneous and unfiltered speech; they do not reflect upon the consequences of the statement they are about to make before making it. HR managers and employers have to motivate their employees who are being bullied inadvertently to speak up or report it immediately.

How to Stop Workplace Bullying?

Some bullies specifically target certain employees whom they intend to insult, demean, humiliate, or provoke. Others act out in bullying behavior and may even hurt their colleagues unconsciously. If you wish to eradicate such instances from your workplace once and for all, here are the two best things you can do:

Create a Policy

Most workplaces have policies on how colleagues should relate to one another. You need to develop one for your workplace. However, one way of documenting the rules is by developing a full anti-bullying policy which clearly states the unacceptable and harassing behaviors.

You also need to develop a detailed procedure that has identified steps to take in case there is a breach of your anti-bullying policy in the workplace.

You can share it with every new hire, so they''re all clear from day one of employment what constitutes inappropriate behavior and what abusive behavior actually looks like in your workplace.

Like a mission statement, such a document can serve as a demonstration of the company values and attitude towards its employees. It can create an environment where there is literally zero tolerance for workplace bullying.

Have a Plan to Address Bullying

Once you have got a clear policy in place and you yourself, as well as your employees, are quite conversant with the relevant laws, then sooner or later someone is likely to come forward to report an incident of bullying at the workplace.

You must, therefore, have proper preparation and strategy to deal with such incidences. Forbes asserts that a clear and accessible workplace bullying procedure for filing complaints must be in place, especially surrounding cyberbullying under the restrictions of the remote workplace.

Establish this plan in advance to guarantee that no bullying case goes unnoticed or unresolved. This, too, shall help you be sure that people who break the regulations are held responsible. This can include giving first-time offenders a written warning, then suspension if they repeat again. Of course, termination is the final recourse if one is dealing with a persistent bully or one who has committed physical violence. In case of such an eventuality, it is always recommended to receive professional advice from an employment lawyer.