Effects Of Bullying And Physical Violence At Workplace

Dr. Naazneen Ladak, a Mumbai based Psychiatrist

Workplace bullying is a negative, harmful and targeted behaviour that takes place at work. It could be spiteful, offensive behavior which includes mocking or intimidating a group of people or a person. Bullying involves being purposely misled about work duties, like giving an incorrect deadline or unclear instructions, continuing to deny requests for leaves without a valid reason, threats, making personal remarks, excessively monitoring the performance, extremely harsh criticism, threats, humiliation and other kinds of verbal abuse.

Bullying from higher authorities like a manager might involve abuse of power, like giving negative performance reviews which are not justified, unnecessary shouting or threatening to fire or demote, denying time-offs or transfer to another department. People who are working at the same level might bully through gossiping, work sabotage or criticism. Bullying does not always occur between people who work closely together but also takes place across departments. Bullying can take a serious toll on an individual’s physical and mental health.

Physical violence is also very common at workplace these days. Just like bullying, workplace violence too is a serious concern and at a rise. Physical violence is any act that involves any sort of violence, harassment, intimidation or threatening disruptive behavior. It could range from verbal abuse to physical assaults or even homicide. It can majorly impact the employees, clients, customers and visitors at a workplace.

Higher stress levels in workers is considered to be one of the major causes behind physical violence at workplaces. For example, interpersonal conflicts, time pressure, role ambiguity and high workload. These factors increase the risk of external and internal violence in the workplace.

There can be various remedies to prevent bullying and physical violence at workplace. One of them could be a workplace violence prevention program incorporated by the employer to help protect their employees. The information about the program could be incorporated into an employee handbook or a manual of standard operating procedures. It should be made significant to ensure that all employees are aware of the policy and understand that all claims of workplace violence will be investigated and remedied promptly. Moreover, employers can offer additional protections to their employees by providing safety education for them so that they know what conduct is absolutely unacceptable at workplace.