Bullying is abusive behavior that causes an individual to feel offended or intimidated. Workplace bullying occurs when a worker is subjected to a relentless form of mistreatment from others in the workplace that results in damage. The article by Wiedmer titled “Workplace Bullying: Costly and Preventable” deals with workplace bullying and how it affects the work environment and productivity. Workplace bullying can be described as abusive behavior by an individual or a group of individuals that makes others feel fearful, uncomfortable and at times threatened. In the long run, workplace bullying affects individual’s capability of being productive. As indicated in the article, workplace bullying may take many forms such as humiliation, physical, psychological, verbal and nonverbal abuse. Offensive conduct and verbal abuse may make employees feel alienated, threatened, humiliated, and less confident. These feelings will eventually affect employees’ productivity, which translates to low organizational profits and productivity (Wiedmer, 2011).
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Workplace bullies normally act in this way in order to attain control, cause damage to the working environment and the individual, and damage individual’s credibility. Workplace bullying causes the targets to be affected by stress related health issues such as posttraumatic stress, depression, panic attacks, and anxiety (Wiedmer, 2011). The article tries to study rampant workplace bullying on the basis of the WBI-Zogby survey, which is the biggest scientific study of bullying in the U.S. The results of the survey were that 72% of bosses are bullies, women are the most targeted (57%), 62% of the employers worsen or ignore the issue, around 45% of the targets endure stress-related health problems, 40% of bullied employees never inform their employers, and only 3% of bullied employees file lawsuits (Wiedmer, 2011, p. 36).
I totally agree with the article that the majority of bullying cases in the workplace are normally perpetrated by people in charge over the target. This is something I have experienced in my workplace when I was bullied by my boss. At first, I never saw it like bullying since I used to think that those who have the authority over others should mistreat them. The article by Wieldmer made me realize that my boss was bullying me simply because he thought I might take his position as I was a hardworking and responsible employee. The article has made me change my perspective concerning workplace bullying, and I have realized that it is a huge problem in the workplaces. It is very unjust that bosses misuse their power of authority by mistreating their employees. Bullied employees can be affected emotionally, psychologically, and even physically, which may affect their productivity. It is not fair to mistreat hardworking employees or any other employee for that matter just because their seniors see them as a threat to their positions.
There is a number of things that management can implement to provide a positive impact on workplace bullying. Through management communication, managers should enforce a clear action plan that does not target on the person, but the behavior itself (Baack, 2012). Many managers make a mistake by personalizing the issue when facing workplace bullies. Another thing that the management can do is to hold bullies accountable for their actions. The management should make sure that there is a clear statement concerning what conduct is acceptable or not acceptable within the company. If the statement does not exist, management should create one using work-relevant impacts to justify the statement. In other words, the management should create a corporate culture of respect in the workplace (Baack, 2012). Bullying has never been included in the discrimination policies as it is not considered to be against the law, but the management has the right to implement some policies which indicate that some behaviors are inconsistent with the company’s culture.