Hostile Work Environment Psychological Violence in the Workplace

Laws in the United Kingdom, Sweden and many other countries prohibit psychological violence in the workplace. A law was introduced in the Canadian Parliament in September 2003 to make it illegal in Canada. Additionally, California and several cities in the U.S.A. are now moving toward outlawing psychological violence in the workplace.

Many enlightened for-profit and nonprofit organizations have included in their employees’handbook prohibitions against psychological violent in the workplace, with statements like the following:

1.Employees should be treated in a fair and just way;

2.Employees should be treated with respect and in an open and honest way;

3.Actions by supervisors’ and employees should promote a supportive work environment;

4.Employees should not cause any harm to residents or other employees;

5.Employees should be honest and forthright in things said to residents and other employees;

Psychological violent in the workplace is the persistent unwelcome behavior, mostly using unwarranted or invalid criticism, nit-picking, faultfinding, exclusion, isolation, being singled out and treated differently, being shouted at, humiliated, excessive monitoring and much more.

Psychological violent is best understood through the bully's behaviors--acts of commission(hostile verbal, nonverbal communication and interfering actions) and omissions (the withholding of resources--time, information, training, support, equipment--that guarantee failure)--which are all driven by the bully's need to control.

It involves the bully deciding who is targeted, then selectively and with premeditation when,where and how they will inflict psychological violence. It is the deliberate, repeated and mistreatment of one person (the Target) by a perpetrator (the Bully).

It is not "tough" management; it is illegitimate behavior; it interferes with an employee's work production and the employer's business interest. Experts tell us that the weakest victim is not the targeted person. It is management, with all the power and money to do something about it,but lacking the courage to make it stop. They overlook abusive behavior that is cause for immediate dismissal in a subordinate when exhibited by a "rainmaker" or "sacred cow supervisor / manager.

If the bulling is reported, and the employer responds inappropriately or inadequately, the Bully generally has enough credibility or power to convince, “higher-ups” that the complaint is unjustified, unwarranted and “sour-grapes” and has no basis in fact.

The most effective way to defeat a bully is to have 5 - 10 or more people who were Targets of the bully or witnesses to write or record a statement of the bully’s activities. Individually, if only one or two, file a complaint, the bully generally has enough credibility or power to convince, “higher-ups” that the complaint in unjustified, unwarranted and “sour-grapes” and has no basis in fact.

Once the statements are acquired, look at the organizational chart of the company and go “at least” two levels above the bully to file your complaint. Human Resources is not the place to go; their primary purpose is to protect the organization and not the employee’s rights. If you cannot identify the a higher person, send it to a member of the company’s board of directors.

Who Are Individuals Targeted by Bullies

Respondents' Gender: Women: 80% Men: 20%

Age: average (the mean): 43

Education: 84% college educated

Work experience: mean = 21.4 years in the workplace, mean = 6.7 years for the employer where bullying occurred.

Targets are predominantly 40-ish, educated and veteran employees, specifically people who have experience with the employer before the bullying interfered with their careers.

Duration of the bullying: mean = 25 months (men targets endured an average of 25.6 months and women targets sustained 25.3 months of aggression). We cannot call Targets thin-skinned.They stay for a long time working under conditions rational people would consider intolerable.Bullying is done with impunity. Perpetrators face a low risk of being held accountable.Targeted individuals pay by losing their once-cherished positions.

In a recent survey respondents for whom the bullying had ended reported that:

•37% of the Targets were fired or involuntarily fired

•33% of Targets quit (typically taking some form of constructive discharge)

•17% of Targets transfer to another position with the same employer

•4% of Bullies stopped bullying after punishment or sanctions

•9% of Bullies were transferred or fired

How to Spot a Bully

A Bully will reveal themselves by his part of the organization showing excessive rates of:

•staff turnover

•sickness absence

•stress breakdowns

•early retirements

•uses of disciplinary procedures

•grievances initiated against him

•suspensions of employees

•dismissals of employees

In environments where bullying is the norm, most people will eventually either become bullies or become targets. There are few bystanders. It's about survival: they either adopt bullying tactics and thus survive by not becoming a target, or stand up against bullying and refuse to join in,in which case they are bullied, harassed, victimized and scape-goated until their mental health sufferers and finally just want to “escape “the psychological violence by quitting, transferring or reporting the bully to get it to stop.

How is Bullying Accomplished

People who are bullied find that they are:

•constantly criticized and subjected to destructive criticism (often euphemistically called constructive criticism, which is an oxymoron) - they ridicule explanations and proof of achievement, overruled, dismissed or ignored

•forever subject too nit-picking and trivial fault finding (the triviality is the giveaway)

•undermined, especially in front of others; they raise false concerns, or doubts are expressed over a person's performance or standard of work - however, the doubts lack substantive and quantifiable evidence, for they are only the bully's unreliable opinion and are for control, not performance enhancement

•overruled, ignored, sidelined, marginalised, ostracized

•isolated and excluded from what is happening (this makes people more vulnerable and easier to control and subjugate)

•singled out and treated differently (for example everyone else can have long lunch breaks but if they are one minute late it's a disciplinary offence)

•set unrealistic goals and deadlines which are unachievable or which are changed without notice or reason or whenever they get near achieving them

•denied information or knowledge necessary for undertaking work and achieving objectives

•starved of resources, sometimes while others often receive more than they need

•denied support and thus find themselves working in a management vacuum

•either overloaded with work (this keeps people busy [with no time to tackle bullying] and makes it harder to achieve targets) or has all their work taken away (which is sometimes replaced with inappropriate menial jobs, e.g., photocopying, filing, making coffee)

•have their responsibilities increased but their authority removed

•has their work plagiarized, stolen and copied - the bully then presents their target's work(e.g., to senior management) as their own

•is given the silent treatment: the bully refuses to communicate and avoids eye contact(always an indicator of an abusive relationship); often they receive instructions only via email, memos, or a succession of post-it notes

•subject to excessive monitoring, supervision, micro-management,

•forced to work long hours, often without remuneration and under threat of dismissal

•find requests for leave have unacceptable and unnecessary conditions attached,sometimes overturning previous approval. especially if the person has taken action to address bullying in the meantime

•denied annual leave, days off, etc.,

•when on leave, are harassed by calls at home or on holiday,

•receive unpleasant or threatening calls or are harassed with intimidating memos, notes or emails with no verbal communication, immediately before weekends and holidays (e.g.,4:00pm Friday or Christmas Eve - often these are hand-delivered)

•are invited to "informal" meetings which turn out to be disciplinary hearings

•are denied representation at meetings, often under threat of further disciplinary action;sometimes the bully abuses their position of power to exclude any representative who is competent to deal with bullying

•encouraged to feel guilty, and to believe they're always the one at fault

•coerced into reluctant resignation, enforced redundancy, early or ill-health retirement

A favorite tactic of bullies which helps them evade detection is to undertake a "reorganization"at regular intervals. This has several advantages:

•they can organize anyone whose face doesn’t fit out through down sizing (redundancy) or transfer

•anyone who challenges the reorganization

•their job can be "regraded" or "redefined" to the person's disadvantage

•each reorganization is a smoke screen for the bully's dysfunctional behavior - everyone is so busy coping with the reorganization (chaos) that the bully's behavior goes unnoticed

•the bully can always claim to be reorganizing in the name of "efficiency" and therefore be perceived by those above as a strong manager

•However, there is never any cost-benefit justification to the reorganization - no figures before and no figures after to prove the reorganization has brought benefits.

How Is the Bully’s Target Chosen

There are many reasons how and why bullies target others, but the reasons are surprisingly consistent between cases. There are many myths and stereotypes such as "victims are weak."The bully selects their target using the following criteria:

•bullies are predatory and opportunistic - a person just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; this is always the main reason - investigation will reveal a string of predecessors, and they will have a string of successors

•they may have unwittingly become the focus of attention whereas before the bully was the center of attention (this often occurs with female bullies) - most bullies are emotionally immature and thus crave attention

•obvious displays of affection, respect or trust from co-workers

•refusing to obey an order which violates rules, regulations, procedures, or is illegal

•standing up for a colleague who is being bullied - this ensures they will be next;sometimes the bully drops their current target and turns their attention immediately onto the person who helped defend the a Target;

•quick to apologize when accused, even if not guilty (this is a useful technique for defusing an aggressive customer or potential road rage incident)

•perfectionism

•higher-than-average levels of dependency, naivety and guilt

•a strong sense of fair play and a desire always to be reasonable

•high coping skills under stress, especially when the injury to health becomes apparent

•a tendency to internalize anger rather than express it

The Time line of Being Bullied

•the target is selected using the criteria above, then bullied for months, perhaps years

•eventually, the target asserts their right not to be bullied, perhaps by filing a complaint with personnel

•personnel interview the bully, who uses their Jekyll and Hyde nature, compulsive lying,and charm to tell the opposite story (charm has a motive - deception)

•it's one word against another with no witnesses and no evidence, so personnel take the word of the senior employee - serial bullies excel at deception and evasion of accountability

•the Personnel Department is hoodwinked by the bully into getting rid of the target - serial bullies are adept at encouraging conflict between people who might otherwise pool negative information about them

•once the target is gone, there is a period of between 2-14 days, then a new target is selected and the process starts again (bullying is an obsessive compulsive behavior and serial bullies seem unable to survive without a target onto whom they can project their inadequacy and incompetence while blaming them for the bully's own failings)

•even if the employer realizes that they might have sided with the wrong person in the past, they are unlikely to admit that because to do so may incur liability.