6.4 Bullying and Harassment
A growing concern in workplaces is the issue of workplace harassment and bullying. Workplace harassment is behaviour aimed at an individual (or group) that is belittling or threatening in nature. This can include actions (e.g., unwanted touching) or words (e.g., insults, jokes) that have the effect of causing psychological harm to victim(s). Harassment can take a variety of forms, including racial/ethnic harassment, sexual harassment, and general workplace harassment. Bullying is similar to harassment and comprises repeated actions or verbal comments that lead to mental harm, isolation, or humiliation of a worker (or group), often with the intent to wield power over them. Often harassment and bullying are used interchangeably and, indeed, the definitions are highly similar. In this book, we differentiate the terms for two reasons. First, harassment is often associated with specific grounds protected under human rights legislation, such as gender, race, age, and religion. Bullying applies more broadly to any set of behaviours that create harm. Second, it is accepted that harassment can occur unintentionally, while bullying is a more intentional process. Both are ways for the harasser/bully to exercise control and power over the harassed/bullied through fear, humiliation, embarrassment, and denigration.
Harassment and bullying can involve physical contact but are distinguished from violence in that the purpose is not physical harm but emotional and psychological harm. Harassment and bullying can also include acts that indirectly affect the targeted worker(s), such as undesirable shift scheduling, unreasonable workloads, spreading rumours, or denying leave requests. Harassment, bullying, and violence can occur concurrently.
There is debate about how to best conceptualize harassment and bullying. Many argue that it is a human rights issue and should be treated through human rights processes, usually meaning independent tribunals or the courts. Others suggest that harassment and bullying are instances of individual misconduct best resolved through human resources processes such as better selection, training, and disciplinary practices. The authors of this text argue, without intending to reduce the significance of the human rights dimensions of harassment, that harassment and bullying are also health and safety issues. The reason harassment and bullying are OHS issues is that they can be controlled by the employer and have clear health effects for the targeted worker(s).
The psychological effects of harassment and bullying can be extensive and include anxiety, panic attacks, depression, shame, and anger. The physical effects mirror those of stress and can include inability to sleep, stomach pain or headaches, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, and loss of concentration/memory, as well as eating and digestive disorders. Further, workers exposed to harassment are found to be more at risk of illness, injury, and assault.[1] The negative health outcomes and increased risk of illness and injury can persist well after the harassment has ceased. In extreme cases, bullying and harassment can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is typically brought on by a terrifying event, and symptoms include flashbacks, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
While all workers can be victims of harassment and bullying, certain groups of workers are more likely to be the targets, because of their respective statuses in society at large. Two such groups include women and racialized workers (see Box 6.5), who make easier targets because the bullying and harassment are consistent with widely held prejudices (e.g., consider how common race and gender jokes are). Recent research has shown that experiencing multiple forms of harassment—gender and ethnic harassment along with general workplace harassment—compounds the negative health effects compared to experiencing one form, putting racialized women at particular risk of negative health effects from harassment.[2]
Racialized workers
Discussing issues such as race can be challenging. In one respect people possess certain immutable characteristics, including skin colour and other surface features, that are associated with “race.” However, race is a social construction. Society imbues certain characteristics (i.e., skin colour) with meaning and not others (e.g., eye colour) and as a result ascribes significance to them. The trait in itself is not significant but is given importance through social convention. The ascribed meaning leads people to experience the world differently based upon the immutable characteristics.
Society not only ascribes significance to these traits but structures social relations around them. People are differentiated and distinguished according to the characteristics. This is the process of racialization.[3] All people are racialized; society implies meaning to being “white” or “black,” for example. Our experiences of the world are thus shaped by this social construction. However, the ascription of characteristics is not neutral. Some “races” are imbued with positive qualities and some negative. Whether society ascribes negative or positive qualities shapes a person’s status in society.
In this book we utilize the term racialized workers to apply to individuals perceived to be a part of a race or ethnicity to which particular, often negative, characteristics are ascribed by social structures (e.g., Black, Hispanic, Asian). We also recognize that race intersects with other characteristics, including gender, age, sexual orientation, and ability, to form a matrix of human experience in society.
There is no clear profile of who might be a harasser. The range of tactics, behaviours, and approaches used by bullies and harassers is extensive and reflective of specific contexts. One typology of bullies includes four categories:
- The screaming Mimi: A bully who displays mood swings and unpredictable anger and commonly uses public humiliation as a tool.
- The constant critic: A hypercritical nitpicker who regularly points out others’ inadequacies and errors, and uses negative evaluation of performance as a tool to belittle.
- The two-headed snake: Aimed at rising in the organization, they aim their bullying at those below them, using rumours and divide-and-conquer schemes to turn co-workers against the target.
- The gatekeeper: Obsessed with control, they allocate resources and information in ways to ensure the target’s failure and to create reasons to question their performance.[4]
These types of bullies may sound very familiar, but it is important to not forget that the issue of bullying is workplace-wide and not solely the result of an ill-mannered or calculating personality. The categories should be interpreted as strategies employed by bullies, rather than personality sketches.
Often, managers bully or harass subordinates (although bullying from co-workers and clients/customers is also common). This is not surprising, given that bullying and harassment are ways to wield power over another person. Managers, because of their role in an organization, already possess power over workers. Attempts to exercise this power can lead to management approaches that rely upon bullying. Some researchers suggest that employers may overtly or covertly encourage bullying by managers as a way to maximize the work the employer can extract from its workers.[5]
The line between “tough” management and “bullying” management can be difficult to ascertain, especially if the bullying takes the form of misuse of managerial prerogatives such as scheduling, work assignments, and the like. Usually bullying as a management technique is reflective of the organizational culture that has developed in a workplace. For their part, workers respond to OHS threats such as bullying with a range of behaviours that include exit, voice, patience, and neglect.
Responses to harmful work environments
When a worker experiences any OHS hazard, including harassment, bullying, or a toxic workplace, the worker can respond in a range of ways. In examining individual behaviour in response to deteriorating conditions, Albert Hirschman first developed the notion that people respond either through exit or voice, and the choice is determined by attitudes toward the situation.[6] Others later added to Hirschman’s theory by positing two other options, patience (sometimes referred to as loyalty) and neglect:
- Exit: The worker decides to get away from the undesired situation, either by quitting the employer or transferring to another location or job within the same employer.
- Voice: The worker decides to speak up in an attempt to change the situation. Voice can take a number of forms, including attempting to repair the situation directly, lodging a complaint, filing a grievance or, less constructively, retaliating with their own inappropriate behaviour.
- Patience: The worker decides to do nothing in the hopes that the situation will eventually improve. Workers adopt a patience approach when their loyalty to the organization or the cost of exiting is greater than the price of experiencing the negative situation.
- Neglect: The worker does nothing, based on the belief that the situation will not change or might grow worse. The worker might try to avoid the source of the situation but will generally take no action to change the situation. Workers choose this option when the costs of exiting are too high and their relationship to the organization is sufficiently damaged to prevent either voice or patience.[7]
Workers may adopt different strategies when confronted with bullying behaviour or may cycle through the various options. For example, a group of workers facing a co-worker who undermines them in meetings, makes false claims about their work performance, and verbally attacks them may react in different ways. Those workers who are not very invested in the workplace (e.g., they are new or they feel they have options elsewhere) may simply start looking for a new job.
Other workers may at first choose patience (in the hope the worker’s behaviour will change) and then move to voicing their concerns (e.g., filing a complaint or by socially excluding the bully). If the issue remains unresolved, some workers (e.g., those close to retirement) may choose neglect while others will move to exit the workplace.
Recognizing that workers might respond in four different ways to the same negative situation reminds us that there is no single “sign” of a poor workplace environment. Employers interested in preventing harassment and bullying must be careful to observe the myriad ways in which workers react to deteriorating situations.
There are several ways to address harassment and bullying in the workplace. First, an employer should (and, in some jurisdictions, must) develop policies regarding harassment in the workplace. The administrative controls should outline acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and actions, indicate employer and worker responsibilities, and create a process for investigating and resolving complaints. Any investigation must proceed in a manner that is transparent, fair to both parties, and as confidential as is possible. Investigations should also identify the root cause of the incident and how to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Workplace policies are important, but they are only as effective as the degree of their implementation and enforcement. Effective policy implementation requires the employer to train all workers, including managers, on how to prevent and address harassment. Training for managers is particularly important. It can help managers spot possible harassment and teach them the difference between legitimate management discretion and bullying management techniques. Training workers around respectful interactions and cultural sensitivity can help distinguish between legitimate interpersonal conflict and bullying and harassment.
Finally, research shows that the leading indicator of workplace bullying and harassment is the organization’s climate. In workplaces where workers feel unsafe, incidents of bullying and harassment are more frequent. Conversely, creating a safe and respectful climate increases workers’ sense of safety and lowers the negative consequences of bullying and harassment.[8] Creating a safe workplace climate is a multi-levelled process, requiring a high degree of commitment to respectful interactions, clear communication, transparent management, and individual and collective accountability.
- Rospenda, K., Richman, J., Ehmke, J., & Zlatoper, K. (2005). Is workplace harassment hazardous to your health? Journal of Business and Psychology, 20(1), 95–110. ↵
- Raver, J., & Nishii, L. (2010). Once, twice, or three times as harmful? Ethnic harassment, gender harassment, and generalized workplace harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(2), 236–254. ↵
- Anthias, F., & Yuval-Davis, N. (1992). Racialized boundaries: Race, nation, gender, colour and class and the anti-racist struggle. New York: Routledge. ↵
- Namie, G. (2003). Workplace bullying: Escalated incivility. London, ON: Ivey School of Business. ↵
- Beale, D. (2011). Workplace bullying and the employment relationship. Work, Employment & Society, 25(1), 5–18. ↵
- Hirschman, A. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ↵
- Leck, D., & Saunders, D. (1992). Hirschman’s loyalty: Attitude or behavior? Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 5(3), 219–230; Rusbult, C., Farrell, D., Rogers, G., & Mainous, A. G. (1988). Impact of exchange variables on exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect: An integrative model of responses to declining job satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 31(3), 599–627. ↵
- Law, R., Dollard, M., Tuckey, M., & Dormann, C. (2011). Psychosocial safety climate as a lead indicator of workplace bullying and harassment, job resources, psychological health and employee engagement. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 43(5), 1782–1793. ↵
Behaviour aimed at an individual (or group) that is belittling or threatening in nature.
Repeated actions or verbal comments that lead to mental harm, isolation, or humiliation of a worker (or group), often with the intent to wield power over them.
Ill health typically brought on by a terrifying event, with symptoms including flashbacks, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
Individuals perceived to be a part of a race or ethnicity (e.g., Black, Hispanic, Asian) to which particular characteristics, often negative, are ascribed.
A typology of possible worker responses to occupational health and safety issues.
