subject: Job Harassment - Are You Working In A Hostile Work Environment? [print this page] Harassment of any kind is seriousHarassment of any kind is serious. No one should ever have to feel harassed. To feel this way at work is unacceptable. The workplace is should be a professional place, where all the employees behave in a manner that is acceptable. Even a casual work environment maintains professional interactions with each other as well as customers. To tolerate anything less is negligent of the workplace owners.
Regardless of how hard a company tries, a bully sometimes slips into the midst. The bully is sly and usually starts off slow with remarks that are not inherently harassing. It is the tone of voice and body language that alerts the victim that problems are brewing. Once the bully realizes that the chosen victim is not fighting back the job harassment begins to escalate.
The harassment can be private or public in nature. It can take a myriad of forms with almost any goal in mind. The bully could want the victim's job or promotion, it may be a personal dislike of the person, it could be due to sexual preferences, race, sex or religion. There may be no reason associated with the victim. The problem could all be the bully's need for power, and control and the victim was random.
The victim needs to recognize that the problem is undoubtedly not them and that they must address the situation immediately. Many employees try to ignore a problem at first because they are not sure why the harassment has started. They try to figure what they did to anger the bully. Sometimes the first wave of attacks are subtle and have unclear meanings. The victim does not want to be seen as overly sensitive.
Once the language strengthens and meanings become clear do not wait. Tell the bully their behavior is unacceptable and offensive. Let him or her know that this employee refuses to be harassed. Make clear that if the harassment stops all is okay but if it continues human resources will be notified. Then go ahead and notify the human resources department and let them know that the person has been told to cease.
If there is even one more incident report it to human resources immediately. The bully is testing the boundaries of what will be accepted. Everyone else will be relieved that the bully is under the companies' scrutiny. They will not have to worry so much about becoming the next bully.
Whatever reason and whatever form the job harassment must be addressed. The hardest thing is to get the victim to talk with the management about the issue. If the company does not know about it, the company cannot stop it. The victim has to be willing to come forward and make the complaint. It makes no difference what form the workplace harassment is taking. Companies do not want their employees exposed to such behavior. One bully can distract workers and cause productivity to plummet. If often cause other employees to quit for fear of becoming the next target. Companies stand to benefit significantly by stopping any job harassment as quickly as possible.
Job Harassment - Are You Working In A Hostile Work Environment?
