Inside The Workplace

Harassing Workplace Behavior

Workplace harassment surprisingly enough is quite common. In a Zogby International survey, 37 percent of American workers said they’ve been targets.

The perpetrator of this workplace harassment usually starts out with constant but subtle innuendos that escalate over time to full fledged harassment. They may start with just an off color comment at a  meeting and later follow it up with some more gossip to other workers.

If this person is in a supervisory role, their target could be excused from some of their workload, then later be accused of not performing their entire job.

The emotional toll of regular everyday workplace harassment is just as severe as that of sexual harassment and other types of bullying behaviors. In today’s fast paced corporate world, some supervisors may even condone some types of harassment as part of a tough management style.

Things have started changing for the better little by little. Workplace harassment, company owners are finding out, is generally not good for their businesses. They are seeing an increase in absenteeism, employee turnover and a loss of productivity when these tactics are being employed to try and boost production and keep the workers more in line..

There are several states, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut which have attempted to introduce legislation without success so far, lawmakers seem to want to continue with these measures, however, one was withdrawn in Connecticut recently after some influential business groups opposed it. The bill is expected to be resubmitted though.

Business groups will often use the argument that laws already in place are enough to protect workers. Workplace harassment does not, however, involve race, age or sex, which do have a protected status under the law. Instead, most workplace harassment happens mostly because of simple personality conflicts.

A surprising number of cases involve health care facilities, where the problems can get to be out of control.  Typically, senior hospital workers, in particular doctors and/or supervisors will be harassing the nurses and technicians. The problem is also commonly found in the field of education and in the legal profession, experts say.

A major share of workplace harassment involves women victimizing other women. The Zogby survey showed that 40 percent of these workplace bullies are women. Still, it can be hard to distinguish between ordinary personality clashes and the constant everyday torture of being harassed at work.