Workplace harassment is also known as psychological harassment, bullying or mobbing. This is one of the most serious triggers of work-related stress and may require psychological treatment. Let us look into what it is, which consequences it can have and how to face it.
What is workplace harassment or bullying?
When we speak of harassment at work the victim usually suffers strategies of isolation, intimidation, disdain, insult or even threats and violence by superiors or colleagues. In the workplace, psychological harassment is most common, intending not to leave physical, and if possible, documentary trace.
One of the main communicators of the term mobbing or psychological terror referred to the world of work was the doctor of educational psychology Heinz Leymann. According to his definition, workplace harassment consists in a hostile and unethical communication aimed systematically by one or several individuals at another. Thereby they drag the victim into a position of defencelessness and helplessness and actively maintain him/her there. These manoeuvres take place frequently and during a long time. Due to the high frequency and duration of the hostile behaviour, this abuse leads the victim to mental, psychosomatic and social misery.
Harassment strategies
Based on the Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terrorization (LIPT), psychologists have created questionnaires to detect and measure the harassment a person can be suffering at work. According to those questionnaires, harassment strategies can be grouped as follows:
Limit the communication
The harasser imposes what can be said and what not. The victim is denied the right to express oneself, being interrupted, questioned or contradicted. Also the harasser or harassers may cut access to information sources.
Limit social contact
This strategy consists in ignoring the worker’s presence, not replying to a greeting, not speaking to him/her, not replying to questions, not looking at him/her or doing so with disdain. As well, the harasser(s) ensure to limit the victim’s contact with other people, isolating him/her from colleagues.
Or to the contrary, the presence is recognised but with scolding, shouts and verbal threats or trying to provoke exaggerated emotional reactions from the victim.
Discredit the victim of harassment in front of colleagues
In case of this strategy the victim suffers jokes and gibes about himself/herself, family, origins, background or setting. He/she might endure slander, gossip as well as false rumors.
Discredit the professional and work capacity
In order to discredit the victim, his/her work is criticised. The harasser(s) hide skills and capabilities. The victim may be assigned tasks way over or below his/her capabilities or not be allowed to do anything. The harasser(s) can also give absurd, humiliating or even harmful tasks. Efforts and achievements are minimised whilst the smallest mistakes are criticised, exaggerating flaws. Possibly initiatives are cut off and decisions are being questioned. Moreover the harasser(s) might hide information necessary for work or straight away misinform the victim.
In this section we can also include a strict control of working hours or objections to permits requested.
Compromise the victim’s health
The subjugation to systematic psychological harassment has negative psychological and psychosomatic effects on the victim. Further to affecting the victim’s work performance, he/she may experience problems with his/her mental health and interpersonal relations.
Phases of workplace harassment and the victim’s symptoms
Although there are cases of intense harassment from the very beginning, usually the evolution is slow and progressive. With that, symptoms will also worsen as the harassment goes through the different stages.
Phase 1: Conflict and self-assertion
The harassment emerges generally from a conflict or incident which initially seems insignificant. But the situation gets complicated when the harasser or harassers try to distort and exaggerate the incident instead of settling it. So it is common for the harassed person to be surprised by the event and become indignant. He or she will seek to justify himself/herself, show their value and capacity as well as trying to clarify what seems a misunderstanding.
However, this situation is difficult because this natural response will complicate things as it confirms the harasser that he/she has found a suitable victim. In case the harassment is not entirely decided beforehand, the victim could stop the evolution by interrupting the effort to justify himself/herself. Ingratiating himself/herself, giving up on the initial conflict and looking for allies would be the appropriate strategies.
In this first phase the symptons can be concern, anxiety, slight aggressiveness and sleep disorders.
Phase 2: Stigmatisation and confusion
The second phase is characterised by more visible strategies of neglect, rejection and disdain. The victim will usually react with confusion and incomprehension over what is happening. Therefore, he/she will start to doubt his/her interpretation and perception of the conflict.
The symptoms in this phase go from changes of mood, shyness, insecurity, despondency and nervousness to aggressiveness. The victim may experiment a certain distrust or paranoia to rumors he/she thinks are spreading about him/her. It will depend on the person whether he/she tends rather to anxious-depressed or hostile-paranoid symptoms.
Phase 3: Stigmatisation and depression
As the harassment continues, the victim will lose self-confidence and his/her work capacity. Motivation and the will to fight will dwindle. The decrease of self-esteem and the lack of social support will lead towards depression. Likewise, the victim will find his/her ability to relate to other people, even family and friends, adversely affected.
The symptoms mentioned in the first stage such as sleep disorder, concern, tension and anxiety will have worsened. The affected person may also suffer tachycardia, suffocation, digestive, articular, muscular discomfort and other psychosomatic symptoms. Probably he/she will have a hard time getting up in the morning and facing a new day at work.
This phase can be very long and stabilise in depression or evolve to the fourth stage.
Phase 4: Trauma and chronic stabilisation
If the victim enters the fourth stage, he/she will show, besides the aforementioned symptoms, those typical of traumatic stress. This type of stress is usually observed in victims of major accidents, disasters, wars or attacks.
In principle, each harassment incident cannot be considered serious enough to cause traumatic stress. However the accumulation of systematic harassment episodes, or micro-traumas, for a long period of time can trigger the symptoms characteristic for this type of stress.
A victim in this phase can seem absent because he/she has difficulties concentrating, paying attention and suffers memory impairment. He/she will recall obsessively the incidents and have recurrent nightmares. Moreover, the victim will have a hard time getting up in the mornings and fear the work environment. Therefore, sick leaves usually increase.
How to prevent workplace harassment
Given the serious consequences of bullying, of which any of us could fall victim, it is important to prevent it to the maximum.
Take care of your self-esteem
The higher our self-esteem, the better we will be protected from turning into potential harassment victims. It will be more difficult for anyone to make us doubt our worth, professional capabilities and interpersonal skills.
Be confident of your worth and capabilities
Harassment victims are usually good workers. If they turn into bullying victims this can be due to the harasser being envious or because the potential victim exposing ways of working that are improvable to say the least.
That is why it is important to convince ourselves of your worth and abilities. Hence it will be necessary that you continue training and developing yourself. The world evolves and who stands still will fall behind.
Develop your emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence consists of personal and social competences which we can develop.
On the side of the personal competences or intrapersonal skills we find self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation. It is about learning to recognise our own emotions and how they affect us and then use them as guide to our conduct.
On the other hand we have the social or interpersonal competences, that is the ability to understand others and relate appropriately with them. Here we find empathy, i.e. understanding others’ feelings, motivations and needs; as well as communication and leadership skills, assertiveness, conflict resolution and teamwork for example.
As you can see developing our emotional intelligence is necessary to relate properly with ourselves and others. It provides useful tools both for controlling our own reactions in conflicting situations and for knowing how to face possible attacks.
Becoming aware
Developing your emotional intelligence will also help you differentiate between simple lack of support or recognition of your work and possible attempts at harassment. Whilst the lack of recognition can have different causes, it is usually not malicious as workplace harassment. Therefore, it will be important to recognise which of the situations we are facing as the strategy in one case or the other will be different.
What to do in case of suffering workplace harassment
Do not take the bait
Although it can be complicated, and as we have seen it is natural trying to justify and self-affirm oneself, in case of bullying this will aggravate the situation. Hence it is better to try and ignore the attacks and ingratiate oneself.
Do not isolate yourself
On one hand, it is important to seek allies at work in order not to find yourself isolated. As we have seen, one of the harassment strategies is to limit the victim’s social contact. On the other hand do not feel ashamed or afraid of sharing your problems and worries with family or good friends so they may support you.
Formal communication
In case of suffering harassment, it is important to leave a record. Therefore, communicate the situation to your superior, given he is not the harasser, and the human resources department. More and more companies have action protocols set up for these cases. But even though your company does not have a guideline, the human resources department ought to watch the workers’ well-being and intervene in case of conflict.
Seek professional aid
If you have passed the initial harassment phase and are suffering from stress and symptoms like anxiety, distress, sleep disorder or other psychosomatic symptoms, do not feel embarrassed or afraid of going to a psychologist. The sooner you receive professional help, the earlier you can stop the progress of the damaging effects caused by workplace harassment.
As I explain in the post on what stress is, negative stress originates from our feeling of being unable to face environmental demands. Well, a psychologist will provide you with tools to deal with the stress, anxiety, and of course depression, if this is your case.
Change jobs
If you do not receive help from your boss or the human resources department to solve the conflict and situation of harassment, I also recommend you seriously consider leaving the job. On one hand this does not say a lot about how much this company values people. On the other hand, the trauma caused by harassment can cause not only fear of the current job, but actually incapacitate us for any job. It may make you dizzy and afraid to leave a stable income but the fear of the harm to your mental health and losing your professional capabilities should be bigger.
It can be advisable to refer to an employment rights lawyer in order to prepare your leave in the best way.
Conclusion
The subject of workplace harassment or bullying is very delicate and it is not easy to deal with. I hope the advice helps you prepare against it and recognise it on time. In case you are suffering harassment, I earnestly recommend you seek professional help and report it in your company.
Have you ever suffered harassment or seen cases of colleagues affected? Was the situation solved and how?
