Bullying is one of the most despicable and vilest activities that individuals commit on others. Even though bullying primarily occurs among young children and adolescents it is a misconception to conclude that it ends there. Unfortunately, bullying still occurs even in adulthood, particularly in the workplace. Bullying is often as a result of a person feeling dominant and feeling the need to impose it on others. Consequently, the workplace often creates this ideal situation for bullying to occur. Wiedmer in his article Workplace Bullying: Costly and Preventable evaluates this problem giving valuable and unique insights. To properly understand the impacts of workplace bullying it is important to evaluate Wiedmer’s article.
On the whole, Wiedmer’s paper deduces what bullying in the workplace is, its impacts and most importantly how to prevent it. According to Wiedmer bullying is a practice carried out by individuals who aim to control, dominate and even subjugate (2011). Moreover, bullying in the practice is often justified along the lines of tough management; however, Wiedmer refutes and in turn articulates that it is a very inefficient way of keeping people in check. While bullying can be done covertly or even conspicuously, it is hard to conceal its effects. Impacts of bullying in the workplace can be anything from strained employee relationships, decrease in morale to more serious consequences such as decrement of health of bullied individuals (Salin & Hoel, 2011). Whatever the case bullying in the workplace is detrimental.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
During early adulthood when I worked in retail I happened to witness a few instances of bullying. In the shop that we worked, females were the majority. The manager who was a male in his mid-30s would often openly embarrass the few males or give them demeaning jobs just because he could. This may have been a way to assert his dominance within the workplace albeit it is pretty clear that he was a bully. For one, with regards to Wiedmer, his actions were mainly aimed at dominating and subjugating the male employees within the shop. A few of his actions included openly harassing male workers and making it clear that any form of refusal would lead to them to be fired. In retrospect, it is pretty clear now that such actions were aimed at dominating the male population among the staff members.
Moreover, Wiedmer articulates that 62% of employees ignore or worsen bullying (2011). Although I cannot quite recall the exact number of individuals but a huge number was aware of the problem but not many people spoke out. It was only like two or three people who made higher management of the situation. There are a lot of ways through which such situation could have been prevented. Wiedmer states that “To combat workplace bullying… employers must have a full range of policies in place and means available to them to create and maintain a healthy workplace culture and climate” (2011). Were policies situated in place to dictate what sort of behavior is acceptable from both management and employees the manager would not have been able to harass people in that manner. Moreover, Wiedmer suggests that it is important that there be a forum for reporting forms of bullying in any place. The main problem was that the only person whom the male workers could complain to was the manager. Could there have been an easily accessible forum then the manager would have certainly faced consequences earlier on?
In conclusion, workplace bullying is not only a malicious act but it is also destructive within any organization. Its impacts although rarely acknowledged are really detrimental in the long run. As such, bullying in the workplace should not only be recognized early on but stern measures should be put in place to prevent it.
References
Wiedmer, T. (2011). Workplace bullying: Costly and preventable. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin , 77 (2), 35-41.
Salin, D., & Hoel, H. (2011). Organisational causes of workplace bullying. Bullying and harassment in the workplace: Developments, in theory, research, and practice , 2 , 227-243.
