Editorial: Workplace bullying
“A worker is bullied at work if a person or group of people repeatedly act unreasonably towards [him or her] …or the behaviour creates a risk to health and safety.” – Fair Work Ombudsman, Australia.
The problem of incivility in the workplace does not manifest in sexual harassment only; a matter that we have already spoken to legislatively as a nation in the form of the Employment Sexual Harassment (Prevention) Act 2017. Incivility there may also present in the form of workplace bullying, an issue that has so far operated under the radar in Barbados, even though we have no doubt that it exists; although unaware of its scale. The Workplace Bullying Institute [WBI], (yes, there is indeed an outfit by that name in the US), defines workplace bullying as repeated health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators. It is abusive conduct that is threatening, humiliating, or intimidating, or may be constituted by work interference (sabotage) that prevents work from getting done or verbal abuse.
Further, according to the Institute’s assessment, this mischief is mainly driven by perpetrators' need to control the targeted individual(s). It is initiated by bullies who choose their targets, timing, location, and methods and may comprise a set of acts of commission (doing things to others) or of omission (withholding resources from others).
Our attention has been drawn to this by the Barbados Advocate report last Thursday of a comment by senior lecturer in Management Studies at UWI, Dr Dwayne Devonish, on the margins of a recent Barbados Association of Office Professionals [BAOP] seminar session on the themes of wellness and workplace productivity that he co-chaired.
Dr Devonish advised employers that in the same way that they were developing sexual harassment polices as mandated by the legislation, they should also look at developing policies to promote a zero tolerance to bullying in the workplace.
Similar to schoolyard bullying, the workplace version usually pits the more powerful, this time in terms of status rather than physical strength against the weaker or less strategically situated worker. It may also be viewed as akin to domestic violence. As the WBI suggests, “Being bullied at work most closely resembles the experience of being a battered spouse. The abuser inflicts pain when and where she or he chooses, keeping the target (victim) off balance knowing that violence can happen on a whim, but dangling the hope that safety is possible during a period of peace of unknown duration. The target is kept close to the abuser by the nature of the relationship between them -- husband to wife or boss to subordinate or co-worker to co-worker.”
Clearly, the incidence of such a phenomenon could scarcely lead to an improvement in workplace productivity and, to this extent, it is adverse to the current national economic interest. In addition, the harmful psychological effects likely to flow from such misconduct could place the employer in patent breach of its common law and statutory obligations, first, to ensure that a worker suffers neither physical injury nor psychiatric harm as a result of conditions at the workplace, and second that of treating the worker with trust and confidence.
We believe that the time has come for the local employers’ organisation to alert its members to the existence and legal consequences of this phenomenon and to put in place measures to reduce its incidence.