Since time immemorial, workplace harassment has been rampant, however, it is a subject that has not been talked about openly in most work environments. Harassment in the workplace has also been noted to be directly responsible for workplace hostility and discord. Scholars and the academia has called for management to take lead in ending workplace harassment at various levels, among other issues, through employee engagement. Although it is not spoken about as often as it should be, harassment at work has often led to toxic and abusive workplaces. Sadly many individuals, both management and emplyees, are not sure what qualifies as harassment at work.
In the same vein most harassment cases go unreported or rather unnoticed. Research has shown that workplace harassment is disruptive and recommendations have been made on maintaining and strengthening professional relationships and work place dynamics where such behaviour is prevalent. Harassment can come from superiors, co-employees or even customers. For the purposes of enlightening each other about harassment in the workplaces we will look at the types of harassment that employees and management should be knowledgeable about.
Defining Workplace Harassment
Workplace harassment happens or occurs when an employee, group of employees and management feel threatened or get belittled by their colleagues. The sole purpose of a workplace harasser is to make their victims feel unsafe and uncomfortable. It can also be defined as any conduct involving unwanted behaviour that an individual in workspaces may find to be offensive, disturbing, upsetting or threatening in nature. The general effect of such behaviour is that of embarrassing a person, humiliating, demeaning or belittling one’s character.
Harassment takes many forms and below we discuss some of them:
- Sexual Harassment
This is one of the most common and the oldest form of harassment in workplaces and many employees and management are more aware of it. The country’s Labour Act [28:01] section 8(h) identifies sexual harassment as unwelcome sexually-determined behaviour towards any employee, whether verbal or otherwise, such as making physical contact or advances, sexually coloured remarks, or displaying pornographic materials in the workplace. Victims of sexual harassment are primarily women who are usually asked for sexual favours and sadly from their superiors in exchange for promotions or job opportunities.
- Verbal Harassment
Verbal harassment consists of belittling slurs, offensive gestures, and unwarranted criticisms and usually victims of such harassment often face battle of destruction that threatens their health and career equally. This form of harassment includes insults like fat-shaming/body shaming jokes, hurtful comments, and unwanted taunting, thus, often challenging to recognize. It is inappropriate and unpleasant language that is said either from a superior to a subordinate or between colleagues resulting in emotional damage. However it may be difficult to identify verbal harassment because people react differently.
- Cyber bullying
This digital harassment is the newest form of harassment due to technological advancement. Cyber bullying is a form of harassment that takes place via electronic device or online and it is as offensive as physical bullying. Examples of cyber bullying include circulating confidential information such as salaries on a whatsapp group or email, sharing personal emails to everybody in the office to see without permission and taking pictures of personal letters such as resignation letters and circulating them on whatsapp.
- Physical Harassment
This is a form of type of behaviour which comprises physical attacks or intimidations around the workplace. This can include hitting, kicking or even direct threats to inflict harm, threatening someone. Physical harassment can also be unwanted touching of their clothing or body and using hand signals to deliver vulgar language. This harassment is common and regularly comes from clients who may not be happy with services extended.
- Power Harassment
This occurs when a superior or anyone in a position of authority takes advantage of his position to bully his subordinates or anyone in a lower position. This behaviour shields things such as overloading of work with impossible deadlines, asking an employee to do personal chores beyond the boundaries of the job description, demoting an employee without good cause, threatening their job and criticising them in front of other employees.
- Psychological Harassment
Psychological harassment is somewhat similar to verbal harassment, but it is more covert and consists of tactics like withholding information. Victims who face such harassment are more likely to suffer mental breakdowns, low self-esteem, and tend to undermine themselves. Psychological harassment includes taking credits for others’ achievement, making impossible demands, imposing impossible deadlines on an employee, forcing someone to work outside their job scope, and so on. This is a form of deliberate psychological bullying.
Handling Workplace Harassment
A healthy, positive, and harassment-free workplace eradicates toxicity and helps in employee engagement and increased productivity. Management in organisations should thrive to make sure that the workplaces do not encourage harassment and discrimination towards anyone.
If not dealt with, arguments are that, harassment in the workplace can reduce work performance and affect a person’s mental, emotional and social being. It is important for someone to check the company’s employee code of conduct or policies in order to know what to do when faced with such a dilemma and who to report to.
There is also need to let the perpetrator know that this type of behaviour is unwelcome and inappropriate. One must also put it on record that they stop it immediately. This can be done by reporting the harassment through the formal channels within an organisation for example, human resources.