What Are the Negative Repercussions of Workplace Bullying?

Workplace bullying is a serious issue that has a terrible impact on the lives of both the employee and the business. Bullying can cause serious health issues and decreased productivity and affect employee job satisfaction and other job-related factors like absenteeism, turnover, and staff morale. 

Defining Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying is defined as repeated, inappropriate, abusive, and aggressive behaviour towards a victim. Bullying can be verbal or nonverbal, done in person or through technology, such as texts, email, or even social media. 

A bully may use this power to sabotage a co-worker’s reputation, overshadow a co-worker’s accomplishments, or harm the co-worker’s reputation or credibility in a way that will ultimately have a negative impact on the company’s overall success.

What Are the Signs of Workplace Bullying?

Bullying can take many forms:

• Verbal harassment, including yelling, verbal threats, insults, name-calling, offensive comments, or teasing
• Discrimination, both direct and indirect
• Impossible deadlines or unfair workloads
• Isolating or spreading rumours
• Excluding or rejecting a worker from team activities
• Isolating a worker and making them feel unimportant or unwanted
• Any activity that has or could hurt the physical or mental health and the psychological well-being or the performance of a worker

Effects of Workplace Bullying

There are different impacts that workplace bullying can have on an employee:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Stress
• Tension
• Loss of self-esteem
• Sleeplessness
• Nervous breakdown
• Family or marital problems
• Heart issues
• Lack of motivation
• Loss of a job or career
• Financial problems
• Suicide

Bullying can also profoundly impact morale, staff retention, and productivity within a company. It can harm the company’s reputation, making it difficult to attract top talent.

Becoming a Victim of Workplace Bullying

If you are a victim of workplace bullying, no matter how severe or minor the situation may be, it’s essential to immediately address the issue with the appropriate individual.

In some cases, the bullying may be due to a misunderstanding or confusion, and the bully may realise their mistake. In other cases, the bully may be well aware of the situation and still choose to maintain the behaviour. If this is the case, you may want to document the bullying and keep track of events to create a case for legal action.

If you are a victim of workplace bullying, consider the following:

• Document the bullying, including dates, times, witnesses, and any other information that will help you prove your case
• Contact an employment lawyer to discuss your legal options
• Seek out help from the human resources department to report and investigate your case

You must take action as soon as possible, because bullying can lead to serious issues like mental health problems and suicide.

Conclusion

There are many different ways to deal with the negative impact of workplace bullying. Understanding the bullying behaviour and addressing it early can help prevent the situation from escalating and causing more harm to the employee, the company and the entire team.

If you have been a victim of workplace bullying, you need to take action to ensure that this negative behaviour does not continue or affect potential victims. If the bullying continues, you could contact an attorney to seek guidance.

Do you need an employment lawyer in Brisbane? Trust Saines Legal. We take pride in having a team of lawyers experienced in all areas of employment law. Give us a call.