Bullying and harassment at work can cause psychological harm as well as issues such as stress, anxiety, and lost productivity. Bullying in the workplace is characterized as a pattern of offenses, humiliation, or intimidation directed at one or more employees through gossip, social exclusion, aggressive behavior, sexual harassment, and cyber-bullying, among other things. It can have a significant impact on a bullied person’s mental health by causing distress and low self-confidence, which can lead to psychological harm from a legal standpoint.
Even if you are not suffering from a mental condition as a result of the bullying, you should take the required steps, such as reporting it to your manager, if you suspect you are being bullied at work. In the long term, immediate action can assist protect your mental health. The fact that you did not disclose the bullying to your boss could potentially be used against you. It’s also a good idea to record the bullying in writing in case you need proof later.
What is and isn’t bullying?
To say that there is bullying, a person or group must act unreasonably towards someone repeatedly. What is meant here by irrationality can be measured by the reaction of the reasonable average person to any given situation. These irrational and repetitive behaviors may endanger the safety and health of the person being bullied.
Examples of bullying include:
- be aggressive towards someone
- derogatory mockery or jokes
- pressure someone to behave inappropriately
- completely exclude someone from work-related events
- making unreasonable job demands
But on the other hand, the act of management carried out in a reasonable way is not bullying. An employer or manager can take the following actions. And these actions do not qualify as bullying when done judiciously:
- making decisions about poor performance
- disciplinary action against the employee,
- directing and regularly checking the way the business works.
Bullying and harassment in the workplace is unacceptable
You have the right to work in a secure atmosphere devoid of bullying, harassment, unlawful discrimination, and workplace violence. Bullying and harassment in the workplace can have a negative impact on people’s health, job performance, and job satisfaction. There are a few things you may do if you or someone you know is being harassed or bullied at work. When you are exposed to bullying, you should demand for it to end and seek solutions. You will then need to seek advice. For this, you need a psychological injury lawyer who knows the legal procedures to get detailed information about what you will do. Your lawyer will explain to you the legal reasons for the situations you experience at work, whether it is bullying or not, and will tell you in detail what can be done. Of course, you may need to prove this bullying in order to get the most appropriate compensation your lawyer will want for you. For this reason, it is very valuable for you to record what happened.
