Nov 03, 2023

Bullying and harassment in the workplace can have a significant impact on the victims in terms of emotional wellbeing. There are people who are having to seek treatment from licensed mental health professionals to be able to deal with their mental health issues cause by workplace bullying and harassment. This is something that needs to stop.

There are employees who are able to put up with the bullying and harassment and are able to not let it bother them significantly. They are able to ignore it and move on. They are able to stick it out during the work hours and then are able to enjoy the non-work hours without any issues. They are the lucky ones.

However, there are many other employees for whom it is not possible to ignore such irresponsible behavior at the workplace. It bothers them significantly and it eventually affects them during their non-work hours as well. When they go home, they are extremely stressed and are not able to enjoy any relaxing hours. They remain anxious for the next workday coming up within a few hours. This eventually can develop into significant mental health issues for them requiring professional help.

All of this can be avoided if the companies make sure that bullying and harassment at the workplace is simply not acceptable.

Oct 26/2023

A school should be a fun place to go to for all children. As a minimum the children should have the right to expect the school environment to be a safe one. Sometimes a child does not want to go to school because he or she had not done the home work that needed to get done. But they should never feel like not going to school because of the fear of bullies.

There are still many schools around the country where bullying continues to be active and the school environment is not safe for all children. To me this is absolutely unacceptable. Kids sometimes do not want to go to school because of some learning related issues such as home work and/or other work while at school – this is something the parents would have to deal with anyway. This is a normal situation for many children and is not a bad thing. The process of educational learning is an important activity for all children.

But on top of that some children are also having to deal with the fear of being bullied. Kids should not have to deal with that. It is the responsibility of the adults around the children to provide a safe learning environment for all kids. It is not necessary for children to learn how to deal with mistreatment from bullies. Some adults will say that life is tough and children must learn to deal with it. But I don’t agree – if they have to deal with this at such an early age, it can often create extremely difficult emotional and psychological issues for them. We simply cannot continue to allow such mistreatment.

Oct 19, 2023

In most workplace bullying situations, it is typically an employee being harassed by a supervisor or a manager. In most of these situations the manager or the supervisor never had any training in managing employees. A person who has been a good employee can often get promoted to become a manager. But a good employee, without appropriate training, doesn’t always make a good manager.

All employees expect that when they work hard and do well, they will someday be considered for promotions. However, in many cases, there aren’t that many positions available that one can get promoted to. Most often, the only promotion track available to employees is the supervisory track – they can get promoted to become a Team Leader or a Supervisor or a Manager. This is where the problem lies. Many good employees do not have the right training or aptitude to become a good supervisor.

This is why many companies are working hard to create a non-management promotion track for employees. That means that good employees who might not have the aptitude to become managers or supervisors, can still be promoted to non-managerial positions with greater responsibilities. These companies are trying to make sure that getting promoted to managerial positions is not the only way an employee can get ahead in his or her career. I think it is important for companies to try to focus on this to make sure good employees who are not suitable for managerial roles can feel satisfied with greater and greater non-managerial responsibilities.

Oct 12, 2023

Bullying often triggers OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) for victims because there is a lot of similarity between a bully and OCD. They both try to control the victim and make him/her do things against their wills. That is why OCD is sometimes known as the Enemy Within.

Question often comes up as to why do the bullies do the bullying? I have firsthand knowledge from at least one bully. In my first book “A Life Interrupted – the story of my battle with bullying and obsessive compulsive disorder” I describe an interesting face-to-face encounter I had in adult years with the worst bully from my school days. From my discussions with him I understood that one of the main reasons why he became a bully was because of the treatment he received at home. His home life was not pleasant at all and he felt controlled a lot of the times. Therefore, he felt the need to control others so he could feel important, something that he did not feel at home.

Later through my speeches around the country, I have come to meet a lot of bullies and victims of bullying – they all confirmed that “control” is one of the key factors. This feeling of being controlled can then easily get transformed into OCD. It tortures the victims in a very similar fashion. It makes the victims do things that they don’t really want to do. The only way the victims can get control of their OCD is to learn how to ignore this internal bully. That is what can be achieved through medication and therapy.

Oct 05, 2023

I have been noticing that more and more school officials are starting to understand and accept the fact that bullying can cause very serious long term mental health issues for the victims. However, things are still not changing fast enough in most schools. This is probably because most school staff likely believe that there can be serious impact but not for most victims. They need to focus on the fact that even one life affected is one too many.

It is very easy to step away from doing something about an issue as long as you believe that it really does not impact a lot of people. Therefore, if you believe that most victims of bullying do not end up with serious mental health issues, you would feel justified not to spend a lot of time and effort to find a solution to the problem. You don’t feel bad about ignoring the issue since you have convinced yourself that it does not impact most of the students.

However, the point is that it is an extremely serious problem as long as even one child is affected by it. A couple of years back I had spoken at a conference where the theme was “every child counts”. I think that is an excellent message that all school staff should take to heart. In my view, all school staff should remain focused on the fact that they must be able to create and maintain an environment where each and every child feels safe and protected. No child deserves to suffer from long term mental health issues because of a negative school environment. That is why it is critical that all school staff should be focused on making sure that there is no bullying whatsoever.

Sep 29, 2023

Organizations can do a lot of things to make sure there is no bullying or harassment in the workplace. However, it all comes down to the owner or the CEO placing a high priority on developing and maintaining a bully-free organization. If they are truly serious about it, then the next levels of management will do their best to follow through.

In larger companies the CEO establishes the priority by first hiring a professional Human Resources Director who has experience in appropriately managing bullying and harassment issues, and makes sure that the HR Director understands the priority placed on this matter. In the true account story I describe in my book “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer”, there was an HR Director involved, but I don’t believe she had the appropriate experience to deal with these issues. It appeared to me that she would rather avoid these issues rather than having to deal with them. Eventually she got rid of me probably because she thought that would help the situation. Of course, I decided to fight back and won my case through union-led arbitration. I believe if there was a well experienced HR Director involved, then the situation would have been handled differently.

In smaller companies it is much harder because owners often do not have the funding to hire an HR Manager. However, even in smaller companies, if the owner makes it very clear that bullying and harassment in the workplace will not be tolerated, then that message often gets through to everyone. Nobody in a workplace wants to go against the priorities set by the owner.

Sep 21, 2023

Many bullies in the schools do not really know what kind of long term impacts they are causing for the victims. They are often told that “bullying is bad – it is not an acceptable behavior in the school. There will be punishment if the bullying continues”. I think the results will be far better if the school officials made sure that the bullies truly understood the long term impact bullying can have on the victims.

Telling them that it is not an acceptable behavior and even handing out some punishment might be a short term solution, but I believe those things do not bring about long term change. Those steps can act as deterrents for a while, but sooner or later the bully gets back to his or her old tricks. That is why it is important to do something that can create a long term change. And based on the feedback I have received over the years from my presentations, I do believe that it is possible to help them make some permanent changes.

First of all, the bullies really need to understand what kind of long term negative impact bullying can have on victims. Most of the school bullies are not aware of this. They think it’s all for some harmless fun at the expense of others. But they don’t really understand that it is not at all “harmless” like they think it is. If they had a good understanding of the life-long devastating impact it can bring to the victims, most bullies will stop continuing the mistreatment. Also, it is really important to work with the parents of the bullies. If the bullies can have a reasonable home life, their actions while at school will be more positive.

Sep 14, 2023

I continue to believe that it is important for victims of workplace bullying to stand up and fight against it. Most organizations would at least have someone in management who would be willing to listen to you and do something about it. If not, then there are government organizations that one can go to for assistance in these matters.

Most employees within the Human Resource departments across the country are now well trained in dealing with the issues of bullying and harassment in the workplace. They know that it can be a significant issue for the company if reports of bullying and harassment are not handled properly. Most HR personnel are now well trained in establishing processes and procedures to handle complaints of this nature. In fact I have heard about cases where specific employees were told that they might be fired if their behavior did not change.

However, in smaller companies the situation can be very different. First of all, many small companies cannot afford to have an HR department. And when they do have one, it is not always managed by a trained HR professional. In the story in my book titled “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer”, the organization I had my problems with had an HR department, but I don’t believe the director had a lot of experience in these matters. I needed to work with my employee union and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights to get some resolution.

Sep 08, 2023

As the new school year rolls in, we need to make a firm resolution to continue our efforts to prevent bullying in our schools across the country. There are still many schools out there where bullying continues to be a problem. We simply cannot afford to allow the devastating long term impact it can have on victims.

If you want to stop something you would need to place a high priority on it and put in dedicated efforts in achieving success. Many schools do identify bullying prevention as one of their key objectives, but they don’t really place a high enough priority on this issue. Many schools have programs in place, but they don’t often follow up on identified issues and therefore bullying still continues.

Children become aware very quickly if the school staff is serious about something or not. If the school staff truly wanted to stop bullying in their schools, I believe most students will get the message and adjust their behaviors accordingly. I believe that school staff are still not taking full responsibility in trying to eradicate bullying. And I think that is because of the fact that many school staff members do not fully understand the possible long term negative impact on victims of bullying. That is the reason why school staff need to be trained properly to be able to understand what bullying can do to victims over the rest of their lives.

Sep 01, 2023

Most of the time bullying and harassment in the workplace takes place simply because the manager/supervisor is not well trained in being able to handle the various issues that typically come up when there are a number of employees involved. Some companies do recognize this need and provide the necessary training to the managers and supervisors. However, there are many businesses where no such training is provided.

If you need people to get your work done, then you must know how to deal with people. A manager’s job is to make sure that an employee puts in the best effort possible to get his or her work done in the most satisfactory manner. But at the same time, it is also important for the manager/supervisor to make sure that the employees are happy in doing their work. If employees are unhappy then their work output becomes unsatisfactory and eventually the work environment becomes negative.

One way to keep employees happy and engaged in their work is to make sure their work environment remains positive. That is why it is critical to make sure there is no bullying and/or harassment going on in the workplace. If an employee is having to face bullying and/or harassment either from the supervisor or from another employee, his or her work performance will certainly suffer. Since the goal at a work place is to make sure work performance is the highest possible, it is critical to make sure no bullying or harassment takes place in the workplace.

© 2017 - Sumi Mukherjee
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