Running head: WORKPLACE BULLYING 1

Impact of Workplace Bullying on Employee and Organization Performance

Name

Institution
WORKPLACE BULLYING 2

Outline

Introduction....................................................................................................................................3

Impacts of Workplace Bullying to Employees and Organizational Performance................3

Impact to Employee Performance..............................................................................................4

Loss of Confidence and Self-Esteem.....................................................................................4

Job satisfaction..........................................................................................................................5

Health..........................................................................................................................................6

Impact to the Organizational performance................................................................................6

Cost.............................................................................................................................................6

High turnover rates....................................................................................................................7

Economic loss............................................................................................................................8

Conclusion......................................................................................................................................8

References...................................................................................................................................10
WORKPLACE BULLYING 3

Introduction

Workplace bullying is deliberate or unconscious persistent, repeated and

continuous mistreatment of a worker or a group of workers from one or more colleagues

in a workplace, in a manner that causes either physical or psychological humiliation.

Workplace bullying assumes a variety of dimensions and occurs in any organizational

level. Non-verbally, workplace bullying can be such behaviors as; use of offensive

gestures, inappropriate pictorial or written material, intentional silence or practical jokes.

Verbal behaviors deemed as workplace bullying include insults, yelling amongst

workers, persistent negative feedback and criticism or making incongruous comments

on issues such as sex, race, appearance or lifestyle. Isolation of workers from normal

interactions while performing duty or restricting resourceful information regarding work

is also workplace bullying. Other workplace bully tactics include assigning too much or

too little or even demeaning tasks, over-monitoring of work, inconsequential fault

finding, setting unrealistic goals, or constant delivery of feedback at undesirable times.

However, workplace bullying is different from personality conflicts, misunderstanding,

miscommunication or stringent management regulations set by the organization. Bullies

can be supervisors, subordinates or colleagues.

Impacts of Workplace Bullying to Employees and Organizational Performance

Workplace bullying is a malicious practice that is potentially harmful to both

individuals and organizations. It characterizes a sustained, personalized attack on one

worker by other using emotionally and psychologically punishing behaviours (Devonish

2013). This affects ability of employees to give their best in an organization. Eventually,
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retrogressive performance in an entire organization is realized since employees are the

major stakeholders and contribute directly to achievement of it goals.

Impact to Employee Performance

Loss of Confidence and Self-Esteem

Some bullying tactics in a work environment are extremely taunting especially

when targeted to an employee’s area of specialization. Bullies are the main sources of

negative stress in any organizational structure. They lead to forced anxiety, feelings of

social isolation, unsubstantiated criticism and general reduced work perfomance in an

organization. According to Hutchinson (2012), workers who face social, political or

religious, discrimination generally experience loss of confidence and low self-esteem.

This results in reduced morale and retrogressive performance of duties. In addition, loss

of confidence and self-esteem is highly attributed to low scores in the event of

performance appraisals. Bully supervisors worsen the situation through poor evaluation

that may eventually define the employee as incompetent. Nevertheless, losing sense of

confidence in one’s job leads to distrust between the worker, colleagues and the

employer, affecting the interpersonal relationships negatively (Devonish 2013).

Continued loss of confidence in work and reduced self-esteem not only results low task

performance and may imply permanent psychological complications such as mental

distress and fear of being in the wrong every time an employee is undertaking an

assigned duty (Hutchinson 2012).

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Job satisfaction

In some cases, discrimination and intimidation in workplaces lead to low job

satisfaction with regard to aspects such as training opportunities and promotions.

Affected employees develop fears of demotion or retrenchment from work (Branch,

Ramsay and Barker 2013). The performance of racially discriminated employees

tremendously reduces especially if they possess higher qualifications and experience

for the particular job they hold in an organization. This is because they develop a feeling

of rejection and perception of having less control over their jobs (Woodrow and Guest

2013). Some bureaucratic organizations follow time-consuming work patterns and

procedures that lack flexibility and attention towards the satisfaction of employees. This

at times results into violence in the workplace. Employees become angry, depressed

and generally depict reduced morale to perform organizational duties assigned to them.

For instance, Woodrow and Guest reveal a series of cases where dissatisfied workers

from the United States Postal Service shot dead managers, co-workers and some

police officers who had arrived at the scene to rescue the situation. They continue to

conclude that the risk of murdering top ranking officials by staff in any organization has

become a rising alarm especially in the American society. Lack of job satisfaction has

led to noticeable cases of murder including such places as schools and offices, which

are regarded as safe. Reports on the impact workplace bullying attest that productivity

decreases by approximately 20% in an organization where employees have low morale

and dissatisfaction. This has direct influence on individual and organizational

performance (Galanaki and Papalexandris 2013).

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Health

Workplace bullying creates stress environments. Galanaki and Papalexandris

(2013) released some inferences drawn from an online survey that analyzed unhealthy

workplaces. This survey indicated that workplace bullying could result into permanent

harm to the affected employees. Statistics further indicated that an estimated time range

between 10% - 52% is wasted as employees seek for solutions and support from the

management. Failed defense of their situation worsens as they become demotivated

and more stressful (Galanaki and Papalexandris 2013). In a separate research

conducted to evaluate high work demands in the public sector, it is evident that less

control coupled with poor social support leads to stressful work environments

(McCormack, Djurkovic and Casimir 2013). Most of the workplace bullying takes place

behind the scenes and is difficult to detect except where workers emerge in vengeful

drama to counter bullies at work. Bullies shame, victimize, humiliate and depress other

workers instilling fear, anger, anxiety and fewer psyches in them. This mistreatment

leads to negative impacts to their health with high prevalence of heart related diseases,

mental failures, lack of sleep and digestive disturbances, nightmares, exhaustion, poor

concentration and depression. Other workers result into alcoholism, which leads to

absenteeism, family tension and even results into accidents (Devonish 2013). These

effects result into counter-productivity due to reduced task performance.

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Impact to the Organizational performance

Cost

Bullying in the workplace has both direct and indirect costs to an organization.

Costs incurred directly include are due to absenteeism, increased employee turnover

rates, high legal fees and insecurity costs. On the other hand, indirect costs are difficult

to measure and link to stressful employees, reduced morale and retrogressive

productivity (Devonish 2013). Individual consequences because of bullying in the

workplace are very costly for the organization. Woodrow and Guest (2013) classify

these costs into three categories. In the first category, the organization meets the cost of

hiring other staff to replace those who leave jobs because of workplace bullying. Further

cost is incurred during recruitment and training of new staff to take in the positions left

vacant by the leaving employees. The second category of cost comes in as new staff

cope with the conditions of their newly acquired jobs. The work effort at the time of

adapting to new tasks, and perhaps experience bullying, reduces greatly. In the third

category, bullied employees may end up with short-term or long-term illnesses, injuries

or disabilities. In this case, bullying costs the organization while carrying out

investigations into the cause of illnesses, injuries and disabilities. Furthermore, the

organization also meets servicing costs of legal actions and in attempts to retain the

reputation of the organization (Woodrow and Guest 2013).

High turnover rates

Devonish (2013) describes workplace bullying as an intentional or non-intentional

malicious behaviours targeting a certain individual or group of interest to harm, control

WORKPLACE BULLYING 8

or drive a coworker from the workplace. Organizations face a high risk of losing

employees in case of stressful working environments. At the highest pressure from

resulting from workplace bullying, employees give up and vacate jobs to cope with

stress. Galanaki and Papalexandris (2013) released some results from an online

survey that indicated that about 82% of bullied workers leave their workplace. In this,

the outcome showed about 38% left work as a result of health related issues while 44%

quit because of attaining low scores in performance appraisals conducted by bully

supervisors, hence regarding them as incompetent. This research vividly gave the

advantage of withdrawing from a job over disadvantages that accompany spending time

defending bully-related issues and seeking for support helplessly, losing motivation or

even taking a sick leave.

Economic loss

Bullying at the workplace to leads to high rates of absenteeism as employees

take short involuntary leaves to cope with bullying tactics in the workplace. This results

to decreased commitment to the organization, leading to declined efficiency and

productivity (Hutchinson 2012). Generally, declined productivity in an organization highly

affects it output. Bullying results into high turnover rates as employees escape bully

environments. This leads to joblessness, an implication of an economic loss to

organizations and the nation as a whole. Furthermore, employees who leave due to

injuries and mental illnesses require medical attentions, which contribute to economic

losses to organizations since they incur insurance costs to cover hospital bills and

sometimes settle legal fees that maybe charged as compensation for the bullied

employees (McCormack, Djurkovic and Casimir 2013).

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Conclusion

Workplace bullying is a detrimental phenomenon that exhibits far-reaching

consequences to individuals and organizations. It leads to physical, emotional and

psychological damages to employees. The impacts of such behavior proves to be

tremendous to the operations of an organization reducing its rates of performance both

internally through decreased output and externally bringing about economic losses.

However, despite the recognition of bullying in many organizations, there are rarely

controlled regulations and legal protections to address its vulnerability. Most

organizations General factors that influence bullying in the workplace are the

organizational structure, leadership styles, work systems, workplace relationships and

workforce characteristics. Employees produce best results when they work in a friendly

job environment, which facilitates their creativity, innovativeness, and urge to

incorporate new ideas into work. Bullying is a difficult phenomenon to deal with in an

organizational setup. However, the practice can be discouraged through formulation of

organizational policies, conflict management and education. Organizations should put

forth stringent rules and zero-tolerance policies governing the conduct of employees at

work. Formulation of workplace bullying policies should involve the knowledge and

creativeness of the employees where possible. Organizations should educate and train

employees on how to deal with bullying instances from supervisors or colleagues at

work. In addition, the organizations management should encourage employees to report

instances of bullying to the management. Bullies should receive counselling and be

subjected to appropriate punishments as stipulated in the set policies. Decreased

bullying instances greatly improve the motivation of workers and hence individual
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performance increased. Furthermore, it reduces costs incurred by the organization in

dealing with the aftermaths of bullying. Conclusively, individual and organizational

performances directly relate to workplace bullying.

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References

Branch, S., Ramsay, S. and Barker, M. (2013) ‘Workplace Bullying, Mobbing and

General Harassment: A Review’, International Journal of Management Reviews,

Vol. 15, pp. 280-299.

Devonish, D. (2013) ‘Workplace bullying, employee performance and behaviours’,

Employee Relations, Vol. 35, No.6, pp.630-647.

Galanaki, E. and Papalexandris, N. (2013) ‘Measuring workplace bullying in

organisations’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management,

Vol.24, No. 11, pp.2107-2130.

Hutchinson, J. (2012) ‘Rethinking Workplace Bullying as an Employment Relations

Problem’, The Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol.54, No. 5, pp.637-652.

McCormack, D., Djurkovic, N. and Casimir, G. (2013) ‘Workplace bullying: then

experiences of building and construction apprentices’, Asia Pacific Journal of

Human Resources, Vol.51, Issue 4, pp.406-420.

Woodrow, C. and Guest, D. (2013) ‘When good HR gets bad results: exploring the

challenge of HR implementation in the case of workplace bullying’, Human

Resource Management Journal, Vol 24, No. 1, pp. 38-55