Bullying has unhealthy consequences in the workplaces that foster or tolerate it, where health does not matter. I would like to clarify that by means of three consequent statements:
- main effects of workplace bullying are fright, vulnerability and stress
- fright, vulnerability and stress at work mean an increased incidence of mood and anxiety disorders
- there’s a strong causality between the employer’s persecuting behaviours and the sudden onset of depression and distrust in bullied employees, expecially in those less secure and emotional or undergoing workplace restructuring or downsizing.
Not only workplaces can be an overpowering magnete for bullies’ systematic and continuous persecuting attitudes such as sarcasm, harsh criticism, unlawful conducts, emotional outbursts, but they are also a threatening harm for bullied employees because of the increasing risk of suffering simultaneosly from anxiety and depression.
Depression and anxiety are so paralyzing for bullied employees that they find it hard to seek help for three reasons:
- firstly because they are afraid
- secondly because they are unware of the intentional persecution against them and don’t know that bullies are sistematically brewing some kind of trouble up
- then they believe that nothing could overcome the juggernaut bearing down because of self-sustaining hopelessness.
That is why illness gets worse while workplace bullying goes on crushing employees with bad consequences all around in terms of morale and health worsening and psychosocial risks increase.
Occupational health is not only related to safety and security but also to mental well-being.
Everything or everyone endangering such an important asset as health is a great risk for the employee, the workplace itself and the business.
Health is not something we can take for granted; we have to work on it every day. Managing and preventing work-related physical and psychosocial risks in order to promote and generate healthy working behaviours and an healthy environment is a priority everywhere, for every business, for every workplace.
Understanding the stress phenomenon and related threats through a multi-disciplinary approach encompassing psycho-sociology, medicine, industrial relations and labour law would make it possible to identify push and pull stress factors in order to prevent and minimize health risks.
Workplace bullying awareness, monitoring and prevention make it possible to reduce stress levels and health risks.
Thus, back to the thesis at the beginning of this post, healthy workplaces where health matters are surely bully-free.
