Table of Contents
Bullying and discrimination has been a problem from a long time back, we have heard and read cases of people facing discrimination from long back ago, people have always tend to favor the one of their own country, region, color and there is all sorts of discrimination that people face while working or while applying for a job. Bullying refers to a situation where a person or a group of people seeks to harm, intimidate, or overpower another person. Bullying at workplace can mean many situations such as not hiring people belonging to different gender, caste, background, color, region or any other diversity.
Other common situations are mistreating people at workplace, not taking suggestions from them, or even in some rare cases physical or mental abuse. Bullying is a serious crime and people can face major problems such as depression and anxiety problems. Unlike bullying at school or while playing, workplace is operated within rules and policies of the organisation. Most of the times bullying is done by the person who has authority over the other person such as bullying by the boss over the employee, like using cursing words and mistreat them. In family run business, people tend to be discriminative to other employees not belonging to the people, they tend to take less advices from them and discriminate them.
Bullying is linked to several precursors to thoughts of suicide:
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- depression and hopelessness;
- low self-esteem;
- loneliness and isolation;
- anger and frustration;
- humiliation;
- embarrassment;
- trauma.
Bullying causes many suicidal cases and it is reported that 85% of bullying cases takes in front of other people. The longer a person is bullied, the more likely they are to develop physical, emotional, and psychological scars that can last a lifetime. Bullying can be devastating, and can make them shy and insecure. The scientific study determined that almost 75% of employees surveyed had been affected by workplace bullying, whether hi was a target or a witness. Some research also states that women are more likely to face bullying whereas men are more likely to indulge in aggressive bullying, whereas if a women is a bully most chances are that the one she is bullying is also a women. Whereas 20% of workers say that they have experienced discomfort due to sexual humour. Whereas 22% of workers reported being physically assaulted or threatened by their bosses or clients.
Workplace Bullying
Mental stress is also a major sign of workplace bullying, 15% people result from exposure to occupational violence. People need to get educated in order to put a complete end to this social injustice. Workplace bullying also lays down unnecessary stress on employees, and it is the employers responsibility to provide a bully and discrimination free environment for their employees as employees should feel sense of security and justice at their workplace and it is their right to be free from workplace bullying. And if a employee faces any bullying or discrimination at their workplace, the employers need to be held responsible for such behavior in his organisation as it shows lack of implementation of rules and policies and their failed objective to protect the employees from violence but unfortunately in some cases the employers are the one bullying.
There are many other forms of workplace discrimination such as age, Age discrimination involves treating an worker or employee less favorably because of his or her age.
Age is a big factor in workplace and people often tend to be discriminative towards younger people as their suggestions are not much taken into consideration, often paid less for the same work paying more to another person in organisation. A major extent of this is child labour, the use of children in industry or business, mostly when it is illegal or considered inhumane. Child labours are always bullied at work, they are made to work extensively and are paid a very less compared to the work they are doing, these children are often mistreated and punished if the work is done incorrectly, physical abuse is very common to child workers.
- Worldwide 218 million children between 5 and 17 years are in employment; 152 million are victims of child labour.
- Almost half of them, 73 million, work in hazardous places.
- Almost half of all 152 million children victims of child labour are aged 5-11 years; 42 million (28%) are 12-14 years old; and 37 million (24%) are 15-17 years old. (Maik, 2018)
These stats seems very shocking half of the children facing child labour are below the mere age of 11 and a question always arises to my mind that how does a 5 year children made to work?
Age discrimination is not only for younger people elder people also faces discrimination at work too as it is considered that they would not be such effective and efficient in work, so they are mostly not hired at many workplaces.
Other common discriminative factor is gender, and we all are aware about this. Gender discrimination is unequal or disadvantageous treatment of an individual or group of individuals based on gender. In many countries and places gender discrimination is a major issue as women are not paid equally to men for the same work done by both. Gender discrimination is not only between men and women, it can be for transgenders and people with same gender sexual preferences. Sexual harassment is also a form of illegal gender discrimination. Gender discrimination can be eliminated with transparency within the company, supporting women into more seniority roles, reviewing the salaries and having clear and strict policies against discrimination.
Racial Discrimination
The most talked about discrimination is discrimination on basis of skin color, we have seen and read cases of color discrimination from long back ago. Skin color discrimination is when someone is discriminated because of his or her skin color or any characteristics related to it. 36 percent of EEOC ( Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) charges are on racial discrimination, whereas 30% of cases are on basis of gender discrimination, other leading cases are on basis of gender and disability with 24% and 23% respectively. Other than these religious discrimination is also a common discriminative issue. Religious discrimination is treating a person or group differently because of the beliefs they hold about a religion. Religious discrimination is related to religious persecution, the most extreme forms of which would include instances in which people have been executed for beliefs perceived to be heretic.
In a four-year study of religious discrimination around the world (2006-2010), Christians were the most-discriminated against group, experiencing harassment by the government and society in 168 countries.
Muslims make up the second largest religious population in the world and were discriminated against in 121 countries worldwide between 2006 and 2010. Mental and physical disability are also major reason for discrimination of employees as many a times people with physical disability are not hired for the job.
Bullying
Bullying can be compared with harassment as both are identical, but bullying is different from harassment as it is illegal and offensive which are serious enough to be against terms and conditions of the company. A person can face other forms of bullying such as if the bully intimidate or try to overpower someone who is weaker than him or is on a lower post than him. Spreading rumors about a person is an example of bullying too. The rumors are lies which are made up to make the person look bad. The worst part is that bullying is not always illegal or against the company policies. The bullies like to intimidate a person and it might not be physical or threatening. Mostly the bullies exclude someone socially. As an example a company has 15 employees in a specific department and they all plan to go out to eat in a restaurant but they does not invite one person out of them all, this social excluding is also sort of bullying someone. Sometimes the bosses makes personal or sexist jokes about a person which he does not like.
When a person facing bullying goes to work he might have low productivity and a low morale which is a result of increased stress, which is major reason why a company should keep track of such issues and have strict norms against it. There can be many reasons for bullying at workplace and one of the major reason for such activities is stressful work environment. Organisational changes, promotions, pay raises could also lead to bullying. Sometimes staff shortage or excessive staffing, conflict of interest and personal conflicts between employees can also lead to such behavior. Bullies can be encouraged if a company does not have rules and policies against bullying at workplace.
References
- StopBullying.gov
- Verywell Family – Understanding Bullying
- KidsHealth – Dealing with Bullies
- National Center for Biotechnology Information – Workplace bullying, all-cause and cause-specific sickness absence, and psychological distress: A cohort study of civil servants
- National Center for Biotechnology Information – Long-term consequences of workplace bullying on sickness absence
