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Why Be Proactive In Our Treatment Of Employees?
3-25-2014
Workplace bullying and harassment are emerging issues to be addressed by employers. Add the potentially larger problem of increased stress, decreased morale and diminished productivity of those employees who remain after layoffs, who are expected to carry the same load with less people, less experiential knowledge and less resources. Factor in a still sluggish economy and high unemployment, and we have a workplace perfect storm and a cresting wave of workplace discontent.
I think employers need to be proactive and act ahead of the law. Ignoring this rising crisis may result in a layer of liability and non-compliance resulting from new laws. Their efforts to run a business may be stymied by a mobilized work force or they may have to close down because they failed to navigate this storm effectively. This storm will stay in the workplace and be also strengthened by the changes in the workplace brought by information technology and Generation Y. This is not your father’s work environment anymore.
Today’s stories of bullying, harassment and excessive demands upon employees is similar to the abuses that led to sweeping changes in the 19th century industrial and manufacturing-based workplace. Then the abuses were physical in nature – terrible working conditions in factories, slaughterhouses and manufacturing plants, coupled with excessive hours and demands, took their toll on the physical well-being of the American worker. The rise of unions, protecting the rights and the health of workers, and a wave of worker protection laws followed.
Today, the damage is to the workers’ mental state and stress levels. Today’s mistreatment is psychological harassment – verbal abuse, belittling, threatening behavior, intimidation, humiliation or setting employees up for failure by making unreasonable demands of them. Studies conducted over the last few years show similar results – approximately 25-40% of those surveyed experienced some kind of workplace mistreatment or abuse. Over 40% worked for an abusive supervisor or employer.
To date few if any laws are responsive to these conditions. While some efforts have been made in the United States, most of the anti-bullying laws that exist are overseas, in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, Poland and Belgium. U.S. employees are protected from harassment only within the context of discrimination, such as sexual harassment (gender discrimination). Absent some discrimination, there is little if any statutory protection.
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