Persistent Workplace Bullying
So many
articles have been written about workplace bullying, yet it appears to be
happening more frequent than ever before. This makes this persistent trend to
bully others an especially troubling concern or issue in corrections as this
profession is filled with an abundance of ethical issues related to employee
safety and violence that appears to be focused on those employees who do their
jobs with due diligence and appear to be contributing to the positive efforts
to provide an ethical environment driven by a negative culture that undermines
civility, teamwork, compassion and fair treatment of co-workers and others.
One would
hope a profession such as corrections fosters dignity and respect. Although generally
speaking much is said about the job in a positive light, there are still those
individuals who ruin the positivity with their own self-created negativity. We can
only guess how this impacts or affects those around them whether they are
prisoners or co-workers, contract employees or visitors.
This negative
affect on the workplace is directly related to the sculpturing of workplace
violence or excessive bullying. Such negative dynamics created barriers of ‘silence’
whenever there are mistakes made in their improper behaviors or performance. Most
ignore or ‘keep quiet’ about such mistakes as they fear retaliation for
speaking out about another’s behavior or misconduct.
This ‘silence’
leads to excessive stress and anxiety creating health issues that are a direct
result of unmanaged anger or frustration that adds to hypertension, heart
disease, depression and other deep rooted psychological problems combined with
this health issue. It becomes a long-term affect rather than short term and
solutions are often drawn to impact staffing issues as the call-ins or
absenteeism for using their sick leave becomes excessive and more frequent in
an attempt to escape the bully syndrome at work. Some transfer out or resign
their positions but most of all, most begin to deteriorate in their performance
that directly results in less quality control in safety and security elements.
Lastly,
this lateral violence or bullying creates a negative workplace environment that
often causes the good employees to leave creating a high turnover of
experienced and high skilled individuals leaving the bullies and other
incompetents behind to do the job. One can certainly see how these impacts the
environment from other perspectives as it general contributes to high vacancy
rates and high rates of critical incidents.
Today,
more than ever, employers and staff have opportunities to intervene to prevent
lateral violence and workplace bullying. There are multiple resources an organization
can draw from to apply to their own setting. Employers should make it clear
that bullying will not be tolerated through establishing zero tolerance policy
enforcement. Education about and role-modeling of respectful interactions is
also important. Poor behavior and performance needs to be addressed rather than
ignored and it must be addressed by the wisdom of management to change the cultural
disposition of the workplace and implement a re-tooling method to change behaviors
and attitudes along the way.
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