Workplace bullying: what is it and how can it affect our mental and physical health?

Workplace harassment is a reality that many people face in our country and in the world. It is a problem that does not seem to receive enough attention, or is minimized because the professional and financial implications for victims are often greater.

He Workplace Harassmentalso called moral harassment (or in English bullying) consists of harassing, disturbing or generating fear, insecurity and terror, systematically, to a worker. The phenomenon also includes the physical and psychological effects that bullying has on the victim.

In general, workplace harassment or bullyingsearch mainly the resignation or abandonment of the worker. The phenomenon has been widely studied by numerous authors and institutions, and may be one of the factors that cause the so-called “syndrome burn-out” or “burnout syndrome” (although should not be confused or exchange).

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Problems that can cause workplace harassment

• acute stress
• Social isolation
• Financial distress
• Nervous breakdowns
• Impact on self-esteem
• Sleeping problems
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Suicide

He Workplace Harassment It should not be confused with the sexual harassmentalthough both types of harassment share characteristics (both are exercises of symbolic and physical violence; both can cause the same pathologies in a person, etc.), workplace harassment can be distinguished especially because it does not have a specifically sexual character in its origin or in its practice.

Workplace harassment can find Its origin is a lack of communication, envy, jealousy and bad human relationships.. It is worth clarifying that not every labor conflict is harassment, however, the nuance of consistency and its durability over time is a distinctive sign that should set off alarm bells.

Some figures on workplace harassment

He Workplace Bullying Institute In 2018, it presented figures that show the following conclusions:

1. He 66% of victims of workplace harassment are women.
2. He 70% of perpetrators or harassers are men.
3. He 61% of harassers (those who exercise violence) are bosses; 33% of the perpetrators are colleagues of the same rank that the victim and only 6% of the perpetrators are subordinates of the victim.
4. In it 63% of harassment casesthe harasser or victimizer acts alone.
5. He 80% of victims of workplace harassmentas a consequence of said harassment, they begin to suffer from some type of anxiety.
6. He 52% of bullying victims suffer panic attacks, whose origin was traced in said. harassment.

A figure that is especially worrying is that 66% of harassment victims lose their jobs as a result of harassment.

The figures mentioned coincide with those presented by the Portafolio portal, which indicates that in Colombia, in the city of Bogotá alone, nearly 972 complaints were filed during the first quarter of the year alone, a figure that indicates a growth in complaints of harassment in more than 50% compared to 2017.

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Behaviors typical of workplace harassment

As explained, workplace harassment does not occur abruptly, but in an escalated and progressive manner and, generally, occurs in two phases:

1. Subtle hostility performance: The actions that, in general, begin to be frequent in workplace harassment can be due to a call for public attention of exaggerated magnitude and unjustified, derogatory or malicious comments, hints, practical or uncomfortable jokes, sowing rumors, among other. Generally this is a testing phase carried out by the perpetrator(s) to the victim. It usually happens that, if the victim protests or expresses his discomfort early, the perpetrator excuses himself stating that said actions were jokes or that are part of your way of beingetc.
2. Acts of symbolic violence: In a later phase, the harasser or perpetrator could perpetrate a series of behaviors of greater severity and harm, such as despise, constantly ignore, criticize, discredit, insult, ridicule, make the task increasingly difficult, prevent the victim from communicating with others, intimidate and threatenr. At this point, the worker has already been victimized and must report.
3. Escalation and revictimization: It usually happens that the worker does not report the harassment until the previous phases have occurred. The company or contracting entity must mediate and guarantee the solutions. Unfortunately, many entities, as observed in the figures, do not guarantee protection to whistleblowing workers, generally because they have a lower rank than the harassers, They end up protecting the boss and firing the worker. In that case, since harassment constitutes a classified crime, both the harasser and the company are violating the labor code and must be punished.

This scourge affects women much more than men.

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Workplace harassment constitutes a crime and, according to the law 1010 of 2006, companies must adopt measures to prevent, correct and punish harassment and bullying. The Ministry of Labor is the entity in charge of regulating labor practices in Colombia. It is important to report harassment. To this end, the institution has lines enabled for such purposes and provides advice.