Workplace harassment is disruptive in the workplace and where such behaviour is prevalent it is key for maintaining professional relationships and work place dynamics. Many a times workers are harassed without even knowing it because they are not aware of what qualifies as harassment.
Harassment can come from a co-worker, boss or even a client/customer and the article will cover the 6 important types of workplace harassment that a worker should know about.
What is Workplace Harassment
Workplace Harassment can be defined as any behaviour constituting unwanted conduct that a worker may find to be offensive, disturbing, upsetting or threatening in nature. These behaviours have the general effect of embarrassing a person, humiliating, demeaning or belittling one's character.
- Sexual Harassment
Sexual Harassment in the workplace is very common and most workers are knowledgeable about it. The Labour Act [28:01] section 8(h) identifies sexual harassment as unwelcome sexually-determined behaviour towards any employee, whether verbal or otherwise, such as making physical contact or advances, sexually coloured remarks, or displaying pornographic materials in the workplace. Victims of this type of harassment are predominantly women and they are usually asked for sexual favours from their superiors in exchange for promotions or job opportunities.
- Physical Harassment
Physical harassment is a type of behaviour which involves the physical attacks or threats in or around the workplace. It can also be called workplace violence. Examples of this behaviour are hitting, kicking or even direct threats to inflict harm, threatening behaviour such as raising your hands or even destroying property to intimidate. It can also be unwanted touching of their clothing or body and using hand gestures to convey vulgar language. This harassment is common and usually comes from clients or customers who may not be happy with services proffered.
- Power Harassment
This kind of harassment is when a superior or someone in a position of authority at a workplace misusing his/her power to bully or take advantage of a lower-ranking employee making them feel helpless and hopeless. This behaviour covers things such as overloading of work with impossible deadlines, asking an employee to do personal chores beyond the boundaries of the job description, demoting an employee without good cause, threatening their job and criticising them in front of other employees.
- Verbal Harassment
Verbal harassment is inappropriate and unpleasant language that is said either from a superior to a subordinate or between colleagues causing psychological or emotional harm. This type of harassment maybe difficult to identify because people react differently. It can be done in front of other work colleagues or in your own private space. Examples of verbal harassment include inappropriate name calling or jokes, making unnecessary negative comments about a person's clothing or body shaming, sexually related questions or discussions and yelling at an employee in front of people to embarrass them.
- Psychological Harassment
Unlike the others, this type of workplace harassment is very subtle but has a negative impact on a person's wellbeing. Psychological harassment is a behaviour that plays around with the mind in order to demean, damage or degrade someone. This type of harassment goes as far as harming the employee's work performance. Examples include trivialising one's ideas at every point, isolation from group meetings and tasks, consistently paying salaries late and spreading false information or rumours about them in the workplace.
- Cyberbullying
Due to technological advancement, cyberbullying is slowly becoming common in the workplace. Cyberbullying is a harassment that takes place via electronic device or online. It is when offensive messages or inappropriate emails or texts are sent to an individual or shared without permission to cause harm. Examples include circulating confidential information such as salaries on a whatsapp group or email, forwarding a personal email to everyone in the office to see without permission and taking pictures of personal letters such as resignation letters and circulating them on whatsapp.
Dealing with Workplace Harassment
If not dealt with, harassment in the workplace can reduce work performance and affect a person mentally, emotionally and socially. Therefore, one should firstly check the company's employee code of conduct or policies in order to know what to do when faced with such a predicament and who to report to. There is also need to alert the perpetrator that this type of behaviour is unwelcome and inappropriate and put it on record that they stop it immediately. This behaviour should be reported immediately to the supervisor and human resources who are in charge of employees' welfare so that it is dealt with and this can be reported in writing.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
