The majority of working people at least once faced harassment at work. It can be manifested in disregard of opinion, or restriction of activities without coordination with management, devaluation of achievements, and other aspects. Such problems at work significantly worsen the quality of life; constant stress can cause health problems (Gale et al., 2019). Harassment also has a harmful impact on the company itself, as unhealthy working relationships provoke staff turnover, decrease productivity, and worsen the work process (Anjum et al., 2018). The paper analyzes an article by Williams (2019) on the fight against oppression at work. Despite a significant number of measures taken to prevent such behavior, harassment still manifests itself in various forms making job too difficult for some staff members.
Finding a job is a rather challenging task, and the result can be unpredictable since not always acquaintance with the team establishes a friendly working relationship. In her article, Williams (2019) argues that modern working relations are much better than in the past, as people have become more conscious, and the measures taken to prevent harassment have had their effect. Among them are the payment of compensation through the court for victims, the development of a policy on workplace harassment, and employers’ requirements to investigate in detail such incidents. The working teams’ leaders realized that functionality can be achieved only when the team has a friendly working atmosphere.
However, the charter can be inconspicuous and manifest itself outside of work. Modern technology has made it easier for abusers to insult their colleagues – by email or social networks. On the one hand, the public domain information makes it possible to comment and discuss colleagues discreetly manipulating them. On the other hand, threats and other harassment manifestations in online correspondence can be a significant argument for initiating proceedings (Tenório & Bjørn, 2019). The difficulty is that if the communications are anonymous or not clearly worded, such grounds will be rather precarious.
Combating harassment in the workplace is important for employees’ well-being and the net income of the company itself. Since the existing measures are still not quite enough to stop it, Willams (2019) suggests that management should more actively involve employees in solving the problem. The introduction of additional codes of conduct in companies can become another tool in the fight against harassment. Moreover, the problem can be stopped even at the stage of hiring employees identifying potential abusers with personality tests. Taking into account that they do not always correctly recognize the character of a person, it is vital to receive feedback from the previous place of work finding out whether unpleasant incidents occurred. When hiring a potential employee, the HR manager significantly influences the future workflow.
Serious violations in employees’ behavior are not the problem of individual people, but this is a severe problem for an entire company. Thus, it is crucial for leaders to continually improve management skills and be aware of all processes taking place in the company. A new generation of workers expects in exchange for the performance of official duties to receive not only a good salary but also a respectful attitude. Everyone deserves this attitude, and at work it can be the key to productivity. A crucial achievement of modern society is the way of protecting human rights – movements like #MeToo draw attention to the problem, and the search for a solution has already started. Nevertheless, the results achieved are not all that can be done. It is essential to move on in the fight against harassment in the workplace.
References
Anjum, A., Ming, X., Siddiqi, A. F., & Rasool, S. F. (2018). An empirical study analyzing job productivity in toxic workplace environments. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(5), 1035.
Gale, S., Mordukhovich, I., Newlan, S., & McNeely, E. (2019). The impact of workplace harassment on health in a working cohort. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1181.
Tenório, N., & Bjørn, P. (2019). Online harassment in the workplace: The role of technology in labour law disputes. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 28(3-4), 293-315.
Williams, L. (2019). Workplace harassment: The fight continues. Canadian HRReporter.