Managing bullying and harassment in the workplace Research Paper

Managing bullying and harassment in the workplace - Research Paper Example 2. Discussion and Analysis Let’s give a brief discussion about bullying and harassment. Bullying based on sex, gender, race, ethnicity, color, language, cultural background, socio-economic background, physical impairment, and etcetera, comes under the concept of discrimination. For example, age discrimination includes bullying such as not selecting an old age candidate for a job posting, abusing an old employee, firing or demoting him, not providing him employee incentives, or preferring others to him when it comes to important decision-making and problem-solving. Quid pro quo is the situation in which the person’s employment status is decided based upon his response to the sexual advances by his employer. It can also be described as â€Å"do this and I’ll do that for you†. Reverse quid is the situation in which the employer behaves like â€Å"do this or I’ll do that†. This more generally involves threats and punishments. Hostile environment is the environment that results from offensiveness shown by the victim as a response to unwelcome sexual conduct from the harasser, and this situation starts hindering the victim’s job performance. ... 3. Literature Review Branch, Ramsay and Barker (2013) conducted a research on workplace bullying. They assert that researchers have long been formulating theories and explanations about bullying and harassment at workplace, especially after the emergence of the concept of school bullying. They state that although workplace bullying and harassment have become widely known aspects of organizational cultures, yet organizations face challenges in implementing management strategies to manage these. Workplace bullying and harassment not only affect the victims but also have hazardous impacts upon the bystanders. Hence, it becomes necessary for the organizations to consider all impacts of workplace bullying and harassment in order to work out such strategies that cater with the needs of not only the victims but also the bystanders. Deery, Walsh and Guest (2011) studied the effects of workplace bullying and harassment on job satisfaction. Their research sample consisted of nurses in British hospitals. They compared two types of harassment: insider harassment that came from seniors and co-workers, and outsider harassment that came from patients. They also studied the effect of anti-harassment policies on workplace environment. They concluded that the nature of bullying and harassment changed with the nature of the harasser (insider or outsider); however, anti-harassment policies were found to have a profound impact as they resulted in considerable decrease in the harassment incidents at the workplace. This research helps understand that anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies at the workplace are crucial if the aim is to reduce workplace bullying and harassment. Bentley et al.