Know What Is Workplace Bullying and How To Deal With It Professionally

Posted by HRM Resolutions on September 16th, 2019

Bullying means directly or indirectly wrecking physical or psychological distress on one or more than one people. It can be further defined as intimidating yet repeated, verbal, or physical behavior, which includes insulting gesture, by an adult, which is severe enough to create an uncomfortable environment in the workplace. Workplace bullying in Australia may involve making fun of others, social elimination, invalid criticism, false allegations, physical or racial harassment, and humiliation in front of the public. Bottom line is that bullying can lead to a terrible effect both on physical and mental health as well as the performance of the employees. A workplace is a place where many people work together and hence a certain amount of teasing or joking can occur naturally. However, when it becomes constant and repetitive then it crosses over the line of bullying that can affect the person very heavily.

Few signs that you are being bullied in the office

Do you feel challenged proving yourself?
When you get certain commands with a deadline from your senior and you give your best to work hard and with focus, only to find out that your progress and contribution are is not even acknowledged and not taken into account; or managers give credit of your efforts to others. Here comes the major act of bullying when you see your manager, purposely denying your work just to prevent you from successfully completing a task.

Does every decision of yours get questioned?
If you get constantly micro-managed, you begin to feel like your decisions are not being trusted and that’s too without any reason. Constant accusations over small matters get you to start self-doubting your own decision-making capacity. As a result, the ability of decision making and management gets hit

Do you feel estranged?
Over a period of time, you are starting to get excluded from important meetings and discussions. Colleagues’ interaction with you gets reduced to a bare minimum. You get excluded from post-work get-togethers. You become subject to verbal abuse with insulting and offensive language. If these things are happening with you then it means you are being bullied by your work staff.

Here are the possible actions that you can take to stop workplace bullying in Australia:

Do not ignore: Silence is not the best defense mechanism in the case of bullying. Ignoring it with the hope that it will go away will actually escalate the issue. So be brave and point out your problem with your friends and family and start fighting back against the employees.

Raise your concern: Voicing out the concern to a trusted authority in the organization is critical.  Contacting human resources is a good idea. They should be able to help you understand if you're actually being bullied. If bullying is confirmed, they can also provide guidance on how to deal with it.

Work on Self: The first impact of a workplace bully is to your physical and mental health. Hence, spend enough time to find ways to deal with the challenges. Remember, nothing is ever futile. Your choices brought you to this stage so look at these choices as a gateway to recognize your hidden strengths and work on it.