After last February’s reports of the bullying of Jonathan Martin, a Miami Dolphin, employers throughout Florida are taking a harder look at bullying in the workplace. While many of us would like to believe that the stories we see in the headlines are simply those one-in-a-million types of incidents, bullying is more prominent than you might expect. In 2014, a report from Career Builder revealed that nearly 45 percent of employees have, at one point or another, been the victim of bulling in the workplace.
Despite this, most of us are still hesitant to talk about it. Even the victims, who suffer the most because of these actions, hesitate to actually report the problems.
Defining Workplace Bullying
As an employer, you want everyone who works for you to feel safe and secure in the workplace. However, unless you know what bullying actually looks like, and how it’s affecting your Sarasota jobs, you won’t be able to take action against it.
Workplace bullying is defined as ‘the consistent and often repeated mistreatment of one or more individuals in a way that harms their mental or physical health.’ It typically appears one of the following ways:
- Interference with an employees work, or sabotaging them in such a way that they can not perform their daily tasks.
- Verbal abuse
- Offensive behaviors that intimidate, threaten, or humiliate workers
Employees may be falsely accused of making mistakes, constantly criticized, or even ignored in the workplace. They may also be put up on a pedestal by their supervisors, who may expect more from them than any of the other employees. They may also be picked on in front of their co-workers, excluded from meetings, or gossiped about.
Workplace Bullying and the Cost to Sarasota Jobs
We all know how negatively bullying can affect the victims. It can cause many problems, including high blood pressure, stress, digestive problems, and even insomnia. But did you know that allowing this type of behavior to continue in your workplace could actually be negatively affecting you? Bullying has the potential to take a huge chunk out of your wallet in the following ways.
- It Causes High Turnover- Employees don’t want to work in places where they aren’t treated well, and they will leave if they feel they are being bullied. Even those who aren’t being bullied, but simply witness the behavior occurring are likely to leave. This means you’ll constantly be spending hours trying to find new workers for your perm or temporary Sarasota jobs. Then, you’ll need to put in the time and money to train them, only to have them leave once the bullying starts to affect their lives as well.
- Lost productivity- Employees who are bullied aren’t as motivated to do their work when it needs to be done. They also tend to take more sick days than other workers because of stress.
- Damaged Reputation- How would your customers feel if they knew your employees were being bullied, and you weren’t doing anything about it? How would that information affect workers you might potentially need to hire? In today’s tech-driven society, news travels fast, and your reputation could be damaged quickly and easily because of this behavior.
- Legal Costs- While many employees might be hesitant to report bullying in the workplace, others are not, and if they believe you aren’t doing everything within your power to stop this behavior, they could potentially sue you and the company. You might end up being responsible for not only the legal costs of going to court, but also for any damages that occurred as a result of the bullying.
So, what do you do? Avoid the high cost of bullying by keeping an eye out in your office for signs of trouble. As soon as you see any indication of bullying, address it. You can also encourage your employees to open up more about their experiences by creating a zero-tolerance policy for your organization. If they feel as if something will be done when they come forward, they are much more likely to report their experience.
Once you’ve identified the bullies in your workplace, contact HH Staffing Services. Our professional staffing service can help you find new, experienced, and skilled professionals for your permanent or temporary Sarasota jobs.
