Bullying and Harassment
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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORKPLACE BULLYING AND HARASSMENT There is a good deal of overlap between Workplace bullying and harassment. Harassment can even be part of a bullying scenario. After all, not all incidents of harassment get reported. People sometimes just brush it off if it‘s minor or they feel they can handle it. But this becomes harder when it‘s repeated and other abuse is going on as well. Tim Field who has written books on bullying and is responsible for the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line, has identified some differences. Some of these are shown below but you can get more information from www.successunlimited.co.uk . Harassment Bullying Tends to focus on the individual because of what Anyone will do, especially if the bully feels they are eg. Gender, race etc. threatened in some way. Harassment is usually linked to sex, race, These things play little part. prejudice and discrimination etc. The person being harassed can usually identify it The person being bullied may not realise it for œ particularly with the extent of awareness weeks or months. training conducted in Defence. Most people can recognise harassment. Few people recognise bullying. Harassment will often reveal itself through the Workplace bullying tends to fixate on trivial use of recognised offensive language. criticism and false allegations of under performance. Swearing may be done in private. The harasser often perceives the complainant as The complainant is seen as a threat that must first vulnerable to harassment or a challenge. be controlled and subjugated and, if that doesn‘t work, eliminated. Often harassment is for peer approval, bravado Apart from initiations, tends to be secret, behind etc. closed doors and with no witnesses. Harassment takes place both in and out of work. Bullying takes place largely at work. Harassment is often domination for superiority. Bullying is for control of threat (of exposure of inadequacy.) The harasser often lacks self discipline. The bully is driven by envy (of abilities) and jealousy (of relationships). .