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Bullying at Work

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Submitted By mar2705
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How to Confront an Office Bully
The tragic story of Phoebe Prince’s suicide after relentless bullying and mobbing by teenagers at her high school in South Hadley, Massachusetts, is capturing international media attention. Nine students have now been indicted in this case. However, until all the media scrutiny, the bullies suffered seemingly no consequences. Many peers and teachers were aware of what was happening, but only a few reported this behavior to school authorities, including Phoebe’s mother. Nothing was done until it was too late.
In a similar situation in 2008, 31-year-old Jodie Zebell from Wisconsin committed suicide after enduring months of workplace bullying from her peers and supervisor. Last week, the Wisconsin legislature listened to her story and others as the Healthy Workplace Bill was introduced.
Gary Namie and Ruth Namie in their book The Bully at Work describe how bullies thrive on secrecy, shame, and the silence of others. The authors’ Labor Day 2008 Survey (of which 95% of the 400 respondents had been targets of bullying) revealed that 95% of the target’s co-workers of any rank — peers or managers — witnessed the mistreatment at least once. Yet 53% of the employers did nothing to stop the mistreatment when reported. In fact, in 71% of the cases, employers actually retaliated against the person who reported being bullied. The authors provide many reasons for “Witness Paralysis” including a natural human aversion to risk, Groupthink, rationalization, and blaming the victim.
Bullies are hugely expensive for corporations in terms of lost dollars, productivity, employee retention and wellness. The research strongly suggests that the only way to get organizations to take this issue seriously, particularly in competitive environments where bullying behavior is implicitly rewarded, is if it impacts their bottom line. It will be immensely more

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