Mobbing

Everybody face problems at their workplace but tend to remain hush about it. Mobbing is spreading widely in almost all work places in the world but the topic is hidden because no one wants to experience any kind of loss at their work place.

“Mobbing” is a term started by Duffy and Len Sperry which means “nonsexual harassment of a coworker by a group.”  

It is defined as: "MOBBING IS...EMOTIONAL ABUSE in the workplace. "Ganging up" by co-workers, subordinates or superiors, to force someone out of the workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation, humiliation, discrediting, and isolation. Malicious, nonsexual, nonracial, general harassment. Other expressions for MOBBING are: Bullying, psychological terror or aggression, hostile behaviors at work, workplace trauma, incivility or emotional violence. We consider MOBBING an emotional injury that impacts a target's mental and physical health. MOBBING is a workplace safety and health issue." N. Zanolli Davenport, G. Pursell Elliott, R. Distler Schwartz (http://www.mobbing-usa.com/)

 

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Some of the signs of mobbing include :

Assigning an employee a task which cannot be completed.

Giving an employee humiliating tasks.

Not providing required software tools to complete the task.

Excessive criticism

Devaluing

Making fun of the Personal life of a victim

Spreading rumors/false information

Isolation/ barring making conversations with colleagues

The victims are the people who are honest, dedicated, hard working, diligent and pleases others. They are targeted so that they can be removed from the organization forcefully by making them quit their jobs. The victims suffer a lot because of humiliation, financial,career and health losses. The abusers/bullies  who are generally charming and intelligent will be very good at all the internal politics and escape from the scene in a very charismatic manner. They are insensitive and do not show any empathy to the victim.

I wonder if there is a solution to mobbing at workplace at all? Although there doesn’t seem to be any particular solution to this problem which can help the victims, there are some ways in which the victim can reduce the emotional attack on them by staying calm when provoked and use a language which is smart and respond with “I respect you and the organization but I also demand that you respect my dignity and my rights to the same extent”. This has to be said otherwise the bullying will keep growing.

I’m writing this article to bring awareness about mobbing at workplace in India. Public awareness about mobbing at workplace will help solve this problem at least to some extent.

Jahnavi.K.J