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Workplace Bullying Has Measurable Costs for Employers
Deanna Hartley, 02-02-2009
An estimated 54 million individuals in the United States — or 37 percent of American workers — have been bullied in the workplace at some point in their lives, according to research by the Workplace Bullying Institute.
Bullying — as defined by Gary Namie, director of Workplace Bullying Institute — is repeated health-harming mistreatment that takes one or more of the following forms: verbal abuse; conduct that’s threatening, intimidating or humiliating; and work interference or sabotage.
“Employers should really be concerned about bullying because it’s all about the bully’s personal agenda and often subverts the needs of the employer,” Namie said.
Research firm Zogby International conducted the “U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey” for the Workplace Bullying Institute in September 2007, which is considered to be one of the largest scientific surveys related to workplace bullying in the United States.
The research highlighted some differences based on gender and ethnic groups.
Women were more likely to quit as a result of bullying than their male counterparts. Further, in a whopping 71 percent of cases, women were bullied by other women.
Namie said one explanation for the high prevalence of woman-on-woman bullying could be the stereotypical notion that female targets are less confrontative than men. Another reason could be a heightened sense of competition among females, which stems from the old competition for the right to mate with the alpha male.
Namie also pointed to a key difference in the choice of bullying methods between men and women, as revealed in a 2003 survey.
“Women tended to destroy the group dynamics within a group by playing divide-and-conquer games — pitting one worker against another — more so than men, whereas men use the power of the hierarchy — or their higher-ranking buddies, affiliates and executive sponsors — to crush their adversaries,” Namie said.
The survey also revealed disparities in the reported experiences of bullying among various ethnic groups.
For instance, there was a higher prevalence of bullying among Hispanics (52 percent) and African-Americans (46 percent) as compared to whites (34 percent) and Asian-Americans (31 percent).
This has prompted groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to actively support anti-bullying legislation.
Not only is the phenomenon detrimental to the individual, but it also could cost employers financially.
Creating or facilitating a workplace culture in which bullying is condoned — or worse, is seen as a necessary component to doing business — likely will yield negative results for the organization’s bottom line.
“Bullying makes no sense economically because it has such a preventable set of costs like turnover, absenteeism, litigation, health care utilization and the intangibles, such as destroyed reputation,” Namie said.
Still, American employers tend to turn a blind eye to the phenomenon. In more than half of all cases in which employers were made aware of the bullying, they either ignored or worsened the situation.
“That’s because many U.S. employers think of it as a necessary and a permissible way to conduct business,” Namie said.
Nonetheless, the research stated that bullying leads to turnover rates equaling some 28 million American workers, and Namie said this might be a conservative estimate.
“With this phenomenon, [all the numbers] are underreported because of the shameful nature of it,” he explained. “In adulthood, you do not run to other people and boast that you’ve been humiliated.”
As his team strives to expand the reach of its anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill, Namie said employers should take proactive steps against workplace bullying.
“Companies can take care of the bottom line now and do right by their staff by expanding their current harassment policies to include abusive misconduct — bullying,” he said.
Report Addresses Racial Pay Gap in the Ad Industry
Black college graduates breaking into the advertising industry in the United States can expect to earn about 80 cents for every dollar their white counterparts earn — in spite of comparable qualifications, recent research shows.
The wage disparity is so apparent that black employees would have to receive 25 percent more than they do currently to match their equally qualified white colleagues’ earnings, the study reported.
The disproportionate pay scale, which can be attributed to race, is more than twice as large in advertising as in the general U.S. labor market, according to a study titled “Research Perspective on Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry.”
The study, which was released in January, was commissioned by Mehri & Skalet, a civil rights law firm.
The number of black advertising managers and professionals employed in the advertising industry also is far less than the expected representation, the report states.
One step that must be taken to eradicate racial discrimination is to stop pigeonholing African-American professionals and quash the stereotypical assumption that their knowledge is confined solely to the black consumer base. This typecasting not only limits African-Americans’ employment options; it also confines them to lower-paying positions.
African-Americans are only 62 percent as likely as their white colleagues to land powerful job roles and are 10 percent as likely to average salaries in excess of $100,000 a year.
The report advocates for fundamental changes in the workplace culture of such agencies. Some recommended changes include: determining eligibility for the position based on the candidate’s abilities instead of race and moving beyond the assumption that people of color are only suitable for work targeted at ethnic markets.
