Experts estimate that one in five employees experience violence and abuse at the workplace. Constant criticism, nit-picking, humiliating, and setting things up cause employees to lose self-confidence, become depressed, or even worse. Approximately 15-20% of all suicides are committed as a result of psychological terror at work.
Every employer's dream is to shuffle employees at their own discretion: fire them, transfer them to other jobs. But the Labor Code has been in the making for decades and is designed to streamline relations between employers and employees they employ. It is streamlining, since the Labor Code protects the employer too. For example, a probationary period is beneficial to the employer. It gives time to take a closer look at the employee, find out his qualifications and character. Another thing is that a probationary period is almost always a formality for some reason. And when the relationship between the parties is sealed by an employment contract, it is more difficult to break them. However, here too, the legislator meets the workers halfway and gives them the right to terminate the employment contract if the employee's behavior goes beyond acceptable limits.
Naturally, not all the reasons why an employer would suddenly want to terminate an employment relationship are provided for by the Code. Such “sweet” human qualities as lust for power, personal malice, fear or envy do not fit into any article. In family relationships, if one party resists a divorce, the court examines the parties' claims in detail. And who understands labor “marriages”? What court would delve into the fact that some boss is used to appropriating the thoughts of a subordinate, and then one time! And he asked for a salary increase as compensation for the additional advice provided to him (the boss). Or the lady of retirement age was worried that a younger person would seize her vector of influence on the manager. Such persons receive an unambiguous hint to write an application of their own free will. It is clear that many of them initially refuse to “voluntary” exile in fear of losing their source of income. Or as a matter of principle. Then they are shown a firm intention to “sew” a bad article. If workers are reminded that it is not so easy to count non-drinkers, healthy and skilled workers, then their life at the workplace becomes unbearable...
Although the survival of an objectionable worker is quite an ancient phenomenon, it was first described only in the early 80s. 20th century Heinz Leymann, a German expert in industrial psychology, after conducting research in Scandinavian countries, identified a phenomenon that he called mobbing and described as psychological terror, which includes systematic hostile and unethical behavior by one or more people directed against another person, mostly one person. Leymann identified 45 components of mobbing: withholding information, isolation, bad-mouthing, constant criticism, spreading gossip, ridiculing, shouting, etc.
Interestingly, mobbing is especially common among office workers. It is extremely rare among proletarians. The process of survival includes five phases: the first is the presence of a protracted and unresolved conflict, and the second is aggressive actions and hostile relations. In the third phase, management and other employees are involved in the conflict, and the persecuted person is defamed. In the fourth phase, he is branded as “out of this world” at best. The final fifth chord is dismissal.
IG Metall, one of Germany's largest trade unions, found that superiors are the attacker in 33% of cases. Indeed, it is not difficult for managers of any rank to regularly substitute indigestible subordinates. Their favorite trick is to restrict access to information. The subordinate makes provoked mistakes that are hyperbolized and taught as such that they almost threw the firm into a cataclysm. On the recruitment website www.101.kiev.ua the director of a marketing agency is quoted as saying, who practices the method of “gradual” dismissal, giving the employee impossible tasks and then ransacking them for not fulfilling them. “I'm not ashamed to say that I'm using such a system because it's a business, not a personal relationship,” the unfortunate director explains his behavior. At the same time, minor systematic nit-picking, stealing papers from the desktop, crashing programs, and deleting valuable files are used. Of course, the salary of an objectionable employee is not raised, bonuses are not given, and success is not noticed. Ordinary employees usually support their superiors. Some are out of a desire to please, while others are afraid to openly sympathize.
The book “Violence at Work”, published by the International Labour Organization (UN) in 1998, mentions mobbing on the same list as murders, rapes and robberies. The explanation is simple: mobbing, which is harmless at first glance compared to other types of physical violence, sometimes ends in taking his own life.
There are no winners in mobbing, and it costs a lot to all participants in the “performance”. There is nothing to say about the survivor: he often develops a feeling of inferiority and a nervous illness. Of course, you can fight against a mobber (as experts call a person who has set the goal of another employee's survival): write diaries, seek protection from higher-ranking managers, and so on. Noah Davenport, an American expert and author of books on mobbing, gives an example when one of his patients undermined her health as a result of being erased from her workplace. Then she decided to publicize everything that had happened to her and turned to the media and legal organizations for help. Well done, of course, but not everyone can do it. Psychologists are almost unanimous that if you survive, you should quit without any regrets. Health is more expensive, but clinging is useless: anyway, if the goal is set, sooner or later the attacker will achieve its goal. It is useful to look at the situation from a different perspective. Perhaps life itself suggests that it's time to change jobs, retire or get another profession. New acquaintances and impressions lie ahead, and it is better to leave an uncomfortable enterprise with its problems.
And his problems are above the roof. Under conditions of psychological pressure, employees reduce their working capacity, and for a long time the energy of other employees is not spent on carrying out everyday assignments. The presence of mobbing indicates an unhealthy psychological atmosphere in the team. The company has a bad image, which makes it difficult to recruit and retain qualified personnel.
The situation with the pursuers themselves, that is, the mobbers, does not matter. For them, mobbing is the only way to hide their incompetence, overcome feelings of inferiority and get out of the way anyone who prevents them from moving up the career ladder. Mobbers try to solve their personal problems at the expense of others and prove that they are better and stronger than the one they are following. They simply do not know how to act otherwise. After letting one go, they usually don't stop there and, inspired by their dubious success, begin to look for a fresh object for self-affirmation. Mobbers are unable to analyze their behavior and seriously believe that the problem lies in the behavior of anyone but themselves. Frankly speaking, the methods they have to use are not sympathetic: forgery, slander, gossip, yelling... The habits they acquire at work are also transferred to relationships with friends and family. Psychiatrists define the condition in which mobbers are found as a “personality disorder”.
The civilized world gradually learns to fight mobbing using legitimate methods. In January 2002 France has introduced an anti-mobbing law. Quebec, Canada, and Colombia, have passed legislation against workplace harassment. And Germany has recognized that mobbing creates conditions that lead to various diseases. In Sweden, business directors must organize work in such a way as to prevent and prevent psychological terror in the workplace. When signs of mobbing appear, the employer must take countermeasures.
However, we must admit that objectionable employees have been disposed of at all times, and there's nothing you can do about it. Therefore, it would be better if the Ukrainian state provided for legal mechanisms (with social protection guarantees) so that the employer could nicely fire an unwanted employee if they do not succeed “by agreement of the parties”.
In the meantime, there is only one way out: to break up in an amicable way. The mistake of enterprise directors is that they often “hide” behind the production process, completely dumping management on their deputies and proxies. But it is the direct responsibility of all directors to monitor the moral climate in the team and “extinguish” conflicts that have broken out. By themselves, “festering” conflicts do not resolve themselves; sooner or later they are “revealed”, and then there is no choice but to say goodbye to one of its participants. But we should not separate ourselves in vile ways, but try to do everything to prevent the remaining employees from seeing someone who resigns with the eyes that hospital patients usually look at a recovered person who is merrily packing his things to go home. Giving the person fired a free schedule to find a new job and paying compensation for the inconvenience caused (including a trip to a sanatorium) will have a positive impact on the morale of the team, which, realizing that they will do the same to them tomorrow, is waiting tensely for the fifth phase of the conflict to end.
The Kiev Telegraph, December 14-20, 2007
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