The issue of the alleged victimization of employees is often a controversial and emotion charged matter in many organizations.
A victim is a person who suffers direct or threatened physical ,emotional or financial harm as a result of an act by someone else. In a workplace set up, victimisation include dismissal from employment using various means or being denied further contract work. This phenomenon is alleged to be quite common in many organisations and the occurrence of such acts usually finds breeding ground where employees are employed on a contract basis and when organisations undergo some reengineering process which may result in staff being laid off.
In our experience the alleged linkage between victimisation and contract of employment termination is so intricate to the extent that one may fail to separate victimisation and a contract of employmentending genuinely.
I have come across many cases where employees argue that in their organisations, victimisationand contract termination are identical twins. It has also been argued that while it is a long standing employee right to claimwrongful dismissalit is very difficult to prove because of the existence of the Siamese twin’s analogy. They have the same parents, share same everything but they look very different. Yes, thus the intricacy that exists in employment relationships to the extent that the victim usually ends up losing despite the emotional and financial harm suffered.
From an employment point of view, contract termination takes many forms i.e. voluntary resignation, expiration of a fixed term contract , redundancy or dismissal due to some act of misconduct.
This article will explain the practical examples in a work environment that lead to the conclusion that in most cases it is very difficult to separate victimisation and genuine separation using these two modes namely, contract expiration and redundancy. Who is targeted when an organisation’s resources fall short? Also who is targeted when organisations reengineer?
In the first world, organisations have clearly articulated the channels to be followed by a victim in the case of victimisation. But, locally, despite the existence of similar legal channels, victimisation is oftenalleged to be the main reasonfor the termination of contracts besides reasons given on the face of it.It is a common belief that employees considered “rotten apples” often fall prey to redundancy processes. These employees become the targets of any retrenchment exercise not withstanding their contribution to business performance. It has been argued that redundancy processes have been used to single out those employees who speak out their minds. Managers are knownto wait for an opportunetime to descend on such people. One employee recently shared with us an example of an experience he had in one of the Blue chipcompanies when staff were invited to a meeting and in that meeting the Personal Assistant to the Managing Director was instructed to write down all the names of the employees who were asking controversialquestions. The discussion was mostly looking at benefits like bus services, bonuses and school fees allowances that were being removed. When the company embarked on a re-engineeringexercise shortly thereafter, it was very clear to everybody who was on that list. It is because of such occurrences that employees have the beliefthat there exists a very thin line between victimisation and redundancy.
We have interviewed many employees who believe that in international nongovernmental organisations, the use of contract expiration as the mode of victimisation is rampant. The circumstance of an employee who served an organisation for almost ten years on two year renewable contracts was recently brought to our attention. Such an employee must have had about four or more contract renewals. In the fifth renewal, they were advised that their post had been abolished because of the alleged lack of funds although this could not be objectively confirmed. This approach clearly is harmful to the employee who in most cases would have taken the organisation as their second home only to wake up one morning with this blow. They would have a legitimate expectation of contract renewal because their contract had been renewed over four times and there is no issue with their performance.
It has also been alleged that what makes the victimisation so evident is the heartlessmanner inwhich the process is done. It is meant to coincide with the employment termination datesuch that the victim is not entitled to any several severance benefits. Even if communication comes to the employee citing abolition of post or shortage of resources as the reason, the victim will not get any severance pay despite the long employment period.
It has been noted that the individuals who perpetrate victimization against employees are very often employees themselves. The adage that what goes around comes around is very true. When the perpetrators’ contracts of employments are terminated when they least expect it, they fight tooth and nail and even taking the employer to the courts because they feel they do not deserve such a treatment.
From a professional perspective we believe that such experiences should be learning lessons for managers who feel indispensable in organisations and treat employees unprofessionally.
It has been argued that where organizations use the retrenchment vehicle as mode of victimising employees this often leads to negative consequences for the organization.Staff motivation usually goes down because the retained staff are usually aware of all these injustices that is why some never want to contribute during staff meetings. Furthermore,employees then tend to develop a sense of resignation in response to the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They lose the sense of team work and alignment with the entire organisation and begin to seek the safety of their profession.Cultures of creative abrasion erupt because staff will want to avoid conflict forfear of blame.
This is precisely the reason why thousands of organisations that have reengineered work in order to focus employees on processes that clearly provide value to customers have not always yielded the expected results. For some organisations business hasactually gone worse. Ann Majchrzak and Qianwei in their article :Breaking the Functional Mindset in Process organisations” have argued that changing structures will not lead to change their functional mindsets, organisational cultures needed to be changed too! Also there is need to get rid of the unsafe environment and openly engage staff in what they would need in order to work well.
In conclusions those organisations, that do not act on bullying no matter at what level effectively are likely to see lower levels of productivity, performance, engagement as well as high staff turnover all which can damage the bottom line.
Emmanuel Jinda is the Managing Consultant of PROSERVE Consulting Group, a leading supplier of Professional Human Resources and Management services locally, regionally and internationally. He can be contacted at