Workplace bullying is a continuous pattern of mistreatment that causes mental or physical hurt to a fellow employee in a workplace situation. It can sometimes involve negative physical contact. Where bullying takes the form of intimidation, it’s usually a perpetrator instilling some fear into a victim who then lives on borrowed time for fear of losing their job. Such mental disturbance then provides a platform where bullying will thrive even getting to the level of sexual abuse as an assertion of one’s power over someone.

It has often been debated whether bullying really takes place in workplace because sometimes the practice is so hidden and well crafted such that it becomes hard to know whether it is bullying or victimisation. These are two sides of one-coin Individuals in organisations respond to these bullying acts differently, some are shocked, others become angry, frustrated, helpless, lose confidence, suffer headaches and lose sleep. What are some of the common acts of bullying observed in the work place?

Bullying in organisations may involve deliberate undermining, intimidation, impeding a person’s work, removing areas of responsibility without cause, establishing impossible deadlines, offensive jokes at work, yelling or using profane language, constant criticism, dubious relocations, blocking one’s training opportunities or leave ... The list is endless.

It is factual that in one way or another every employee has fallen prey to bullying. While it the duty of every employer to protect employees from acts of bullying at work, most employers have not done so. Simply because our country has not developed specific policies and resources related to workplace bullying. While within the Labour Act in Zimbabwe, allegations of bullying can be handled but the mammoth tasks of proving such cases usually results in parties to a bullying act losing because they would not have documented enough the prerequisite evidence. The legal process requires that one documents clearly such incidents communicating openly with the perpetrator.

One school of thought says that bullying has been acculturated in a number of institutions. For example, my attention was recently drawn to the case of a Lawyer who claimed that she was a victim of bullying at her workplace in a professional practice. The Lawyer claimed that every time she worked on a case and brought an opinion to the boss this would be dismissed with such remarks: “Ah, that legal position of yours keep it to yourself,” The boss would then contract another Law firm to seek an opinion on the same matter. This belittling of the junior Lawyer occurred particularly in those cases where the Junior employee had an opinion which was at variance with the boss’s thinking or intended course of action

It has been argued that similar bullying acts take place every minute in organisations. What is surprising perhaps is that despite this bullying, employees continue working for the institution. Are these people not aware of the mistreatment   or it’s our environment that has normalised bullying? One school of thought says people have been “taught” to live with it. It has also been alleged that when the institution has bullied the person enough, he or she is often fired.

I have also encountered cases where it has been argued that relocation is another very rampant form of bullying. When you question or refuse you are fired. According to this school of thought even high performing Managing Directors are relocated in the name of turning around ailing organisations only to realise it was a bullying ploy to fire them. Internationally, countries like Canada, the United States of America and some European countries have developed policies to curb workplace bullying some of which have direct local relevance.

Think of how yelling is practised in organisations! It’s a mode of bullying. Colleagues even know who yells but very often no action has been taken on the majority of these people. Their power base is fear, not respect.

As in the cited examples, bullying is often used strategically to rid the workplace of good employees and to avoid legal obligations. It is pertinent to note as leaders that when bullying happens at the highest levels, its effects are far reaching and those that take place in the Boardrooms actually threaten the productivity of the entire organisation. The typical reactions to workplace related bullying is the survival instinct of ‘flight or fight’ and flight in most cases is the very legitimate and valid response by the victims.

I feel that we need a chemotherapy treatment to this deadly disease in organisations. The continual parcelling of bullying acts under the current labour laws allows the spreading of this cancer as it is often difficult for one to confront a perpetrator head on when still in the job.

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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. tel: 263 773004143 or 263 4 772778