Have you ever felt like your workplace is ganging up on you? Have your opinions or criticisms been closely followed with a trip from HR? Is it a conspiracy? It may be.
A form of bullying gaining recognition in Canada is known as “mobbing”. Mobbing is the insidious conduct of a group of employees towards another employee or a superior. The desired result of this harmful treatment is to put pressure on the employee or superior, often with the intention of inducing them to leave employment. Victims of mobbing have valid grounds for claiming constructive dismissal cases.
Office mobbing tries to force the victim out of the workplace using gossip, intimidation, humiliation and by enlisting a sympathetic ear in upper management. Appealing to their victim’s supervisor will empower the group bullies and increase their emotional abuse. Often management will only look at the quantity of complaints and not the quality. By using this tactic they can often accelerate their goals as it easier to make a problem go away by eliminating the victim, not the group.
Being a victim of office mobbing provides you with an excellent claim for constructive dismissal and if you feel you are a victim of this abuse, contact a lawyer.
While this abuse is emotionally and psychologically damaging to the victim it is just as harmful to the business itself. Allowing or empowering the mob bully in an organization leads to loss of morale, trust goes out the window, initiative is lessened, and the good people will leave once they see the work environment for what it really is.
For the individual, seek legal advice and be aware of your rights…you are a victim of emotional abuse in the workplace and are protected by law. Being bullied by one person or by a mob is not acceptable behavior in any environment.
For the organization…be aware of mobbing and its serious repercussions to the business. HR and senior management need to be better educated on the issue of mobbing and deal with the problem before it escalates into a serious issue with good people leaving and morale deteriorating.
