Sexual harassment in the workplace has received significant attention over the past number of years and rightfully so.\u00a0 Hopefully we all know that sexual harassment in any form, and in any setting, is completely unacceptable.\u00a0 However, a 2014 study into workplace conduct found that there was a form of negative behaviour occurring much more commonly in the healthcare environment than sexual harassment, and that is workplace bullying. Bullying is so common that this study concluded that chances are most healthcare workers have been bullied at some point in time in their careers \u2013 and that many experience bullying on a regular or ongoing basis.<\/p>
Sexually harassment is illegal and is reasonably easy to identify. However, many forms of bullying are not technically against the law, and are not as easy to recognize.\u00a0 Bullying is defined as \u201cgeneralized psychological harassment\u201d and can come in many forms. \u00a0It can be very overt, such as in physical intimidation or verbal threats. I remember a fellow RT telling me a while back that she was body-slammed during a code by another healthcare worker in an attempt to get her to move out of the way.\u00a0 That type of obvious abuse has fortunately been reduced (although not completely eliminated) by the adoption of workplace Zero Tolerance policies. However, much of the bullying that still takes place in the healthcare work environment is more subtle and covert – such as belittling a co-worker (or their profession) in front of others or withholding information that a colleague needs in order to do their job effectively.<\/p>
Bullying is so common in healthcare that in some respects it is perceived to be part of the (still) hierarchical culture. \u00a0Employers and managers sometimes fail to take workplace bully seriously, and most of us have been told at one time or another to \u201cstop being so thin-skinned\u201d or to \u00ab\u00a0work it out between yourselves\u00a0\u00bb.\u00a0 Larger professions will sometimes gang up on smaller professions, and long-time staff members have been known to terrorize the newcomers to their own profession (we have all heard the expression about healthcare workers \u201ceating their young\u201d).\u00a0 Workplace bullying can have far-reaching consequences for employees in terms of lowered morale, lost productivity and increased burnout. \u00a0It can significantly exacerbate the stress of an already stressful and demanding environment and, in doing so, have a potentially disastrous impact on the patients we care for.<\/p>
Like many things, the first step towards reducing workplace bullying is to acknowledge the role we might play in perpetuating it \u2013 either by displaying bullying behaviours, letting ourselves be bullied or by silently standing by while it happens to others. \u00a0We can no longer accept being told \u201cthat is just how that person is\u201d or that \u201cthis is just what it\u2019s like working in a high stress environment\u201d.\u00a0 We need to hold ourselves and all our team members accountable for modeling appropriate workplace interactions, and report to the appropriate entity when that doesn\u2019t happen.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sexual harassment in the workplace has received significant attention over the past number of years and rightfully so.\u00a0 Hopefully we all know that sexual harassment in any form, and in any setting, is completely unacceptable.\u00a0 However, a 2014 study into workplace conduct found that there was a form of negative behaviour occurring much more commonly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16,25,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employers-blog","category-members-blog","category-practice-blog","category-students-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n