Question

Bullying Scenario

You are an HR team for a large corporation. A female member of staff has brought a complaint against their management team for bullying and intimidation. Last year this member of staff left to have a baby and on coming back from maternity leave found significant changes in the structure of the workplace and management. They have alleged ostracising, exclusion from decision making, organising important meetings at times when the member of staff cannot attend due to child care issues, such as before 8.00 am and after 6.00 pm, briefing and whispering campaigns, and being passed over for promotion. This is not an isolated case and this unit also has a high level of staff sickness through stress.

You must;

Discuss the situation and the effects on the victim. (this should cover learning outcome 1&2)

Plan how to contain the issue. (this should cover learning outcome 3)

How would you support the victim, and educate others around the issues. (this should cover learning outcome 4).

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module a student will be able to:
1.	Explain the framework of the different forms of Bullying and Conflict
2.	Identify emotional, social and physical health effects of conflict/bullying
3.	Identify positive interpersonal communication strategies and skills that can be used to deal with conflict/bullying effectively
4	Analyse the influence of friends, family, culture, media and technology on bullying/conflict

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) (1) For this particular case, the type of bullying is social bullying because they are creating a social environment that is full of animosity by trying to single her out and leave her out of important events. The type of conflict being expressed is passive aggressive. The colleagues in question are clearly not conducting themselves in an ethical manner. Furthermore, the employee has been ignored for the consideration of a promotion that has hampered her professional life. This means that their behaviour is no longer something that can be ignored as it clearly has had bad effects.

Such behaviour has had emotional and physical effects along with the social and professional effects. The employee is stressed out as a result and feels sick very often.

(2) As an HR person, it would be wise to contain the issue as soon as possible. Mere warnings may result in the employees being vengeful in the future with the person who made the complaint. This might lead to a situation that would be much more difficult than the one at present.

In order to make sure that the employees learn their lesson, they should be handed a legal warning that outlines the fact that any future complains would lead to a termination from the post. This might ensure that their future behaviour remains professional at best.

Furthermore, this entire confrontation should be done with all the parties involved, present in the room. This would ensure transparency between both parties. Also, this might be a two-sided story and it would be fair to give the other employees a chance to speak and listen to their side of the situation as well. If there is no valid excuse for a sudden change in their schedules or other details, punitive measures would be valid.

(3) It is assumed that once a man or a woman has a child, their professional life would automatically be hampered. For such assumptions, it should be that the results should speak for themselves. In the case above, the colleagues are setting up the new mother to purposely fail at her duties and make her seem incompetent by setting up important meetings at non-work hours. This is unethical and highly unfair.

It is time that society realises that even single people might have their responsibilities just like working parents do. There are some people that let their personal responsibilities get in the way of their professional progress and there are others that are good at managing a perfect balance in their lives. Either way, one should let the individual’s work do the talking and not a stereotype.

It is ethical to be accommodating of an employee who might be encumbered with responsibilities as at some or the other time, every employee might have their own responsibilities that might distract them from their professional responsibilities and might need the help of their team to cope with it.