INTRODUCTION
Society is witness to the innumerable abuses suffered by individuals, in educational institutions for example it is very common to hear about bullying or bullying, an evil that seriously affects many students and brings with it irreparable consequences. The workplace is not the exception, in this there is a type of harassment called mobbing, which has a great capacity to generate damage, putting workers in danger.
Mobbing generates a situation in which the worker is harassed, harassed, persecuted, by one or more people within the organization, regardless of their hierarchical position in the organization chart. The purpose is for the affected person to leave their job.
Likewise, it is of great importance to mention that mobbing not only affects the person who suffers it, but also has a great impact on the organization, the family environment and society.
The purpose of the following document is to present relevant information regarding the phenomenon of mobbing, through its definition according to specialized authors on the subject; mention will be made of the causes that originate it, the profiles of the victim and the harasser, the objectives pursued, as well as its consequences in different areas and its preventive measures.
DEVELOPING
Definition
As Peña mentions in his book When work punishes us (2007):
The word mobbing is an Anglicism that is applied to psychological harassment at work and comes from the word mob which means mob, crowd. Mobbing, as a concept, therefore, means to crowd, besiege, harass en masse around something or someone. (Cited in Carmona, 2014: 16)
For his part, Piñuel. (2015) define mobbing as:
The continued and deliberate verbal and modal abuse that a worker receives by another or others, who behave cruelly with him in order to achieve his annihilation or psychological destruction and obtain his exit from the organization through different illegal, illicit procedures, or unrelated to a respectful or humanitarian treatment and that threaten the dignity of the worker. (87)
Likewise Leymann. (1996) considers that:
Mobbing involves hostile and immoral behaviors or communications with extreme psychological violence, which are directed in a systematic and recurrent way by one or several individuals, mainly towards a single individual, in order to destroy their communication networks, their reputation, and disrupt the exercise of your job and eventually get you to leave the workplace. These actions occur with a frequency of at least once a week and with a minimum duration of six months. (Cited in Verona and Santana, 2012: 151)
Causes
There are many reasons why bullying can occur, but the most frequent are the jealousy and envy that bullies feel towards their victims. The victim is generally envied for having some quality or trait that makes them stand out from the rest of the people who work in the company. Workplace psychological harassment can be triggered when the victim is not part of the group that runs the organization and does not allow herself to be manipulated by another or other members of the group. (Ávila, Bernal and Alzate, 2016: 2)
Profile of the victim and the harasser
The personality of the victims of mobbing is not exactly known, however it is possible to mention some of the characteristics that they commonly possess. Among them it can be said that they are cheerful, happy people, with a good family environment, they have great leadership skills, they are talented, transparent, ethical, independent, popular, charismatic, etc. Which causes the harasser to feel jealousy and envy both personally and professionally. On the contrary, bullies are usually mediocre, weak, perverse, arrogant, resentful, cowardly, frustrated, envious, jealous, selfish, lack of empathy, egocentric, perverse, narcissistic, manipulative, distorting the truth, in need of admiration, recognition and prominence, among other characteristics. (Verona and Santana, 2012: 156-157)Typology
According to the hierarchical level of the victim and the harasser within the organization, Dr. Enrique Romero Pérez makes the following classification:
Horizontal: When aggressiveness or harassment at work is carried out between colleagues who have the same hierarchical level.
Vertical descending (bossing): When workplace harassment is carried out by a person who occupies a higher position than the victim.
Vertical ascending: In this type of workplace harassment, the victim occupies a higher position than the harasser. (Once, 2015: 23)
Process
According to Leymann. (1990) the victimization process is composed of
four phases .
Phase 1. Original critical incident. Conflict is the activating state of bullying. It develops in a very short time.
Phase 2. Mobbing and stigmatization. Actions whose purpose is to cause harm are systematically identified.
Phase 3. Personnel administration. When the administrators find out, they tend to assume prejudices against the victim and attribute the problem to their personal characteristics.
As a solution they seek to free themselves from it, they are persecuted, discredited and blamed.
Phase 4. Expulsion. The victim tries to defend herself, therefore, and the consequences of the harassment, her situation worsens. Eventually she quits her job and seeks medical and psychological help. (Cited in Carvajal and Dávila, 2013: 98-99)
Behavior of the harasser towards the victim
Some of the behaviors that the harasser frequently manifests towards the victim are the following:
- Attempting to subdue or eliminate a person from their job using machinations against them. Emotionally destabilizing a person through all kinds of strategies seeking to make them "explode." Systematically attacking a person by destructively criticizing what they do in their work Verbally abusing a person a person through threats or shouting or insults to undermine them psychologically by attacking their dignity Deliberately impairing a person's job performance Systematically harassing a person through false accusations about his or her Intentionally inducing a person to make mistakes Destroying a person's personal or professional reputation a person through slander Forcing a person to leave their job prematurely or illegally through coercion or threats.Destroy physical or psychological health by undermining a person's self-esteem and self-confidence. (Piñuel et al., 2015: 153)
Consequences
About the victim. Symptoms can be varied depending on the characteristics of each person, at a mental level the victim tends to suffer from anxiety, fear, feeling of threat, feelings of failure, helplessness, frustration, low self-esteem, apathy, post traumatic stress, anxiety, being prone addictions. On a physical level, it can suffer from pain and functional disorders to organic disorders. At the social level, these people are very sensitive to criticism, sometimes they are aggressive, distrust others, present isolation, avoidance and social maladjustment behavior. (Jiménez, 2014: 76-77)
About the family nucleus. The family nucleus is not exempt from mobbing, it can cause "intra-family violence, social violence, increased medical and psychological costs, poor school performance in children, divorces, loss of interest, addictions." (García, Moreno, Rivera, Fragozo and Murillo, 2014: 75-76)
About the organization and society. The consequences of mobbing for the organization will be reflected in the decrease in the quantity and quality of the work performed by the victim, teamwork becomes difficult, information and communication problems arise, absenteeism increases, there are losses in the force of work; The work environment is also affected and the number of accidents is likely to increase. (Jiménez et al., 2014: 78-79) The effects are also noticeable in society as a whole. The costs of illness caused by stress and mobbing as well as early retirement are increasing. This implies an increase in Social Security spending, which affects all taxpayers. (Pérez, 2015: 40)
Preventive measures
According to Linares. (2014) set out the following measures to prevent workplace harassment in organizations:
The company must have a preventive policy: be aware of all risk factors for the health and safety of workers, have measures to correct and prevent these risks.
Establish dissemination mechanisms for prevention measures.
Train workers, members of Joint Hygiene and Safety Committees, unions and all company personnel on measures to prevent workplace harassment. Establish conflict management procedures to prevent harassing behavior: creating a system of complaints and reports and a procedure to address and investigate these conflicts. (17)
CONCLUSION
Finally, it can be said that mobbing is a very frequent problem in organizations, it affects anyone regardless of the position they hold. The means used by the harasser to harass the victim are diverse, however they have a common goal, to achieve the exit of the organization of the harassed person, who is perceived as a threat. The consequences can be devastating taking into account that not only the victim is affected, but also the environment that surrounds them.
Given this fact, an organization should not allow mobbing to develop in its environment, it is obliged to act in the prevention of workplace harassment together with the participation of all staff. When cases of this nature arise, it is necessary to provide an efficient solution, provide the necessary attention to the victim and not leave the harasser unpunished.
REFERENCES
- Ávila, A., Bernal, V., And Alzate, L., (2016). What are the causes and consequences of workplace harassment or mobbing? Psyconex, 8 (3), 1-10. Retrieved from: https://aprendeenlinea.udea.edu.co/revistas/index.php/Psyconex/article/view/326991/20784214Carmona, C. (2014). Female labor and workplace violence. Case study in a convenience store. (Master's Thesis). Veracruz University. Xalapa, Veracruz. Retrieved from: http://cdigital.uv.mx/bitstream/123456789/35052/1/carmonagarciaclaudia.pdf Carvajal, JG and Dávila, CA (2013, January-June). Mobbing or workplace harassment. Review of the subject in Colombia. Universidad del Valle, 29 (49), 95-106. Retrieved from: http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/cuadm/v29n49/v29n49a11.pdf García, MP, Moreno, JD, Rivera, JD, Fragozo, MM, and Murillo, LM (2014). Workbook harassment in Colombia.(Specialty work). Ces Medellín University. Colombia. Retrieved from: http://bdigital.ces.edu.co:8080/repositorio/bitstream/10946/3641/1/Acoso_laboral_Colombia.pdf Jiménez, ZF (2014). Workplace harassment or mobbing in the commercial area of companies. (Undergraduate thesis). Central University of Ecuador. Quito. Retrieved from: http://www.dspace.uce.edu.ec/bitstream/25000/3954/1/T–UCE–0013–Ab–235.pdf Linares, J. (2014). Prevention of Workplace Harassment: Electronic references. Recovered from: https://www.aporrea.org/actualidad/a199479.htmlOnce, PF (2015). Labor mobbing from a criminal and labor point of view in the legislation of Ecuador. University of Cuenca. Ecuador basin. Retrieved from: http://docplayer.es/3500632Universidad–de–cuenca–facultad–de–jurisprudencia–ciencias–politicas–y–sociales–carrera–de–derecho.html Pérez, A. (2015).The relational dynamics of bullying in the workplace. Comillas Pontifical University. Retrieved from: https://repositorio.comillas.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11531/6732/TFG000688.pdf?sequence=1Piñuel, JI (2015). Psychological evaluation of psychological harassment at work or mobbing in Spain using the Cisneros questionnaire. (Doctoral thesis). Complutense University of Madrid. Madrid. Retrieved from: http://eprints.ucm.es/33244/1/T36409.pdfVerona, MC and Santana, R. (2012, July-December). Mobbing: the perfect crime? No, what more would some want. Free Criterion, 10 (17), 147-176. Recovered from:Psychological evaluation of psychological harassment at work or mobbing in Spain using the Cisneros questionnaire. (Doctoral thesis). Complutense University of Madrid. Madrid. Retrieved from: http://eprints.ucm.es/33244/1/T36409.pdfVerona, MC and Santana, R. (2012, July-December). Mobbing: the perfect crime? No, what more would some want. Free Criterion, 10 (17), 147-176. Recovered from:Psychological evaluation of psychological harassment at work or mobbing in Spain using the Cisneros questionnaire. (Doctoral thesis). Complutense University of Madrid. Madrid. Retrieved from: http://eprints.ucm.es/33244/1/T36409.pdfVerona, MC and Santana, R. (2012, July-December). Mobbing: the perfect crime? No, what more would some want. Free Criterion, 10 (17), 147-176. Recovered from:file: /// C: / Users / Aspire / Desktop / mobing / New% 20 folder / Dialnet-ElMobbing-4175343% 20 (1).pdf
