1. Introduction
Workplace
bullying is a genuine issue that the society faces. In accordance to a survey
done by Jobstreet (2012), approximately 24 percent of the Singaporeans felt
that they were bullied at work. The survey also revealed that 74 percent of the
respondents felt that their colleagues were the biggest bullies while 62
percent of employees felt victimized by their bosses. With Singapore ranking
the top in the world for the longest working hours (MOM, 2014), this meant that
Singaporeans may be spending most of their time in a undesirable working
environment.
Bullying
is defined as intentional and is a regular occurrence or attracts systematic
negative social acts with the intention to harm another person (Rai &
Agarwal, 2016). There are various forms of workplace bullying that may includes
harassment, offensive words and gestures, constant taunting and social
exclusion. As mentioned by Sandy, Tara and Karen (2016), it is critical to
differentiate between a healthy conflict and destructive conflicts, known as
bullying. While the term bullying is normally used to define any form of
negative workplace behaviour, but not all negative social behaviour can be
labelled as bullying (Rai & Agarwal, 2016).
A
survey conducted by Workplace Bullying Institute (2012) mentioned that one of
the top reason for such incidents is that “Victims do not have the confidence
to stop bullying” (WBI, 2012). This implies that victims may lack communication
knowledge and technique to stand up for themselves. In addition, according to
Amanda (2015), the hospitality industry had recently overtaken the healthcare
industry as most frequent bullying occurrence. This was due to the its complex
operating environment with the ever-changing business environment.
One
of the most obvious impact of bullying is stress. As mentioned by Palomaki and
Lauri (2014), prolonged bullying can erode self-confidence, self-worth and
self-image. In fact, Reuters (2015) reported that workers who were victims of
bullying were estimated to have higher thoughts of suicide as compared to
non-victims.
In
hospitality industry, workplace bullying can be especially damaging due to its
service oriented nature. According to Canadian Centre for Occupational Health
and Safety (2016), some general negative effects or symptoms of bullying may
include increased absenteeism, turnover and stress which ultimately may lead to
a decrease in productivity, lower motivation and morale. This translates to a
shortage of manpower in the industry in addition to what it is currently
facing, hence reducing the service quality standard of the firm. In addition,
employees will not be motivated to perform anything beyond their expected duty.
This results in a compromisation of the service quality standard affecting the
firm’s reputation. Bullies who were not corrected or confronted for their negative
actions might view bullying as justifiable and repeat the negative actions. As
mentioned above, one of the causes of workplace bullying was due to inaction
from victim. Such situation can be explained by the reward theory as the act of
bullying usually brings positive outcome for the bullies (WBI, 2016). As such,
other employee will soon model such behaviour hence end up creating a culture
of bullying in the organisation.
With
the devastating impacts of workplace bullying, it is essential for organisation
to recognise the problem and to provide adequate training material to educate
employees on how to handle such negative behaviour. With the root cause of
workplace bully derived from inadequate communication skills and technique from
the employees, supportive communication should be emphasised in order to
minimise such negative behaviour.
2. Training Video
2.1 Objective
The
objective of this project is to develop a training video that can be
disseminated to a variety of organizations in the hospitality industry to
educate employees on how to deal with workplace bullying. The targeted audience
for this video will be the employee as it was suggested by Office and
Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU, 2016) that it is always
better to resolve any forms of complaints or grievance between the both party
first before reporting it to the next in the chain of command. A sample video of three minutes would be
shown as a quick glimpse due to time constraint.
2.2 Synopsis of video
The
sample video illustrates the potential solutions for the victims on how they
can deal with workplace bullies. Firstly, the video will be shown in the
context of a typical working environment in the hotel such as the housekeeping
department. A clear definition of bullying versus demanding boss would be drawn
emphasis the different between the two. This ensures that victims understand
the difference and not report or confront their superior inaccurately causing
unnecessary conflict. Next, the video will show how to accurately keep a detail
record of the actual bullying situation which could be used a evidence should
there is a need for the employee to seek help from higher authority to ensure
objectivity and actual situation is brought forth without exaggeration.
Following
this, the video will also focus on some critical factor the victim have to take
note when confronting bullies. Several examples includes teaching employees how
to maintain professional attitude and body language during confrontation. In
addition, the video will also focus on some of the challenges the victims might
face during the confrontation which may include provocative words or statement
from the bullies. Positive ways of handling such situation will be demonstrated
in the video.
Lastly,
should the confrontation with the bully failed to be resolved peacefully
between both parties, professional help such as the Human Resource manager or
higher management can be informed to mitigate the situation.
2.3 Benefits
The
benefit of the training video for the hospitality organisation is an in-depth
understanding of what constitutes as bullying between supervisor and employee
and in a multicultural setting. Instead of the traditional usage of workshops
that explains what bullying is and why is it wrong to do so, this video
showcases effective communication that encourages the victims to stand up for
themselves with the right professional attitude. With the improvement of
interpersonal skills, victims will be confident when dealing with such situations,
hence reducing the number of unreported bullying cases. It is also recommended
that employees should handle the situation themselves before escalating up to
the next higher hierarchy structure so as to prevent the situation from
escalating.
Through
the reduction of workplace bullying, not only does employee morale increases
but the overall organizational productivity level improves with motivation and
reduced turnover rates. Having a positive morale leads to higher service
standard from the employee which may results in higher guest satisfaction. This
too helps the organization to save cost and time in retraining their employees.
3. Conclusion
In
conclusion, workplace bullying is a genuine problem that results in negative
consequence in the hospitality industry which frequently faces labour shortage
problem. The decrease in morale leads to a loss of business opportunities for
the organisation as employee were not motivated to perform their best.
