Prevention and intervention of workplace harassment

The European Safety and Health Agency at work has proposed a series of General recommendations to prevent workplace harassment, and considers that the prevention of mobbing It is a basic element to improve working life and avoid social exclusion, and considers the adoption of measures at an early stage to avoid a destructive work environment, so entrepreneurs should not wait to receive the complaints of the victims. Keep reading this psychology-online article if you want to know more about the prevention and intervention of workplace harassment.

Prevention and intervention

Given these intentions of the European agency, it seems obvious that it will be necessary A mature involvement, Responsible and ethically committed to companies and workers. The concrete proposals of the European agency are:

• Offer each worker the possibility of choosing the way to do their job.
• Reduce the volume of monotonous and repetitive works.
• Increase information about objectives.
• Develop the democratic management style.
• Avoid unclear specifications of functions and tasks.

Recommendations to create An organizational culture with norms and values Against workplace harassment are the following:

• Favor the dissemination of the meaning of workplace harassment.
• Investigate the scope and nature of the problem of workplace harassment.
• Formulate clear guidelines to favor positive social interaction that includes:

1. The ethical commitment, both by the employer and of the workers to promote an environment -free environment.
2. Explain the types of actions that are acceptable and those that are not.
3. Establish the values ​​and norms of the organization and the consequences and sanctions of the breach of the norms.
4. Indicate where and how the victims can get help.
5. Guarantee the right to complain without reprisals.
6. Explain the procedure to formulate complaints.
7. Specify the director's function, supervisor, contact partner-support and union representatives.
8. Provide advice services.
9. Help at the disposal of the victim and the stalker.
10. Maintain confidentiality.
11. Do not unnecessarily expose the victim to Careos with the aggressor.
12. Listen to both parties objectively and not tendentious.

Therefore, it is convenient establish some objectives:

• Make an effective distribution of standards and values ​​at all levels of the organization, for example, through personnel manuals, informative meetings, newsletters, etc.
• Ensure ways to resolve conflicts in an objective and democratic way.
• Guarantee that all employees know and respect the norms and values ​​of the organization.
• Improve the responsibility and competence of the management when addressing conflicts and communication.
• Establish independent contacts with workers.
• Involve workers and their representatives in the risk assessment and in the prevention of workplace harassment.

Protective and effective factors against mobbing

Approximately half of the workers submitted to mobbing They refer psychological or physical sequelae. Therefore, if work harassment situations are detected, it should not be expected to manifest damage to establish preventive strategies. In this sense, some FA have been identifiedgood prognosis of workplace harassment:

• The short duration of harassment, or stop it as soon as possible.
• The low intensity or frequency of harassment.
• Social and family support.
• The breakdown of helplessness and paralysis, through an active coping strategy.

There are some factors that increase Effectiveness of the worker to deal with mobbing (Leymannn, 1996):

• The good physical and mental form.
• Self -confidence.
• The support of the family and social environment.
• Economic stability.
• The ability to solve problems and skill in social skills.

Pérez Bilbao (2001) points out that the personality of the victims seems relevant in The way to face the mobbing, and that coping behaviors for solving the problem and to control emotional reactions are more effective than avoidant behaviors.

As for work harassment survival, we could say that they have two different parts; on the one hand, that of the strategies for the coping of the mobbing, and, on the other, the treatment of the consequences that these behaviors have caused in the victim. The most frequently derived pathologies have already been seen of the mobbing, whose pharmacological treatment, when they need it, should not be different from similar paintings, regardless of the cause that originated them.

Some are proposed below strategies that can be useful to overcome the mobbing:

• Identify the problem of mobbing, Informing and training on the subject.
• Document and record harassment behaviors that are subject as soon as possible.
• Make public behaviors that are received in intimacy and in secret, and communicate them to colleagues, bosses, managers, advisors, family and friends.
• Carry out emotional deactivation, avoiding reacting with attacks.
• Control and channel anger and resentment (anger is the ally of the stalker).
• Be assertive, respond to slander and destructive criticisms, although without passivity or aggressiveness.
• Protect the data, documents and archives of the worker itself, distrusting the manipulative capabilities of the stalkers.
• Avoid social isolation, socially relating and doing leisure activities.
• Avoid self -including, and if it is produced to use outgoing mechanisms.
• Do not try to convince or change the stalker.
• Not fall into inhibition, nor in the stoppage, talk about harassment and express emotions (laugh, crying) that their behaviors cause.
• Increase professional training and stay updated, doing training and recycling courses.
• Request medical help, Psychological and legal, to design the therapeutic plan with prevention measures, pharmacological treatment, labor decline, etc., and the legal approach.
• Ignore the stalker as a form of final release.

In addition, companies should favor:

• Social support to the affected through a fellow confidence, the company's doctor, the occupational risk prevention service or in the extral labor field.
• Recognition by the organization that these phenomena may exist.
• The planning and design of social relations In the company as part of its business culture.
• The possibility of counting within the company with a assistance service to the workers.
• Attention to Labor design deficiencies, to the behavior of the leaders and the social protection of the person through clear, written and public rules about conflict resolution.
• The Preparation of an action protocol for prevention and attention in case of workplace harassment.

Face the mobbing entails An important personal effort and cross several phases since it requires the identification of the problem as mobbing, Emotional deactivation, which consists in recognizing, analyzing, confronting and disassembling defense mechanisms such as introjection (self -inculpation) and denial. Once these mechanisms have been deactivated, one must be able to face and respond to the behaviors and perversions of the stalker, without developing feelings of guilt or shame; That is, extracting guilt, cultivating assertiveness and communication skills, and recovering self -esteem and self -confidence (Viana and Gil, 2003)

This article is merely informative, in psychology-online we have no power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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