The workplace is not always a bed of roses. Whatever your working environment – office, construction site, kitchen or care home – work comes with any number of stresses, tensions and personal differences. Workplace bullying can be a part of that.It’s how we relate with our closest colleagues that’s often the direct source of most satisfaction, happiness, dissatisfaction or sadness. We can be well recognised for our hard work, or entirely ignored. We can regularly enjoy a good laugh with a colleague, or we can find them difficult and argumentative.The latter can become a problem if it happens consistently and impacts on confidence and self-esteem, if it effectively leads to workplace bullying. And if left unchecked, things can badly spiral downwards from there.A new study from Norway claims that victims of workplace bullying are twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts. For those working in a ‘hostile working environment’ it gets bad enough for plenty of people to actually consider taking their own life. According to the study, these hostile environments are commonly overlooked as a cause of mental health issues.From a sample of 1850 people intended to be nationally representative, under five per cent reported suicidal thoughts, but it was twice as likely after workplace bullying.The research defined three main characteristics of workplace bullying:- an employee must be the target of systematic unwanted social behaviour;- the exposure must occur over a prolonged period of time, often with increasing frequency and intensity;- targets will feel they can’t escape the situation or stop unwanted treatment.An average proportion of workers reporting bullying ranged from 4.2 per cent to 4.6 per cent, while the prevalence of suicidal thoughts varied from 3.9 per cent to 4.9 per cent.You might question how low is too low, or what level is realistically acceptable. Should zero be a realistic target? You might also speculate that there would be regional differences based on a number of factors, such as how simple it is to get a new job or different work. There’s also the factor of reporting bullying itself, which can be incredibly difficult for a number of reasons.
[Read our post about why it’s hard being young in today’s workforce.]
However, the research suggests that there were no major differences in reports of bullying or suicidal thoughts based on workers’ gender or age.Morten Birkeland Nielsen is lead author of the paper and professor at the National Institute of Occupational Health and the University of Bergen.He commented: “Our study adds to the understanding of how bullying is related to thoughts about suicide by showing that the perception of being bullied at work actually is a precursor of suicidal ideation and not a consequence.”Workplace bullying is a very real, very serious issue, especially for those feeling like a target, and further research is needed. But it often stems from feeling trapped into a situation, or powerless to do anything about it. While it can take a great amount of courage, there usually are a number of different solutions.If you’re looking for new work in office administration, construction, catering or care, get in touch for a chat.
