A thriving workplace culture where there is employee centricity as much as there is a customer centricity is one that we all desire. However, it is not always that we have the environment where behaviours are defined aligned to organisation value and a culture of accountability inculcated within all layers of the organisation.  

However, in such a setting, problems may be encountered in any workplace at any level; namely victimisation whereby employees are victimising employers and supervisors or vice-versa. This may be a result, lack of awareness, loopholes in existing policies and it can also stem from an apathetic culture which neither shows concerns for people and performance or exacting corporate culture which shows little concern for people but a high concern for performance. 

Study.com defined workplace victimisation is an act of aggression in an organisation by one employee or group who targets another employee or employer to cause harm to the victim after raising a complain of discrimination or harassment or aided someone who was discriminated against it.  It can involve physical or psychological abuse and covers a wide range of deviant behaviour, ranging from physical assaults, bullying, harassment, racial bias, sexual harassment, malicious gossip, or undermining a person’s authority. 

This was supported by Health Assured, which found that victims might be labelled as disloyal and troublesome, which could lead to being further ostracised and bullied at work. Similarly, skillsportal.co.za highlighted a few common examples of victimisation such as refusing to give an employee a promotion or transfer, denying the employee access to training, reassigning the employee to less favourable duties, denying the employee certain benefits or entitlements, denying the employee opportunities for advancement.

Consequently, victimisation can affect the business and overall productivity of the organisation apart from the effects it has on individual employees. Study.com found that victims tend to lose a sense of belonging to the workgroup and suffer psychological effects at individual level, which include anger, sadness, absenteeism, depression, anxiety, fear of the working environment, and diminished quality of life. 

Henceforth, employers have an obligation to prevent victimisation and take proactive and remedial steps to ensure that their employees are not subjected to any form of unfair treatment by other employees at work.  This according to study.com, can be facilitated through occupational health and safety function by having an employee appointed as an OSHA representative. The responsibility can include ensuring there is standard operating procedure which is up to date and that all regulations are adhered to, the training is provided which include workplace violence training and prevention programme.

Health Assured in offering five key effective steps on how to minimise and combat victimisation in the work place; also highlighted enforcing through management by providing training for managers to help them understand what constitute discrimination and victimisation.  Secondly, they suggested dealing with complaints about victimisation or any other form of discrimination promptly, as soon as complaints are raised. Investigation on   the matter should be conducted to resolve the issue and take appropriate action, swiftly. Thirdly, they suggested keeping records, be it of meetings and discussions held about complaints and reasons thereto for decisions, which can safeguard against discrimination and unfair dismissal. Fourthly, they urged employers to keep recruitment decision unbiased by avoiding any personal bias when effecting recruitment decisions. Withdrawing an offer of employment because someone previously gave evidence of discrimination can constitute victimisation.  Hiring managers should hence set a clear and fair recruitment process for the future and should be educated to ensure no discriminatory judgements are made.

Lastly, managing references appropriately for all previous employees and not refusing to give reference because such previously raised a discrimination claim would constitute victimisation too. All in all, having a clear training programme across the board is one of the effective steps to eliminate victimisation in the work place and raise awareness on what constitute victimisation and what remedy to take when an employer or employee is treated unfairly.

*The opinions expressed in the article are that of the author alone and are in no way linked to any affiliates.