Psychology and sociology / 14. Personnel management

Candidate of philosophical sciences Igebaeva F.A.

Bashkir State Agrarian University, Russia

Mobbing as a social phenomenon

Professional activities are one of the spheres for personal fulfillment when people have a chance to discover and develop their skills, personal and professional qualities, win recognition for their individuality, importance for other people and the whole society. But if there is unfavorable staff morale a man can face mobbing being a very serious psychological problem in professional career. Mobbing among co-workers is understood as collective psychological oppression, emotional violence, bad treatment used directly or indirectly towards a person by colleagues or management to make them leave or weaken their social or professional influence in the team [1, p.118].

A worker good at their profession being very responsible, initiative and talented is often hounded if they constitute a threat as a potential competitor to other respected worker. A reason of mobbing can be ordinary jealousy for a more successful co-worker, their salary and higher position. Thus there are constant negative statements against the worker, circulation of misleading information, rumors, etc. If this occurs, people being under mobbing suffer heavy pains and get ill.

Too aggressive mobbing is called bullying. Bullying is an individual behaving intended to hurt another person, psychological assault or coercion. If at the workplace there are many people who behave aggressively towards one of their colleagues, then we deal with mobbing. The term “bullying” is considered to be used mostly in Great Britain while in other European countries they use the term “mobbing”.

As practice shows, millions of people suffer from unhealthy environment at the workplace. That’s why bullying (mobbing) is becoming one of the most serious problems nowadays.

Studies of bullying make it possible to distinguish a number of its important features:

¨ bully makes their best to discredit their victim in the eyes of the management, trying to show the bullied person as a good-for-nothing and ungifted worker that the company should get rid of;

¨ bully “dish the dirt” in order to worsen the image of their victim;

¨ their secret weapon is their colleagues being well manipulated by the bully.

The most prominent characteristics of the bully is that they are never satisfied with what has already been achieved, that is after their victory over the victim (as a rule it is dismissal of the haunted worker) they choose another person to assault. And it never stops [2].

Violent bullying can include verbal harassment or threat, indignity, attempts to hurt reputation of the bullied. The bully is often a colleague or the manager. It is a way to assert them, to be promoted, etc. The threat of bullying is that there is no way to take a stand against it, especially if the bully is your direct boss. In this case co-workers are with the bully for they are afraid to lose the job, they don’t want to interfere and solve other problems. Sometimes they just keep silence that is keep neutrality because their peace of mind is more important for them [3].

Unfortunately the problem of bullying is less paid attention in our country than abroad. For example, in the USA a special organization called Workplace Bullying & Trauma Institute (WBTI) restudied more than 1200 respondents having been victims of mobbing (bullying). As the result of the investigations it was found:

Ø more often women become mobbing victims;

Ø bullies are mostly men than women;

Ø men are more often bullied by male colleagues;

Ø women are mostly oppressed by female co-workers;

Ø about 25% of mobbing take place behind closed doors and is followed by information leakage in the form of rumors, gossip and wool gathering;

Ø other 25% really happens behind closed doors without any witness;

Ø more often men use administrative resources and their managerial power while women use social contacts within the company;

Ø the most common effects of mobbing are: stress, paranoia, headaches, feeling of distance/rejection, shame and feeling of guilty, doubt;

Ø out of the company mobbing aftereffect often include nightmares, insomnia, absent-mindedness, changes in weight, excessive alcohol, cigarette, medicine and food intake;

Ø negative effect is still on even if the bullied left the job for another place or much time has passed;

Ø among those who back mobbing up are often the same workers, colleagues of the bullied (one third of the co-workers);

Ø mostly mobbing is aimed to force a person out of the workplace;

Ø four of five bullied lose their job (either on their own accord or for reasons stated by the manager) [4, pp. 321 – 322].

Mobbing as a social phenomenon in companies can reduce efficiency of any enterprise. Moreover mobbing can last as long as it is let. Enterprise management plays an important role in preventing this event. If they insist on following common decencies, respect of human dignity, high moral standards at the workplace as well they create the atmosphere of care, provide valid estimate of personnel labor according to the end results there will be no mobbing and bullying.

References:

1. Igebaeva F.A. Problem of mobbing and professional career. Issledovanie innovatsionnogo potentsiala obshchestva i formirovanie napravlenii ego strategicheskogo razvitiia. Materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii [Studies of innovative perspectives of the society and developing ways of its strategic growth. Proceedings of the International science-to-practice conference]. In 2 volumes. Volume 1. Kursk, 2011, pp. 118-119.

2. http://www.elitarium.ru/2010/11/24/mobbing_profilaktika.html.

3. http://womanwiki.ru/w/ Bullying.

4. Rudenko A.M., Samygin S.I. Delovoe obshchenie [Business communication]. Rostov-on-Don, Phoenix Publ., 2008, pp. 321–322.