TITLE: WORKPLACE HARASSMENT
AUTHOR: BHAVYA SHARMA
LITERATURE REVIEW:
1. Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment, a violation of human rights and a form of sex discrimination, is costly to workers and organizations. Yet although more than 75 countries have legislation prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace, it remains pervasive and underreported. To date, laws and market incentives have been insufficient to eradicate workplace sexual harassment.
2. In Pakistan
There are two major factors that preclude women to enter into paid labor force; they are socio-culture norms and sexual harassment. Firstly, Cultural values and gender norms regard the role of women is within the boundary of house. Secondly, the common occurrence of sexual harassment precludes women to join paid workforce.
3. Monetary Nature
Inappropriate conduct may be interpreted as gender- based separation. It is part of a larger pattern of division and abuse that keeps uneven monetary and social institutions thriving in a climate of risk, fear, and retribution— creating assumptions about the woman by finding flaws in the female representative’s work or considering as a piece of decor or assigning her more labour, allowing such displays of indecent conduct to continue, either actively or passively, by failing to take preventative measures.
4. Bullying in Australia
We suggest there is a silencing associated with the failure to conceive of conduct as being an act of bullying in the first place, and also with a target’s capacity to deal with it (even if it is in fact understood as a problem). We label this as the silence of ignorance and incapacity. Workplace abuses, such as bullying and harassment, can be associated with debilitating emotional, psychological and physical illness and injuries, which can render a target partially or completely incapable of complaint. In addition, other forms of harm can arise even when a target does not perceive certain behaviour as a ‘problem’ or as ‘bullying’.
5. Workplace Harassment & Gender
Work carried out by Salin has shown that women are habitual targets of hostile behaviour, while men are more likely to be the harasser. These data are supported by the results obtained by Einarsen et al. This can be explained by processes of cultural socialisation, where women learn more complacent and less aggressive strategies to resolve conflicts. In addition, women prove more susceptible to harassment because it occurs more frequently at lower hierarchical organisational levels where women occupy positions of greater subordination and therefore become a risk group.
6. Psychosocial Risk Assessment
Any organization that wants to prevent workplace psychosocial risks, including workplace harassment, needs to evaluate the presence of such risks, as indicated in the current Spanish law. These norms require companies to take preventive actions. Moreover, they specify that the first step in prevention is the pre-evaluation of risks to the safety and health of workers. From the results of this assessment, the second step for the company is the assessment of both preventive and improvement measures.
7. Bullying at Work
Bullying at work is about repeated actions and practices that are directed against one or more workers, that are unwanted by the victim, that may be carried out deliberately or unconsciously, but clearly cause humiliation, offence and distress, and that may interfere with job performance and/or cause an unpleasant working environment.
8. The Game Model
Consider a workplace in which a particular female employee accuses a fellow male employee of sexual harassment. The male employee’s supervisor (player 1) suspects the male employee (player 2) and begins the process of gathering evidence to determine whether he will formally charge the male employee with breaking the law and engaging in sexual harassment.2 As noted in section 1 and to keep the problem interesting, we suppose that the evidence gathering process is probabilistic. As such, concrete evidence will be available to the supervisor only with probability ½.
9. Bullying
“Bullying can have political dimensions and be a deliberate strategy for improving one’s own position, by sabotaging the performance of competitors or by getting rid of persons considered as threats or burdens”. Thus, some workers may determine that it is in their personal best interest to put themselves above others by exerting bullying behaviors.
10. Measurement and Data Collection
To measure sexual harassment, the well-known instrument named Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) of Fitzgerald et al. (1995) is used. It is known for having best psychometric properties. It is comprised of 17 questions, assessing the frequency of sexual harassment experienced by males and female workers. These 17 questions cover 3 major types of harassment including gender harassment (any behavior/s that expresses degrading, insulting, sexist remarks about opposite gender), unwanted sexual attention (stroking, touching, repeated requests for sexual or romantic relationship), and coercion (any behavior that is threatening or frighten co-workers to cooperate, Sexual Harassment at Workplace and its impact on Employee Turnover Intentions 93 else they will be ill-treated, or offering bribe for sexual advances). To measure the frequency of sexual harassment, a 5-point scale was adopted with values 1= Never, 2= Once, 3 = Sometimes, 4 =Often, 5 = Most of the time.
11. Conclusion
Workplace harassment is a serious concern which requires immediate attention for better outcome. Although majority of the participants experience at least some form of harassment, they hesitate to objectively indicate the same due to fear of consequences of losing the job and facing further ramifications.
REFERENCES:
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