Dear friends, have you ever been bullied at the workplace? The mere mention of ‘bullying’ reminds us of our schooldays. However, it does not only occur in school but also at the workplace.

At the end of 2018, a workplace bullying incident in Japan drew much attention and criticism on the Internet. It happened when an entertainment company in Tokyo was having a year-end party in December 2015. The boss demanded a male employee to ‘do something interesting’. However, When the employee replied, “I don’t know how to do it,” the boss grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pushed his face twice into a piping hot steamboat. He was scalded and had extensive burns. After 3 years, he finally mustered the courage to make it known in public at the end of 2018. He also posted photographs on the Internet. It was definitely an uncomfortable sight to see!

Such extreme cases are rare. However, workplace bullying occurs in several ways. If we identify such cases earlier, we can nip them in the bud; otherwise, they will become worse and result in serious injuries.

At this point in time, someone might say: “I am a Supervisor in my company, so no one dares to bully me!” This is possible, but we hope that everyone, especially Christians, will understand what ‘workplace bullying’ entails, as it is prevalent. Bullying takes many forms in every job and sector. Perhaps you may be facing it now as a victim or a bully. Let’s take some time to understand this issue so that we can protect ourselves and also be certain that we aren’t bullies intentionally or inadvertently.

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What is ‘workplace bullying’? According to The Workplace Bullying Institute in America, workplace bullying is defined as the repeated, abusive behaviour of one or more bullies to inflict harm to the physical or emotional well-being of one or more persons. The bully could be the victim’s supervisor, colleague or sometimes, the subordinate. It could be one-to-one or communal behaviour.

Workplace bullying includes verbal abuse, threats, humiliation; putting others down and denying their hard work and abilities; fault finding and making things difficult for others; isolating and excluding others at the workplace; gossiping behind others’ backs and spreading rumours; concealing important information; deliberately destroying or preventing others from finishing the job; finding excuses for others to work over-time but not paying them; finding excuses not to let subordinates apply for leave; taking credit for the subordinate’s ideas and hard work; firing others without a reason; and other behaviours.

According to the survey results conducted by ‘The Workplace Bullying Institute’ or WBI in short in 2017, about 60 million Americans had experienced workplace bullying. About 30% of the victims were silent about it, more than 40% of them suffered from health issues related to bullying, and 65% of them were forced to resign.

Clearly, workplace bullying not only bring hurt to the employees, many enterprises also pay a heavy price for it. However, the survey results were alarming as they revealed that a lot of companies did not take action to prevent workplace bullying. There were also no official policies or codes of conduct to deal with bullying. Only a minority of the companies took disciplinary actions against bullies.

Dear friends, do you think that such workplace bullying incidents are remote or occur less often in the mild Asian environment? In reality, the authoritarian culture is prevalent in Asian workplaces, so workplace bullying is no less common than in North America. For instance, one survey in Taiwan indicated that 54% of the workforce had experienced workplace bullying. More than 60% of them experienced it at least once a week. 37% of them were bullied almost every day.

According to WBI surveys, workplace bullying was attributed to the following reasons: the bullies thought that the skills and abilities of the victims posed a threat to them; the bullies felt that the popularity of the victims undermined their positions in the companies; the personalities of the bullies predisposed them to bullying or certain degrees of mental illness; the victims lacked communication skills in interpersonal relationships and were seen as weak; the victims deliberately created conflicts.

（Picture from the Internet）

Here, we would like to remind our brothers and sisters of an important point. The researchers on workplace culture discovered that people with good work performance were often the targets of attack at the workplace. Your good conduct, seriousness, diligence, commitment and honesty might be a threat to others. This does not mean that we should embody bad characteristics but rather, we should be more aware of the real situation at the workplace and be prepared for it.

Let us think about this: What is the appropriate response towards workplace bullying? Tolerance? Ignorance? Resistance? Quitting?

Dear friends, first of all, we need to understand that a lot of bullies gloat over the helplessness and suffering of their victims. There are many workplace bullies because when an issue surfaces, everyone is silent. Thus, the bullies will gradually get used to it and even derive happiness from it.

Do you remember that at the start of this episode, we mentioned the bullying incident in Japan? Before the ‘steamboat incident’, that male employee was frequently bullied, but he tolerated with it and hoped to maintain peace. It was inconceivable that ultimately, he would be pushed into a boiling steamboat.

Therefore, we suggest that when Christians experience workplace bullying, we must be courageous to speak out against it, regardless of whether we are the victim or not. We must not be silent and perpetuate such evil behaviour. This prevents trivial issues from escalating to great injury. We should respond to such an issue with a responsible attitude and strive hard to resolve any crisis. We not only do it for a living, but also to change the workplace environment and not give in to evil behaviour. This is an opportunity to build our courage, so we shouldn’t give up easily. We must not harbour hatred or escape into self-pity.

Some of us may say: I know that I should speak up in justice. However, when such an incident occurs, my mind goes blank and I don’t know what to do.

It doesn’t matter. We need to build courage and train ourselves gradually. However, we need to know that when workplace bullying takes place, our courage or fear will, to a large extent, affect the other party’s behaviour.

What does this mean? Regarding the news in Japan, the male victim confessed: “At that time, my boss had brainwashed me, and I was severely oppressed mentally. I was more afraid that my boss would be furious, rather than having my face in the steamboat.” He was so scared of his boss that severe scalding seemed to be a trivial issue. His boss clearly saw his trepidation and became more emboldened.

Dear friends, at times, we come across such people in our lives. They will use words or actions to make you feel that you are inferior – he is shrewd while you are helpless; she is pretty, but you are ugly; he is clever whereas you are foolish. We will be hurt or lose our confidence when we interact with such people.

As Christians, we need to remind ourselves that the source of causing hurt is not words or actions in such incidents. Rather, we lack love because we don’t abide in the love of God and subject ourselves to cruelty in the world.

Therefore, we need to remind ourselves and proclaim to the world that our lives are created by God and are redeemed by the heavy price of Christ’s salvation! The dignity and worth of our lives will not be undermined by any person, regardless of their high status or their relationship with us.

（Picture from the Internet）

We Christians fear the Lord. As for people, we respect them but are not afraid of those whose status is high or low.

Today, if the fear of someone has a grip in our lives, we need to commit it to the Lord in prayer and find out the reason for it until such fear is removed. Let us frequently remind ourselves of Proverbs 29:25 in the Bible: The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

We need to know how to protect ourselves in workplace bullying. However, we shouldn’t be over-sensitive and misconstrue the kind intention of others as ‘bullying’.  We mustn’t interpret our supervisors’ demands as ‘deceptive’ or ‘playing tricks on others’. Such mode of thinking will make us defensive and hinder our career development and spiritual growth.

On the other hand, the employer often likes to assign difficult tasks to a particular staff. It is not because he wants to oppress him but rather, he thinks that the staff is capable. Thus, it is a load off his mind. Dear friends, if you are ‘the person who is valued for your potential’, you should thank your boss and frankly confess to your boss that your abilities are limited so you cannot be overloaded in the long run. We believe that your boss is willing to make adjustments if he treasures talented people.

For certain sectors, people communicate directly, and are sometimes rather coarse in their talk. This is part of the workplace culture and is not personally pointed at you. Therefore, let us ponder if we have misinterpreted the behaviour of other people and not over-react.

When we live in love and have the right values, we will have the ability to differentiate opinions, criticisms and bullying. We will also have the courage to face up to our inadequacies as well as risks in the world. Once we are firmly anchored, and ‘fear the Lord rather than men’, we will possess wisdom to deal with workplace bullying.

Thank you for joining today’s episode of “Workplace Strategy.”  Join us for our next episode as we explore a few specific steps for dealing with workplace bullying.

References:

Michele Woodward < Six Steps to Combat Workplace Bullying >

Critical Thinking Questions:

1. Have you experienced “Workplace Bullying”? What do you think is the right thing to do when facing “Workplace Bullying”?

2. What do you think are the reasons that cause “Workplace Bullying”?

3. What do you think are the differences between “Workplace Bullying” and Criticisms at workplace?