Psychological Abuse At The Workplace

CONCLUSION

Psychological abuse exists in the workplace. Workers suffer sustained degenerative abuse that undermines their self-confidence and leads to debilitating life changes. The abusers affect workers above and below them and are usually well known for their behaviour. Abuse of others in the workplace is not acceptable. The abuse needs to be recognised in all its ugliness, documented and brought out from behind the ‘respectable’ roles and actions that guide it.

Effective policies must be guided by research. Policymakers need far more information than is presently available on such issues as:

• Defining this type of abuse.
• The extent and duration of the abuse.
• Identifying the conditions under which the abuse evolves.
• Recognising the characteristics of the abuser and the victim.
• Knowing the intentions of the abuser.
• Identifying the components of the abusive actions.

Finally, we need to learn more about organisational policies and practices towards abuse, to identify the types of responses available to targets of abuse and the effectiveness of these policies and practices in curtailing and preventing abuse. They offer policy makers the following challenge: Given this uncharted territory, organisations should be open to management researchers who wish to investigate abusive management behaviours. This requires executives to admit that managerial abuse can occur, and acknowledge that learning about abuse and taking corrective and preventative actions are needed. 

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