All against one: mobbing at work - Career

The concept and signs of staff mobbing at work

Mobbing at an enterprise (from the English mobbing - “bullying”) means collective terror, psychological bullying of an employee.
There is no legal definition of mobbing, but in judicial practice this concept is found (deciphered) as:

organized psychological harassment (decision of the Leninsky District Court of Nizhny Tagil dated January 23, 2017 in case No. 2-112/2017);
moral bullying in the workplace (decision of the Zeya District Court of the Amur Region dated August 11, 2014 in case No. 2-1689/2014);
psychological pressure forcing dismissal (decision of the Cheryomushkinsky District Court of Moscow dated October 9, 2015 in case No. 2-5995/2015).

Based on the above, we can formulate signs of mobbing:

actions are aimed at a specific person;
they are carried out purposefully, in an organized manner;
acts are in the nature of moral pressure;
the location of the action is the victim’s workplace;
The goal of any work mobbing is to force a person to quit.

Mobbing as a phenomenon occurs not only in the work team, but also in other places where people are together for a long time. For example, among students at school.

The prohibition of mobbing at the level of labor legislation is reflected in only one norm - Art. 3 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, prohibiting discrimination. At the same time, guarantees of an employee’s rights upon dismissal and the right to appeal a disciplinary sanction can partly protect against mobbing, if it comes from management.

How to recognize a victim?

The victims are often the most creative, ethical and competent members of the work team.

The reason why a victim is chosen may be because other workers fear for their own jobs or privileges.

Management personnel are also attractive for psychological persecution. In this case, subordinates, as a rule, unite to undermine the authority of the leader.

The following methods are chosen for this:

Personal things that the victim needs for work (computer, printer, phone) may suddenly get lost or fail.
Disputes with colleagues will become more intense and frequent than before.
When a victim of bullying enters the office, the conversation between colleagues quickly stops (or the subject of the conversation changes).
There are rumors and gossip about the victim that discredit her honor and dignity.
The employee is assigned the most unpleasant work tasks or tasks that do not correspond to his professional level.
The employee is aware that all the work tasks he/she does are always supervised by other employees, receiving negative evaluation.
The victim is criticized and underestimated by other colleagues.
The employee does not receive a response to written or oral requests.
The victim's immediate emotional reactions are constantly suppressed.
The person is not invited to festive events held both in and outside the workplace.
Colleagues speak negatively about the victim's appearance and clothing style.
All suggestions or initiatives regarding the work process are ignored.

The above signs of mobbing are the most common: often human imagination goes much further along the path of bullying.

Bullying does not include the use of physical force by a group against the victim. Instead, it is heavily focused on the employee's personal life.

However, psychological pressure can cause such emotional damage to victims that it can ultimately result in physical manifestations.

Stress can cause poor health and the appearance of:

headaches;
gastrointestinal diseases;
high blood pressure.

Constant stress makes life difficult for the victim both during work and non-work hours, which can lead to exhaustion, disordered eating habits, etc.

Since stalking is not physical, but psychological, it can be difficult for the victim to prove the presence of episodes of aggression and to force the perpetrators to be punished.

In addition, the personal and psychological characteristics of the victim do not imply fighting for their rights and appealing to higher authorities to resolve the issue.

Mobbing by management or in a team: what's the difference?

There are 2 classifications of mobbing:

Vertical mobbing of personnel: from superiors to subordinates. This type of bullying is also called bossing, because the pressure comes from the boss, the manager.

There are 2 reasons for vertical mobbing: personal hostility of the boss that arose for some reason, or his desire to replace the employee with his own person.

The manager begins to find fault with unimportant work issues, assign tasks that are not within the employee’s competence, publicly criticize his subordinate - in a word, heat up the work environment.

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Directly or indirectly, a manager can involve his other subordinates in mobbing.

Horizontal mobbing in a team: from colleagues to the victim. The reasons for such bullying can be called:

intraspecific aggression of people, described by Konrad Lorenz and other psychologists;
the desire to please the bosses who have decided to get rid of an unwanted employee;
the desire to emphasize one’s professionalism against the background of a weak colleague.

Bullying is expressed in constant ridicule, criticism of work, ignoring a colleague, spreading rumors about him, setting him up in front of his superiors, etc.

As a result of any mobbing at work, a tense psychological environment is created, the consequence of which is the victim’s dismissal.

Reasons for mobbing

Many people cannot cope with their feelings, and envy is no exception. Sometimes it is difficult for a person to realize this, as a result of which he begins to ruin the lives of others - those who could at least be better in something, become the owner of what the person himself dreams of.

For example, a new employee appears in the office, a young, beautiful girl. And in this team there are older women who have difficulties in life. And of course, it’s difficult to accept a girl into your team, because she’s younger and her appearance reminds others that their youth is over. Naturally, there may be anger that will stand out, but dealing with such feelings every day is not very pleasant. The result is bullying. It can be collective and manifest only from one side.

Everyone has their own level of ambition. There are people who worked hard, making efforts to get this position and salary, and then they hired another employee. A person who strives for power will use different paths, calmly pursuing his goal.

If you somehow find yourself as a hindrance, then be prepared for the fact that this person will get his way no matter what. A person with a low degree of development always strives to rise at the expense of others. Such people most often do not know themselves, their character, their abilities, their potential; they simply try to achieve inner satisfaction and confidence by humiliating other people. At such a moment, they feel power, superiority, and against the backdrop of all this, they have the illusion that they are strong individuals. They try to choose as victims those who cannot resist.

Similar cases occur at school, at a time when children are not yet formed and conscious. But there are people who continue to use these types of action patterns in adulthood. As a result, there is a need for revenge, a desire to justify one’s honor; if other members of the team were present in this conflict, then there is a need to regain the favor of the team.

How to resist mobbing

Labor legislation does not contain any methods or tools for resolving conflicts of this kind. The victim of mobbing can only be helped by her moral fortitude and psychological attitude.

How to resist mobbing at work if hostility comes from colleagues:

analyze the situation: what caused the bullying, who is the instigator of this action.
stand firm, confident, do not give in to provocations, do not oppose yourself to the team.
Perform job duties carefully and avoid mistakes.
involve management in resolving the conflict.

What should a manager do if he discovers that one of his employees is being bullied by other team members:

organize and maintain a favorable psychological and social climate in the team;
create a corporate culture;
prevent the spread of gossip, denunciations, and intrigues;
raise the issue of mobbing, talk openly with subordinates;
conduct an open management policy in which each employee will know his own and others’ responsibilities, who copes with their performance, who was rewarded and punished for what, etc.

What is "mobbing"?

The dictionaries give the following wording: mobbing (from the English mob - crowd) is a form of psychological violence in the form of bullying an employee in a team, usually with the aim of his subsequent dismissal. It would seem, who hasn’t had conflicts with employees? But mobbing is worse than an ordinary conflict. This is a real systematic war. A distinctive feature of mobbing is regularity. This is far from a one-time conflict action, but systematic persecution and humiliation, the creation of unbearable working conditions for a very specific person.

So if you were once caught in the hot hand of a harmful colleague or your boss simply does not have an easy disposition, then you are still lucky enough not to become a victim of mobbing, compared to which conflicts at work or with management are just childish pranks.

Forms of bullying can be different: from the “civilized” version, when a person is slowly “squeezed out” through behind-the-scenes intrigues with outward politeness and splendor, to the so-called “black” mobbing, when a person is clearly ignored, disrespected and openly conflicted with him on any occasion. Remember the famous movie "Scarecrow"? Here is a typical example of “black” mobbing of the heroine played by Kristina Orbakaite .

What to do if this topic is still about you? Should you go at the enemy like a tank, run headlong from this job, or continue to allow yourself to be poisoned? Are there ways to resist this element and escape this disaster with dignity?

Is mobbing an individual labor dispute?

Can mobbing be called an individual labor dispute?

According to Art. 381 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, an individual labor dispute is an unresolved disagreement between an employee and an employer on the application of labor legislation.

How can mobbing manifest itself in the legal sphere and develop into a labor dispute? If a manager intends to fire an objectionable person, then in addition to using psychological techniques, he will look for any opportunity to bring the subordinate to disciplinary liability. The latter, as is known, is the only legal opportunity to dismiss an employee at the initiative of the employer.

We described the procedure for imposing a disciplinary sanction in the article “The procedure for bringing to disciplinary liability.” Here we note that a disciplinary offense is always specific and the burden of proving the fact of its commission always lies with the employer.

As an example, let us cite case No. 2-112/2017, considered by the Leninsky District Court of Nizhny Tagil on January 23, 2017. The employer before dismissing the plaintiff:

created a commission of employees, the purpose of which was to establish the facts of the plaintiff’s failure to fulfill his labor duties;
gave the plaintiff written instructions (official assignments) with deadlines for their execution.

The commission, which established the non-fulfillment (improper performance) of duties by the employee, drew up relevant acts. Based on these acts, the employer issued orders to impose disciplinary sanctions. After a reprimand and reprimand, dismissal followed.

The court found these methods legal and ruled in favor of the employer.

Thus, vertical mobbing can result in a labor dispute, but at the same time it will not always be possible to call a labor dispute mobbing. Read more about this in the next section.