Workplace bullying in healthcare. Health, Medicine, Nursing

Workplace Bullying in Healthcare
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Workplace Bullying in Healthcare
Workplace bullying has become a prevalent issue around the world, presenting organizations with leadership and ethical dilemmas. It involves persistent and continuous mistreatment of an individual(s) in the form of verbal, physical, or psychological abuse, which causes hostility in the workplace (Akella, 2016). A lot of research has been conducted on the issue to identify what entails workplace bullying, the causes, the effects, and preventative measures against workplace bullying. Just like many other sectors, workplace bullying is very common in the healthcare sector and it has enormous effects on the delivery of healthcare. As posited by Koh (2016), workplace bullying affects the physical, mental, and emotional health of health workers. In addition, it affects work attendance where victims of workplace bullying fail to report to work, thus increasing the workload for other health workers. This is especially detrimental in nursing where there is already a shortage of nursing workforce and every human resource has to be pulled to make up for the shortage. Also, workplace bullying negatively affects patient care and health outcomes. Bullied healthcare workers are prone to making more medical errors and providing poor quality of care than their non-bullied counterparts (Koh, 2016). Thus, workplace bullying is a harmful behavior in healthcare because other than affecting the victims, it also affects the quality and effectiveness of patient care. There is a need to address the problem by creating solutions. However, addressing the problem will require understanding the root cause of the problem. Different views and opinions on the causes of workplace bullying in healthcare have been a bone of contention for a while, as illustrated in this paper. However, while workplace bullying is perpetrated by individuals within the organization, organizational factors are the root cause of workplace bullying among healthcare workers.
Argument
Workplace bullying in healthcare has been a constant topic of debate, especially concerning the causes of workplace bullying. However, to properly understand why individuals bully their colleagues in the workplace, it is important to understand the organizational factors that enable this behavior. As revealed by Johnson (2016), one of the organizational factors that contribute to workplace bullying in healthcare is the organization’s culture. An organization that tolerates bullying by either dismissing victims or not taking any action against perpetrators becomes a breeding ground for workplace bullying. When victims feel dismissed after reporting their bullies, they become less and less willing to report workplace bullying in the future. Victims become more accommodative of bullies and continue suffering in silence. However, an organizational culture that is intolerant to workplace bullying reduces the prevalence of bullying. Such organizational cultures are facilitated by the formulation and implementation of strong anti-bullying policies (Johnson, 2016). Also, organizational cultures that are people and relationship oriented are effective in reducing workplace bullying. Such cultures are characterized by trust, respect, and effective communication within human resources (Yun & Kang, 2018). This leaves very little room for bullying behavior. Another organizational factor that contributes to workplace bullying is an ambiguous description of healthcare workers and specifically, the nurses’ role. According to Koh (2016), when nurses and other healthcare workers lack a clear definition of their roles within their organization, they are more likely to perform poorly, which leads to persistent criticism. Such persistent criticism also creates a platform for workplace bullying because in many cases, the criticism comes in the form of demeaning comments. Also, poor organizational leadership, especially among nurse leaders, is a factor that contributes greatly to workplace bullying in the healthcare sector. In many cases, nurses have reported bullying behavior from their leaders who break confidentiality (Koh, 2016; Berry, Gillespie, Fisher, Gormley, & Haynes, 2016). In such cases, nurses stop confiding with leaders because they feel violated and the work environment becomes hostile. Also, poor leadership contributes to workplace bullying when leaders fail to recognize bullying as harmful behavior. This lack of recognition can be intentional or unintentional, but the effect, in either case, is the same (Berry, Gillespie, Fisher, Gormley, & Haynes, 2016). However, organizational leaders who recognized and address workplace bullying play a huge role in reducing this type of behavior. Power imbalances also contribute to workplace bullying in healthcare (Holroyd-Leduc & Straus, 2018). Such imbalances contribute to disrespectful behavior. In turn, when colleagues are disrespectful and an element of power imbalance is present, workplace harassment is bound to happen.
All the factors contributing to workplace bullying as discussed above are related to the characteristics of a healthcare organization. Since organizations cannot exist without a culture, leadership, power, and role descriptions, among others, these factors must be aligned with workplace bullying intolerance. Otherwise, there will never be a solution to workplace bullying if healthcare organizations maintain toxic cultures, poor leadership, and unclear role descriptions. My position on the issue is informed by a very deep belief in social justice as one of the professional values in nursing and healthcare in general. Nurses and healthcare workers cannot be able to practice social justice if they are unable to receive it from the organizations they work for. Also, this position is informed by a personal belief that human rights and well-being should be protected from any har...