Bullying and Harassment in The Workplace

Adult bullying in the workplace occurs more often than people think, if they are aware that it occurs at all. Many people think bullying in the workplace is the same as harassment, and while they are similar, there are differences between bullying and harassment. There is a fine line in many cases, but one of the major differences between bullying and harassment in the workplace is that harassment is easy to stop whereas bullying is not.

Distinguishing Characteristics of Bullying

One of the main differences between bullying and harassment is that harassment has physical components such has unwanted touching, intruding in personal space, and damaging possessions. Bullying is almost always emotional or psychological and involves verbal and written communication and actions. The subtle nature of workplace bullying makes it harder to stop than harassment.

Targeting Victims: Bullying vs Harassment

Another one of the differences between bullying and harassment is that adult bullies will target anyone, even popular successful people. Adult bullies will target people they perceive as a better than tem at their job not people who are a minority or weaker than themselves. Harassment, however, usually singles out people who are different based on racial, gender, and other differences. Harassment of these minorities is identified and even expected, but bullying of people who do not have these differences is harder to identify. Harassment is based on discrimination, one of the differences between bullying and harassment is that bullying is based on jealousy or insecurity.

Frequency and Recognition of Incidents

Only one instance of harassment is needed to identify it as harassment. The differences between bullying and harassment are that bullying is an ongoing problem. Harassment can happen repeatedly but it does not have to. Bullying always occurs more than once and many time very frequently. Harassment it also obvious and involves things that companies make very clear. Bullying can be much more subtle and the victim may not even realize they are being bullied until after it has been occurring regularly. The differences between bullying and harassment are that harassment victims are recognized and sympathized with, while bullying victims are often not recognized or dealt with in the appropriate manner.

Motive Behind Actions

Another one of the differences between bullying and harassment is that harassment is often done in the open and to boost the image of the person doing the harassment or prove to their peers that they are macho. These motives behind harassment are different than the motives behind bullying. Bullying usually occurs in private and is not publicly admitted. A workplace bully does not want other to know what they are doing and will deny that anything is going on at all. Adult bullies just want to damage their target enough so that they are not a threat anymore.

Contexts of Occurrence

Harassment can take place both inside and outside of work while bullying occurs mostly in the workplace. Harassers often take pleasure in targeting others, while bullies do it to hide their own insecurities and to eliminate the threat they perceive in other people. There are many differences between bullying and harassment, which must be identified in order to differentiate between both types of injustices.