common and recognizable forms of discriminatory harassment experienced at the workplace

 common and recognizable forms of discriminatory harassment experienced at the workplace

Harassment is unwanted conduct which you find offensive or which makes you feel threatened or embarrassed. Work harassment is the demeaning or offensive conduct directed at an individual worker or group of employees. Workplace abuse has recently gained attention among practitioners and researchers as it becomes one of the most sensitive fields for successful management of the workplace. This paper addresses common and recognizable forms of discriminatory harassment experienced at the workplace, the impacts on both the targeted individual and the whole workplace environment, and finally, different ways of curbing these vices at work.

Racial harassments. An employee may experience racial discrimination due to his or her ethnicity, skin color, heritage, country of origin, or citizenship. The cause may also be a perceived feature of a certain race, such as curly hair, accents, customs, beliefs, or clothes. This kind of harassment may include racial stereotypes, insulting, or derogative comments about the race or color of an individual or the display of racially insensitive symbols (Rezvan, Shekarpour, Alshargi, Thirunarayan, Shalin & Sheth,2018). Therefore, racial harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision.

Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual behavior; it violates the dignity of an employee or creates an intimidating, threatening, degrading, humiliating, or offensive working atmosphere for them. Gender discrimination is a form of sexual harassment that occurs when an employee or job applicant is treated differently or less favorably because of their sex or gender. This could also be because the individual is associated with sex or gender-related organization or community (SteelFisher, Findling, Bleich, Casey, Blendon, Benson & Miller,2019).

Another form of harassment is religious harassment that involves the treatment of an employee or job applicant based on their religious belief. Religious discrimination may also entail treating someone differently because he is married or affiliated with an individual of a particular religion.

Disability-Based harassment. This is a type of workplace harassment towards those individuals who either suffer from a particular disability condition, are associated with a disabled person or individual. An individual with a disability may encounter harassment in the form of negative bullying, commentary patronizing, failure to accommodate appropriately, or isolation.

Finally, there exist Sexual orientation-based Harassment in which victims face abuse if they have a different sexual identity than those around them. This kind of discrimination has been on the rise and it is starting to gain momentum and awareness as a valid form of harassment in the workplace.

The effect of harassment can vary from one person to the other and will be affected by the length and intensity of the offensive behavior. Still, people will usually respond to harassment by displaying signs of distress. According to Basile, D’Inverno & Wang (2020), being a victim of bullying can cause problems with physical and psychological health, including; high blood pressure, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, ulcers, and stress. Bullied employees are not able to do their jobs at their best. This is because they experience very low self-esteem; they have trouble making decisions and also lack proper concentration. These could increase absenteeism among the victims and eventually lower the productivity of the affected employees.

To reduce cases of harassment at the workplace, organizations should come up with a clear anti-harassment policy. This is critical as it helps head off troubles. The policy would then explain how workers would report harassment, to whom they should report it, and the implications of harassment. The policy needs to be well communicated to every employee at an early stage of recruitment. More importantly, an organization should educate its workers through regular training so that each one knows how to identify, report, and respond to such instances of harassment.

Harassment in the workplace is a widespread problem, although workers do not readily articulate it with fear of consequences given existing issues. It is, therefore, necessary to raise awareness of the healthy culture of the workplace and to raise awareness of the institution’s steps to avoid harassment in the workplace. This would prevent those experiencing harassment from getting a traumatic experience. A good workplace environment would also facilitate optimum job efficiency.