Introduction
Bullying and worker’s harassment is a common thing in Western Australia where armed forces and especially women are harassed by their bosses while at work. It is of importance to note that, bullying is a situation where power is abused where the minors are harassed physically or emotionally by their seniors. In most cases, women are the victims of bullying and harassment because of their low physical strength (Whitney, 2009).
In this relation, bullying or ‘bastardisation’ in armed forces is an issue which affects all nations worldwide but some countries are worse than others. In most of the armed services in Australia, new recruits and women are commonly the victims of bullying and harassment despite the fact that it is unacceptable. In the year 2001, Army Chief Peter campaigned on the illegalities of bullying of army forces as has been reported by one o f the country’s newspaper (Spindel, 2008).
It should be noted that, women in Australian armed forces are bullied by being harassed sexually or forced to undertake activities that are not accepted by the Australian workplace Act 1996 section 809(2). Further, most women when they join military they more of psychological bullying than physical one. In this case, mostly women are bullied by being criticized on whatever they do; which makes them feel as failures and hence non productive. In this relation, most of women and other male new recruits have been found to commit suicide as a way of escaping bullying in their places of work. Reports indicate that, women in armed services under fire in Australia are intimidated and threatened by their seniors to the extent that they are forced to put off a fire without full gears (Maravelas, 2005).
It should be noted that, workplace bullying causes anxieties, mental disorders and physical sicknesses where the victims are inflicted with pain directly on their bodies. On this basis, it is the work of managers and seniors to look into it that workers or juniors are not harassed in order to maintain their productivity. In armed services for example, the senior should respect the juniors and women in particular and always do to them whatever he/she would like others to do to him. Additionally, employers should build awareness to the employees on all the various ways of bullying. Further, employers should provide good policies to make sure that; workers are in a working environment that would not hurt them both emotionally and physically (Kohut, 2008).
It is of importance to note that, employees should be provided with safe reporting processes where they would feel free to report any instance of bullying at any place of work. Moreover, coworkers should under all circumstances support any victim of bullying and report it to the management so that correct measures should be taken accordingly. A point worth noting is that, bullies should be counseled and educated on the importance of respecting their juniors or coworkers at any given workplace. In this connection, training sessions should be conducted at workplaces to train both bullies and the victim of bullying on the implications of workplace bullying (Barr, 2010).
Conclusion
To wind up, workplace bullying has been a common phenomenon especially in armed services where juniors and women in particular are harassed either physically or psychologically by their seniors. It is of great significance to note that, bullying is illegal and it affects the victims negatively and hence correct measures should be put in place to stop it.
Reference list
Barr, Lollie, (2010), Workplace Bullying. Web.
Barr, Lollie, (2010), Workplace Bullying. Web.
Kohut, Margaret, (2008), The Complete Guide to Understanding, Controlling, and Stopping Bullies and Bullying at Work: A Complete Guide for Managers, Supervisors and Co-workers, Tabor City: Atlantic Publishing Company.
Maravelas, Anna, (2005), How to Reduce Workplace conflict and Stress: How Leaders and Their Employees can Protect Their Sanity and Productivity from Tension and Turf Wars, New Jersey: Career Press.
Spindel, Patricia, (2008), Psychological Warfare at Work: How Harassers and Bullies Injure Individuals and Organizations, New Hemisphere: Spindel & Associates Inc.
Whitney, Michele, (2009), Preventing Workplace Bullying.