Workplace Harassment - Opinion Editorial

The paper discusses the challenges faced by companies due to workplace harassment and its impact on productivity and organizational culture.

Running head: WORKPLACE HARASSMENT – OPINION EDITORIAL
WORKPLACE HARASSMENT – OPINION EDITORIAL
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Author Note

1WORKPLACE HARASSMENT – OPINION EDITORIAL
The harassment that is faced by the people at their workplace has been a raging issue in
the modern days. The workplace harassment has been one of major issues that is being faced by
the multitude of the people who have been employed within the various workplaces all over the
world (Astrauskaite et al., 2015). The following paper attempts a discussion on the various
challenges that are faced by the companies due to the harassment that is conducted at the several
workplaces all over the world.
There are many incidents that take place all over the world and are reported for
administering the proper action that needs to be taken in order to deal with the harassment
incidents that take place. The major incidents of the harassment that have taken place within the
workplaces inclusive of the schools, business organizations and other such places of work. These
incidents have been proving to be an issue all over the world (Hom et al., 2017). The people who
have been working at the multitude of business organizations active in the international markets
especially the female staff of the organization face several instances of the workplace
harassment.
The harassment that is faced by the employees of an organization refer to the various acts
that take place within the organization that lead to the offensive factors and situations for the
organizational workforce. These include both the verbal as well as the non-verbal acts that are
initiated by the employees of the organization. The major outcomes of the harassment would be
to ask some kind of favor especially sexual in nature or to force a person to complete a certain
course of action. The various instances of harassment within the given workplaces tend to
establish a hostile and offensive environment within the given organization (Bader et al., 2018).
The implementation of the various harassing acts leads to the formation of the unfriendly and

2WORKPLACE HARASSMENT – OPINION EDITORIAL
intimidated relationships that are existent among the staff of the organization. This in turn
hampers the productivity as well as the overall performance of the given company.
The harassment of the staff within the workplaces further harms the goodwill that is
earned by the company in the job market within the concerned industry. This proves to be a great
issue since the lowering of the organizational workforce might hamper the quality of the services
and the products that are offered by the concerned company in discussion. The harassment that is
faced by the employees within the various workplaces all over the world leads to the loss of the
mutual respect among the employees of the organization thereby resulting in the improper
internal communications within the concerned organization (Leskinen, Rabelo & Cortina, 2015).
The loss of the mutual respect also hampers the smoothness of the operations within the
company. This results from the low amount of honor and dignity that is maintained within the
organization.
The employees who have been serving the organizations that are operational within the
given organization generally refrain from reporting the issues of the harassment that they have
been facing within the given organization. Thus, it can be stated that the majority of the instances
of harassment of the employees of the organization remain unnoticed thereby leading to the lack
of transparency within the given organization in discussion. The major reason for not reporting
the issues is the retribution on the part of the supervisor in the given organization. The reports
state that the majority of the employees who have been employed within the organization are
treated with hostility, indifference and retaliation on attempting to report the instances of
workplace harassment that they have been facing within the given organization (D'Cruz,
Noronha & Beale, 2014). There are several reports on the issue of the prevention of the
harassment which state that a high amount of cost is involved in the prevention of the instances

3WORKPLACE HARASSMENT – OPINION EDITORIAL
of workplace harassment apart from the decrease in the productivity of the company alongside
the high rates of employee turnover (Kline & Lewis, 2018). This in turn affects the goodwill of
the company as well as bottom line in the longer run.
Thus, from the above discussion, it might be stated that the workplace harassment is a
menace in itself and needs to be checked. This would further help to establish a growth in the
overall performance of the business organizations.

4WORKPLACE HARASSMENT – OPINION EDITORIAL
References
Astrauskaite, M., Notelaers, G., Medisauskaite, A., & Kern, R. M. (2015). Workplace
harassment: Deterring role of transformational leadership and core job
characteristics. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(1), 121-135.
Bader, B., Stoermer, S., Bader, A. K., & Schuster, T. (2018). Institutional discrimination of
women and workplace harassment of female expatriates: Evidence from 25 host
countries. Journal of Global Mobility, 6(1), 40-58.
D'Cruz, P., Noronha, E., & Beale, D. (2014). The workplace bullying-organizational change
interface: Emerging challenges for human resource management. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(10), 1434-1459.
Hom, M. A., Stanley, I. H., Spencer-Thomas, S., & Joiner, T. E. (2017). Women firefighters and
workplace harassment: Associated suicidality and mental health sequelae. The Journal of
nervous and mental disease, 205(12), 910-917.
Kline, R., & Lewis, D. (2018). The price of fear: estimating the financial cost of bullying and
harassment to the NHS in England. Public Money & Management, 1-10.
Leskinen, E. A., Rabelo, V. C., & Cortina, L. M. (2015). Gender stereotyping and harassment: A
“catch-22” for women in the workplace. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21(2), 192.