Introduction

Creating an environment whereby all workers can work without discrimination, harassment and treated in the right way is the responsibility of the employer. Based on this it is of the essence to acknowledge that no working environment can be with no such happenings but the degree and extent matters (Sheehan et al., 2018). Working in a dynamic environment could bring with it many challenges, but this is not the biggest undoing. The biggest misfortune is the inability to deal with these workplace challenges as it creates a bad image for the entire organization.

Type of Discrimination and Harassment

Bullying is wrong in workplaces as it in a significant way reduces the productivity of the individuals who are bullied. In most cases, the inability of individuals to defend themselves from the bullies is one of the significant causes of workplace discomfort and instability. In this scenario, bullying took place when a senior officer pushed a junior officer to help run an activity. In the process of doing this, one officer felt disrespected and hit the other one on the face. The result was a fight in the office that even alarmed the top management. Workplaces encourage individuals to work as a team while upholding values like tolerance, respect and goodwill. The inability of the individuals involved to be patient with each other in a way proved that it is wrong to have such happening at workplaces (Sheehan et al., 2018). Workplaces encourage dialogue and other methods of resolving conflicts without inflicting pain on the other party. Tolerance is part of it when diverse members of a group are working together, and this case lacked tolerance. Employment laws also discourage people from bullying each other in workplaces and this makes it not acceptable to fight regardless of the reasons put across by any of the individual (Sheehan et al., 2018).

Conducting Investigations

Conducting investigations when discrimination or harassment take place in an organization is important as it not only reduces the instances of such happening again (Richardson et al, 2016). The first important bit is to inquire about what happened from the parties involved. Each party is to give an account of what happened, how it happened and the facts surrounding it. Picking it up from that point would involve dealing with the immediate factors that led to the bullying and disrespectful behaviours in the workplace (Richardson et al., 2016). The second step would be identifying how long bullying has been taking place to the individual or others in the organization. This would help to understand the extent of the problem in the entire organization. Dealing with the root causes of bullying as compared to what happened in this specific case would help shed more light on the problem (Ramely & Ahmed, 2017).

Employment Laws against Bullying

Bullying is illegal across the United States of America and the different states and territories. The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 discourages bullying and harassment in workplaces on the basis of colour, origin, sex, religion or any other reasons (Ramely & Ahmed, 2017). Hitting someone or disrespecting them because they are junior employees is in itself wrong as it happened in the scenario. In future, minimising these occurrences would mean sensitizing the rest of the workers about the repercussions of bullying and what it would mean to the entire organization (Ramely & Ahmed, 2017). Creating a mechanism to report these occurrences in the future could also in a significant way to reduce cases of bullying in the workplace. Building a team through teamwork would significantly reduce the cases of bullying in the near future as it would mean that all individuals are comfortable to work together. Punishing the bullies and making them be accountable for their deeds would also help in curbing the problem. Lastly, encouraging a healthy working culture for all regardless of the rank or position would in a great way be used to minimize bullying, it’s effects and even how it could affect the organization (Richardson et al., 2016). Most organizations have also set it in their policies that it is unethical and unprofessional to mistreat team members or fellow employees either by harassment or discrimination and therefore this makes bullying unacceptable in the whole country.

Conclusion

Productivity in workplaces cannot be achieved if discrimination and harassment are not dealt with when they arise. Building a solid and strong relationship between workers require discipline and respect for values that bring people together. In dealing with such challenges, managers are not only allowing the organization to thrive but also deal with the small issues that could in a significant way hamper progress and productivity for the whole organization.

References

Sheehan, M., McCabe, T. J., & Garavan, T. N. (2018). Workplace bullying and employee outcomes:       a moderated mediated model. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1-38.

Ramely, A. B., & Ahmad, Y. (2017). Attributors of Workplace Bullying: Cleaning Workforces’ Perspective.             Journal of Administrative Science Special Edition: Socio-Economic Issue, 14(3).

Richardson, R. E., Hall, R., & Joiner, S. (2016). Workplace bullying in the United States: An analysis of state court cases. Cogent Business & Management, 3(1), 1256594.