HR, During this Crisis, Please make Bully Boss sit down!

 

The sky is falling, oops! I meant the economy is falling and with it the US dollar.  Yes, everyone knows times are bad, people are loosing their homes, their families are falling apart, and so are our communities. After all, it does take people to make up a community, right?  As the government bails out Wall Street, Banks, the automobile manufacturers, who is bailing out the workers, struggling to keep it all together?  No one, is standing waiting with a solution as to how you can get a loan modification on your home when you have just been laid off of work, tough luck.

 

Yet, despite all that has beset the average American in these past two years, there really are few to complain considering the dire circumstances.  So many suffer in silence, trying to figure out what to do next. As those who do have jobs report each and every day not knowing who will get the AX next, some workers are not fairing so well; some workers also have to deal with a tyrant, a bully boss at work.

 

Those who are dealing with all of the above stressors AND a bully boss, are finding it more and more difficult to cope. In fact they are finding it so difficult that some are committing suicide.  This of course is not a phenomenon limited to the U.S.A., but France’s Telecom, reported in October, 2009, 25 workers from this one organization committed suicide.  In the U.S.A., the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that workplace suicides (taking place at work) were up 28%.

 

The importance of this information to HR, Risk Managers, and Worker’s Compensation attorneys and representatives, should be that the Bully Boss needs to be told to sit down and stop harassing already stressed out workers. This is not the time to add fuel  to an already burning furnace.  Workers can only take so much on top of what they are already suffering under. You would think that there would be no need to mention the obvious but bully bosses are not very adept at being empathetic, compassionate, nor appropriate socially when it comes to managing people.

 

It is unfortunate during these times that the bully boss is actually the weapon of choice for dispensing the firing news to employees; however, that is the case. Which means that more than likely the bully boss has during these poor economic times, job security.

Tags: amazon.com, Author, Bully Bosses, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Center, HR, Risk Managment, suicide, workplace harassment