Lately, you keep getting appointments very late or only by chance. Your boss has been criticizing you lately not only in private, but also at the team meeting. You always get stuck with the unpopular tasks. Coincidence or sign of mobbing? We give you answers to questions around the topic “mobbing at work” and explain the background.
Conflict or mobbing?
The pressure at work today is greater than ever before: uncertainty about the future, fear of unemployment; constant competition, massive performance and time pressure, the need to constantly adapt to new processes, tasks, hierarchies and locations.
The need to flexibly change the center of one’s life again and again and to establish new social networks. It’s no wonder that such pressure often has an impact on working conditions, the working atmosphere and employee performance.
Vicious circle emerges
One possible consequence is smear campaigns against individual employees. Just as children often pick out the weak and “keep them down,” adults in professional life are increasingly looking for victims at whose expense they can relieve their own pressure or climb the career ladder more quickly. The signs of bullying are subtle at first.
The process often takes on a life of its own and many others join in, often out of fear of becoming a victim themselves. Even when the signs have become obvious, many of those affected are reluctant to ask for help – after all, they don’t want to be seen as weaklings in their professional lives. Thus, a vicious circle often develops.
Signs of mobbing
If psychological attacks can be detected regularly and repeatedly over a longer period of time, you should take these mobbing signs seriously (and counteract them early on):
- Lack of communication: no one talks to you anymore, conversations fall silent when you step over, rumors are spread about you.
- Exclusion: you are no longer invited to meetings or joint activities, projects are distributed among colleagues and you get only what is left, pointless or a workload that is not manageable.
- Inequities: Your work performance is assessed incorrectly, you are blamed for mistakes, your boss criticizes you permanently, you can not do anything right, discussions are conducted unobjectively.
Mobbing can have consequences
The consequences for the victim of bullying arise at different levels. Central is the permanent stress caused by constant attacks against the sense of self-worth and security, but also as a result of the burden of increased and unpleasant work. At first, psychosomatic complaints usually appear: Gastrointestinal problems, headaches, sleep disorders, night sweats. The constant sleep deficit leads to concentration problems, fatigue and depressed mood.
Over time, this also spreads to private life. Many sufferers no longer have any energy and lose interest in their family and hobbies – the dejection turns into a real depression. They often see no way out of their situation and despair – suicide attempts also occur. In addition, disorders of the cardiovascular system can also occur: Heart stumbling or racing, high blood pressure up to a heart attack.
Not a trivial offense
Mobbing is not a trivial offense – after all, it has pronounced physical and psychological consequences for most victims – up to and including incapacity to work and earn a living. This also results in business consequences for employers and employees: sickness-related absences accumulate, and performance and quality of work decline.
