Physical assault in the workplace is not unknown. A number of years ago there were a series of assaults with weapons by disgruntled postal workers. From time to time we hear about individuals going into the workplace and shooting people, but fortunately these assaults are rare. We tend to rely on the workplace as being a safe environment, free from danger of physical assault. By and large this anticipation of safety is in fact correct. Also as rare as the assaults we hear on the news are physical assaults by supervisors and employers upon employees. It is clearly a behavior that is inappropriate. Moreover, there are substantial legal protections that would deter physical assault.

When it comes to actions that are upon the mind more than the body such as sexual harassment and other forms of psychological abuse the law becomes murky. It becomes somewhat more difficult to prove an assault such as sexual harassment in the workplace and it frequently becomes a matter of he said, she said. There is even less protection when it comes to subtle forms of psychological assault that can cause far more damaging and long lasting effects than a physical assault. Because legal protections are not strong, these sorts of damages occur more frequently than we may be aware. We who work with individuals who have been psychologically harmed in the workplace are very aware of the number of opportunities that exist for those at work to do psychological harm to one another.

In a presentation at an APA convention Bryant Welch (1997) noted a number of these instances and argued that the effect of some of these actions in the workplace can be serious, specifically citing post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of psychological harm. My experience offers considerably support for Bryant Welch’s assertion. The following are brief case studies of individuals who have been psychologically harmed in the workplace by harassment. It is very difficult even after instances like these examples to claim injury under workers’ compensation policies. I would argue that there’s a massive unawareness and denial of the damages that can be caused by this behavior, which is often times very close to bullying. The hierarchical nature of the workplace with administration and supervisory positions makes this type of behavior easy and convenient. Very often this behavior serves the purposes of the employer.

Case 1: Grant worked in insurance sales, entering his company immediately after college, He was successful and well suited to this even though he did not present as an exceptionally gregarious individual. After a few successful years he was promoted to a district sales manager. The district sales office had been one of the least productive and over the next eleven months, the sales performance of the office went from next to last to number two in the region. Also during those eleven months Grant’s immediate supervisor was transferred and he came into a newly enlarged region. His new supervisor had encouraged individuals of his own ethnic background to head sales offices and had encouraged sales practices that were ethically and legally questionable but which were tacitly supported by the insurance company.

After eleven months and great success, Grant was removed from this position and made an assistant to the regional manager. One month later, recognition was given to the districts that had improved. Grant’s successor, who had been in the position for less than a month, was given an award for the improvement that occurred largely under Grant’s watch.
As an assistant to the regional manager Grant found that his duties were minimal. He would make himself busy visiting various offices but frequently would just go the regional headquarters and sit there to pass the time. Eventually he was given another district office to manage and in this office he was finding that there were several problems with unethical and illegal business. He began to reverse these, but then he was eventually switched to arguably the most unethical district office in the region. These switches were highly unusual since district managers tended to stay where they were, unless promoted.

As a result of reversing bad business practices, an activity that was tacitly supported by his superior, he found that he was losing as much or more business than he was gaining in the office. His compensation suffered. While he continued to man the office with people who successfully trained under him, there were a number of people who had to be let go. His superior had been one of the encouragers of the bad business practice and probably felt threatened by Grant, even though he was directing Grant to fix the problems that had been created in the office, prior to Grant’s tenure.

As the pressure grew on his regional manager, that manager would appear at Grant’s office at unusually early times and when Grant would show up, usually early himself, he would berate Grant for not being there, earlier (e.g. 7:00 AM). When the sales manager of the larger geographical region came to visit Grant, he found that what Grant was doing was fine but, while there, an urgent letter arrived with several indictments against Grant by his immediate superior.

Shortly thereafter Grant had a psychological meltdown, that began with a serious anxiety attack. His primary care physician put him on disability. As a result of this he saw his career crumble before his eyes and all of his dedicated work appeared to turn against him. Even after the fact, his superior showed up at Grant’s house with his personal history file and handed it to him saying that he didn’t want to cause Grant “to become ill.” But the damage was done. Eventually Grant ended up on Social Security Disability suffering from chronic health complaints, anxiety and agoraphobia.

Case 2: Cassandra was a very competent secretary to the Board of Education. She worked closely with the business manager and superintendent of schools but most closely with members of the Board of Education. It was her job to arrange the meetings of the Board of Education, set the agenda and provide reports. All of this work required cooperative working with individuals from the schools including the superintendent and the business manager. The agendas and supporting documents would have to be prepared in advance of the Board meeting. In order to do this, Cassandra would require particular cooperation from the business manager.

The business manager was relatively new and was attempting to make political points with the superintendent of the schools. Cassandra’s competence and awareness of the job, an ability to stay above the fray politically, posed a threat to the business manager. The business manager was technically in a supervisory position. When she needed his opinion about how to handle an issue or how to deal with Board members or even the superintendent, he would clam up. He would at the last minute provide the information but not in enough time for her to be able to properly prepare for the Board meetings. It became evident that she had to act without his input on frequent occasions. This action often times put her in a position to be criticized. She saw her position undermined and eventually became ill and left the job.

Cassandra decided she could no longer return to work. At first, her criteria for returning to work were that the business manager leave the job. As time progressed however she determined the workplace is toxic and she could not stay.

Case 3: Barney has worked for a beverage distributor for over twenty-seven years. Most recently he worked in vending. When he transferred to a vending position, a person who had more experience in vending trained him. The trainer was the person whom he was displacing because Barney had greater seniority. The trainer/co-worker was displeased about this situation. No part of his training was done by management.

For the better part of the year Barney worked alone. After a seemingly trouble free period, he was called up to a supervisor’s office and was told he had committed very serious offences in his position. He was brought to a hearing, represented by union personnel, and successfully defended all but one charge.

The charge he was not able to defend involved multiple duplicate invoices. As a result of this the company had paid the owners of the vending machines double. The problem with the duplicate invoices, he alleged, had to do with problems with his portable computer, which at times would not print out an invoice. In order to get the invoice he would re-enter the data that was seemingly lost and print a duplicate. This apparently indicated to his superiors that the transaction had taken place twice.

Barney was held accountable because his supervisor supervision claimed Barney had not done the proper (approved) procedure. At that time the proper procedure was not spelled out anywhere. Barney was told he was being put on suspension but days later he was told he should report to work. Even with union representation, he could not go back to work because he felt that his twenty-seven years on the job gave him no integrity with regard to these allegations.
Eventually, with therapy, he was able go back to work but he was demoted to another job at a lower rate of pay. He alleged that company had violated union rules and filed a grievance. It took over a year and a half to have the grievance heard.

Therapy was an incredible challenge; first to get him to go back to work and second to bear up under the indignity of the charges that everybody at work knew had been filed against him. I was able to establish a degree of optimism about the eventual result, but the amount of time that elapsed while he waited for that result was extremely corrosive. His case has been heard in arbitration and he achieved a desirable result. Even so, the violation to him made it extremely painful for him to be able to go into work everyday.

Case 4: Ray was a loan salesperson. While several banks were taken over and/or merged, he had not worked at one when this happened until his most recent position. This changed his life because his function came under a new headquarters, while most of the rest of the bank maintained a direct relationship to the existing home office.

Changes began with the downsizing of his support staff. He was pressed to do more with less. In his last full year, by virtue of a large loan, he ended up doing about 1/8 of the total loan production of the whole department. However, the change in management meant that the flexibility he had to “work a favorable deal” was taken away in favor of inflexible rules. His customers found the inflexibility annoying and the customer in the large deal complained. The higher-ups soothed the customer and the deal was done.

Ray was getting upset and, not surprisingly, got sick which put him under more pressure when he returned to work. While retrieving a heavy file box from a closet at work, the box fell and injured his arm. He was out for surgery, but feeling pressure to return to work, he came back too soon. He couldn’t type on the computer or do a number of functions and there was no help. He began to feel excessive anxiety, whichincreased when he got a negative review, even though he was a top producer. The pressure was too much and with his arm not healing, he went out on disability.

He asked Human Resources for a mental health referral. They referred him to Workers’ Comp. After much time elapsed, the adjuster on his case interviewed him at his house about his anxiety and distress. Within a day, that adjuster spoke to Ray’s superior, breaking his confidentiality. Finally, the “psych claim” was denied by the carrier and his EAP spent a few weeks stringing him along when finally I saw him. At that time he was incapable of returning to work. He is now on Social Security Disability. Additionally, his disability insurance company paid him two years disability but then terminated him because he had a psychological disability. Workers’ Comp., it will be remembered, denied him coverage for his mental health treatment.

Bullying, A Legal Workplace Tactic:

While physical abuse is not tolerated in the workplace, psychological abuse is not only tolerated but is sometimes encouraged or at least winked at. I would contend that laws do not adequately protect against grievous forms of psychological harm. Workplace harassment is very often in the service of corporate goals and values that are ethically questionable.

The fact that employers can no longer discriminate on the basis race, age, gender or other factors provide some degree of protection but since working in most states is on an at will basis, psychological harm can be serious but not illegal. As time goes by the public has lost its distaste for corporate highhandedness and accepts ethically questionable behavior.

Globalization in business has assisted this. Only one of the four examples that I cited above led successful legal action. Not only that, the cost of legal action makes it forbidding in most instances.

The possibility that someone can be injured or disabled, often without recourse, through psychological harm perpetrated at the workplace is a very serious issue not often discussed. These problems are made even more difficult by the fact that sometimes devious methods of psychological harm are used to weed people out in the workplace and often the affected people may be diligent and productive. The general preference for workers who are diligent and productive is often times overridden by supervisors who prefer workers who are part of their shared valued system rather than the best value system for the corporation. Sometimes even the value system of the corporation becomes corrupted as we have seen over recent years with corporate executives that have gotten themselves into legal difficulties and in some cases overseeing the collapse or near collapse of their corporate empires.

The most common damage to victims such as those illustrated in my case studies above is that diligent, hard working, dedicated employees suffer from grievous humiliation and shame that impairs their ability to risk becoming a part of a workplace again. One other notable instance of damage that has been caused is that to whistle blowers who in many states and jurisdictions are protected. Despite this, whistleblowers have serious problems finding work after blowing the whistle. Many become disabled.

Conclusions:

What are the roles of mental health professionals in helping to create psychologically healthy workplaces that operate against causing psychological harm? In New Jersey a psychologically healthy workplace award was created. (Stambor, 2006)

Unfortunately one of the places that got this attention was the employer that was involved with case #1.

It would seem obvious that this is an issue that we rarely discuss because we have not yet found a way to be effective and combating psychological harm in the workplace. While it is beyond the scope in this paper to suggest ways to combat psychologically toxic workplace situations I could suggest that an agency like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could investigate psychologically toxic work environments. Also tongue in cheek I might suggest giving out psychologically toxic workplace citations. However, I believe that there are legal advisors who would argue against this. I hope this is not a problem that lacks solution. This is an issue that we must begin to discuss openly and with great concern.

References

Stambor, Zak, Employees: A Company’s Best Asset. Monitor On Psychology, 37 (3) March 2006 P. 28.

Welch, Bryant, Gaslighting: The Covert Infliction of Emotional Pain in Employment Settings, Presentation at American Psychological Association convention, August 17, 1997, Chicago, IL.