What Are the Effects of Verbal Abuse in the Workplace?
There are many behaviors that could constitute verbal abuse within a workplace. Disrespect toward fellow employees, passing blame for failures on the job, profanity directed at other employees or complaints about various tasks related to the job are all common examples.
When verbal abuse rears its head within your workplace, it could lead to some serious effects. If you do not act quickly, these effects can quickly become traumatic to your company culture and environment, and produce some long-lasting results.
Common effects include:
- Lack of communication. Employees may become fearful of engaging in communication with other people in the workplace, for fear of being harshly criticized or otherwise abused. As soon as you begin having communication
- Depression. Employees may become withdrawn and depressed if they have been persistent targets of verbal abuse in the workplace. They may even suffer from headaches or sleep disruption. This can have a severe impact on their job performance and their happiness with their job.
- More absences. Abused workers are far more likely to skip work frequently. As a result, the quality of their work suffers, as will the quality of work on other people within the company who rely on their presence to get their work done. You can’t operate a business when a large number of people are consistently missing.
- Insubordination. If employees find themselves to be consistent targets of office bullying, they may be less likely to want to follow you. They might believe that you aren’t doing everything you can to create a safe work environment for them, and could lose trust in you as a leader.
- General lack of productivity. People who suffer from verbal abuse in the workplace are much more likely to be distracted while on the job, which will have a drastic impact on their quality of work and general productivity.
If you notice any of these symptoms within your office, it’s important that you investigate as soon as possible. Victims of verbal abuse will not always come forward with their accusations, so you must be able to keep a good feeling of the atmosphere within your workplace so that you can prevent these effects from quickly getting out of control.
by Christine Kelly
CEO and Queen Bee | Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.