The Changing Workplace

What is happening?

Worldwide the workplace has changed drastically. "Downsize - it's the nineties" has become a popular slogan in the last decade of the previous century. Globalisation has come to stay and with it its advantages and disadvantages. Fierce competition, lean and mean corporations, the major and profound restructuring of the workplace, increasing greed of business to drive the profit margins higher resulted in the displacement and unemployment of millions of workers. Even the rise of small business cannot stop the increase in negative survival behaviour like workplace hostilities/bullying/mobbing crossing international borders - this phenomenon has been reported in every country. Everybody is vulnerable and could find them cleaned in the corridors if they are not alert.

Businesses downsize as a first option to become more profitable in stead of looking at more creative ways to gain the competitive edge. Transitional periods equal restructuring leading to downsizing. All over the world billions in any currency are wasted because of worker absence due to stress caused by workplace hostilities. Suicides related to workplace problems are on the increase, the outbreak of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is epidemic throughout the industrialised world while employers continue to create hostile environments and apply aggressive management styles to steer employees away amidst international outrage.

Workplace Bullying and Mobbing as well as Corporate Aggression cause severe trauma for the targets or victims. Increasingly this negative survival behaviour is receiving international attention, to the extent that the ILO published a report on workplace violence (physical and emotional) in 1999, emphasizing that this phenomenon is one of the most serious problems facing the workplace in the wake of the new millennium.

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