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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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