Cyberviolence in the workplace: what is it and how to defend yourself against it?

Dr Magdalena Warszewski-Makuch and I are discussing what cyber force at the workplace is about (cybermobbing) and the harm it causes us, as well as the blurring of the boundaries between distant work and free time, the setting up of anti-mobbing committees and ways of dealing with cybermobbing threats.

Margaret Jankowska: Can it be said that cybermobbing is simply a comparatively fresh form of force in the workplace?

Dr Magdalena Warszewska-Makuch:

Cybermobbing distinguishes from conventional mobbing primarily utilizing fresh information and communication technologies to take negative action against another workers.

It's tools that are constantly developing.

I think we can say that this is inactive a fresh form of force in the workplace.

New, but most likely very severe. What negative effects have you observed during your research? Like in Poland?

You ask about the Polish working environment. Unfortunately, in this field we have very small investigation on the relation between cyber-violence experience and negative consequences for the employee.

In the Central Institute for Labour Protection – State investigation Institute We conducted specified investigation in 2022. These included 500 intellectual workers utilizing fresh information and communication technologies on a regular basis in sectors specified as finance and insurance, professional services, information and communication.

The results of our investigation have shown that workers who have been highly exposed to cyber-violence at work have indeed shown a higher level of anxiety or depression.

The more I experience cyberbullying in the workplace, the worse my intellectual wellness is.

As far as another European Union countries, including the Nordic countries, are concerned, studies besides show that the experience of cyber-violence is linked to wellness and intellectual and physical disorders. These are skeletal-muscular disorders, back pain, cardiovascular problems, specified as heart disease, migraine pain.

There is besides a strong feeling of isolation – a individual experiencing violence, including cyber-violence, loses assurance in people in the workplace and begins to isolate himself. Her relation with another employees, household relationships, friends, is seriously deteriorating, so it besides affects private life. It starts to function worse in the company, has a reduced concentration, makes mistakes more often, has problem making decisions.

It may have consequences for organisations in the form of absence, rotation or even retirement from early retirement or pensions. Of course, the company may besides face a failure of good image if specified a substance is made public in the media. There are truly a number of consequences of cyber-violence at work that can be very severe for employers.

What are the conditions for any negative behaviour to be called a cybermobbing?

First of all, as I mentioned earlier, these

negative actions must be taken utilizing fresh information and communication technologies. They can repeat and last for a long time. But it is besides said that even one-time action can be considered cyber-violence,

if there are serious consequences for the employee: for example, 1 offensive information on the network will later spread and scope a wider audience long after it has been placed .

This may besides make it hard for an worker to access crucial information transmitted electronically at the workplace, which will make it incapable to carry out his or her tasks or to criticise the work of a individual in a wider forum electronically. besides ignoring employees' emails, threatening them, insulting them, sharing private information about them online.

In fact, there is besides talk of specified a very drastic behaviour as stealing an employee’s identity online and impersonating him.

Looking at mobbing and cybermobbing, can you hazard saying that cybermobbing is more sneaky due to the fact that it is quieter, harder to see for others. Looking at the computer screen, we can read humiliating emails or another specified content, and a colleague who sits on the side will know nothing.

Traditional mobbing can make it easier to argue or verbal torment, which is easier to hear.

You rightly emphasise this aspect of the phenomenon. Many experts stress that 1 of the distinguishing features of cyber-violence, including cyber-mobbing, is the anonymity of the perpetrator. On the Internet, those who commit force frequently stay unpunished. They hide their identity, making it easier for them to print or send offensive and degrading content.

It is this anonymity, combined with the ease of spreading harmful materials and their permanent presence in the net space, that makes cyber force highly destructive.

These content can be available to the community of net users, and their removal from the network can be hard – sometimes even impossible. As a result, the victim of cybermobbing is exposed to prolonged stress and a sense of danger, even erstwhile the perpetrator has already ceased to act.

After the pandemic, forms of distant and hybrid work became widespread. Therefore, there is now a dangerous phenomenon of blurring the border between working time and free time: even before the start of work, we start the day by checking the email box, and spending the evening at home, after finishing work, we get information from our bosses, from colleagues, or send it ourselves.

Cybermobbing so has the chance to make almost unlimited time.

Yeah. Therefore, many experts emphasise the importance of respecting the time and borders.

Some even say that if we work remotely, for example, by 4:00 p.m., it's sending emails by the boss at 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. due to the fact that we have access to a computer, you can consider cyberbullying.

It is indeed dangerous to merge these borders. Interestingly, our investigation shows that the conflict experienced by the employee, connected with the difficulties in reconciling the professional function and the function it plays in family, private life, powerfully correlates with the experience of cyber-violence.

We're going to analyse this phenomenon further and effort to explain it, but I think it's a very interesting result.

So, do you think that exerting negative force causes a individual to stay in the occupational vigil strategy all the time, which disrupts private life?

I think it is besides possible to interpret this situation: whether it is in the absence of time for private life or only for half-life, physical presence at home with close thoughts while remaining elsewhere.

It was expected to be better, and it worked out as usual.

Have we reached specified a point of social improvement that we take the subject of mobbing or cybermobbing seriously?

A very hard question. I think it depends on the environment. In some, it is already taken seriously, in others alternatively inactive with such, I would say, a wink of an eye, hilariously.

The European Foundation for the Improvement of surviving and Working Conditions conducts cyclical investigation among European workers. 1 question is the question of vulnerability to various types of inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. The results of this survey show firstly that the vulnerability rate of Polish workers to specified activities is comparatively low compared to another countries, which may consequence not so much from the fact that we have specified a good situation, but from a low awareness of this problem, and secondly, that this indicator has not changed over the last 20 years.

As far as prevention is concerned, tools to tackle problems specified as mobbing or cybermobbing are more frequently introduced in large corporations – which have office in the United States, in Western Europe and later decision solutions to Poland – than in tiny companies.

There are frequently no procedures. Moreover, as far as cybermobbing is concerned, procedures to address this problem have been introduced so far in respective organisations in Poland.

Indeed, anti-mobbing policies are being implemented in many companies, inter alia because, in accordance with Article 94 of the Labour Code for the employer, an work is imposed to counter this phenomenon. Another question is whether the provisions of specified policies stay dead, whether real steps are actually being taken to tackle this problem.

I think it's much worse to prevent cybermobbing. The Polish legal order inactive lacks provisions straight related to this phenomenon.

Let's get to the bottom of this. 1 feels that something is not right in communication with fresh technologies, whether from a colleague or colleague, a direct supervisor or a manager from a higher level. What do you do then?

Before I answer, I would like to urge both employers and employees a guide Fighting cyber-violence at workwhich is available on the website of our institute. We've just prepared it for the staff to tell them how they can deal with specified situations.

What can specified an worker do? 1 advice is not to respond spontaneously, emotionally, to the violence.

It's not about not reacting at all and not talking to the unsub, but just doing it calmly. Sometimes emotions and retaliating anger, aggression will not work in our favor. Initially, specified a calm conversation with the perpetrator, if possible, should include our direct opposition to how we are treated. "I don't like that, I consider it cyber-violence. I'm asking you to just halt acting like this.

Of course, I realize that this frequently may not work at all and may not affect the perpetrator.

The next step is to study the case to our direct superior. And if the direct superior is the perpetrator of cyber-violence, then the superiors of the higher levels. Importantly, the worker should immediately, gradually collect evidence of cyber-violence applied to him, e.g. email prints, printouts of social media entries.

If the worker sees that the supervisor ignores the problem, there are inactive institutions to which we can study this problem, including the State Labour Inspection.

Furthermore, if these are utmost behaviours, specified as criminal threats, we can trust on the selected provisions of the civilian and Criminal Code. I think this situation requires that an worker study it to law enforcement as rapidly as possible.

As far as possible, an worker may besides effort to block specified a stalker on social media, on the telephone to limit the perpetrator's access to himself as much as possible. Of course, the situation becomes more hard if the unsub is anonymous.

I think it's highly hard to prove. I can imagine saying, "What are you tense about by e-mail?" Delete it and leave it alone. What did individual do to you? Did he beat you? What do you care?

We are talking about subtle force that can be as destructive as the more visible. It's not just cyber-violence. This problem has previously been discussed in case of mobbing,

stressing that force does not should be clear, it does not should be direct behaviour towards the worker. These can be very subtle forms of violence, systematically recurring.

Other employees, observers of specified situations, will tell the victim that she is exaggerating, being oversensitive, and only she knows that this is simply a deliberate act by the perpetrator. And so is any of the cyber-violence activities.

It is actual that little delicate supervisors can underestimate the submission of complaints and that is why training for management staff is so important. Raising awareness of employers, supervisors of what cyber-violence is in general, giving them examples of these very subtle actions, clearly showing what the destructive consequences of cyber-violence can be, not only for workers themselves, but besides for organisations as a whole, seems crucial.

I think this is the basis for prevention, i.e. raising awareness of management.

New types of work have spread and negative forms of behaviour have besides immediately evolved.

Shouldn't we at any point start looking at our work culture and modifying it and simply not allowing any behavior?

Yeah, but it's not easy, and it most likely takes years to work. At least I have specified insights that the young generation that enters the labour marketplace will not let many behaviours in the workplace that possibly my generation has approved and accepted in the belief that specified behaviours are standard, something standard.

For example, the message that the boss yells at me, raises my voice almost all day, but it's not a large deal, it's average due to the fact that it's impulsive and it just motivates the workers, for these young people it can be something completely unacceptable and unacceptable. This is first, and secondly, it is important, in addition to training, to introduce clear rules and even to give examples to all employees in the organization, that violent behaviours are not accepted in our company. There is zero tolerance for specified actions.

It is crucial to give employees concrete examples of cyber-mobbing activities. Not to say in general that cyber-violence in our workplace will not be accepted, but to give concrete examples, explain what it is to mobbing, what cyber-violence in the workplace is. I think it takes time to change consciousness, but it changes in tiny steps.

That's great. I'm so glad.

In this full arrangement between employees, the different levels of supervisors, do you see a place for trade unions, worker councils, any work, manufacture organisations? Could they in any way besides engage in anti-mobbing and ad hoc support for workers in difficult, unpleasant situations? Convince to support the remainder of the crew? Group consequence is important.

I'm sure. A lot depends on the trade unions in a given company, their strength to break through, but indeed trade unions can, for example, be a mediator between a perpetrator and a individual experiencing violence.

For example, if there is an anti-mobbing or anti-cyber-violence policy in the company and there is simply a evidence in it about the establishment of a complaint committee, it is frequently a associate of the trade union who is 1 of the representatives of that committee, taking part in the examination of cases.

Are these committees working yet?

Yeah. An example is our Institute, which has signed an agreement on the establishment of a Joint Explanatory Commission. It is simply a pilot task of the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. To date, in addition to MPPiPS and CIOP-PIB, the agreement has been signed by institutions specified as PFRON and Volunteers of Labour. The aim of this task is to examine the reports of workers employed in the above institutions by an independent committee, which will consist of persons not related to the place of employment in which the notifier is employed.

All to keep objectivity and impartiality.

The agreement brought together a group of experts who could be appointed to specified a committee.

In general, employers can find the appointment of their committees within the framework of anti-mobbing or anti-cyberviolent provisions and regulations in force in their organisations.

Is there work to change the law in this area to make cybermobbing more recognisable, including for law enforcement? Are the penalties for specified conduct changing?

So far there are no separate laws in our country on cyber-violence at work. In my opinion, specified regulations are needed.

As regards sanctions for mobbing, in Article 94 of the Labour Code we have a evidence that the employer is liable for the presence of mobbing in the workplace.

It should be stressed that voices appear in different environments, but the work for mobbing should be borne primarily by its perpetrator and not the employer.

Work is presently underway on amending the provisions of the Labour Code on Discrimination (Article 18) and Mobbing (Article 94). This is justified by the fact that the form of the government should follow the improvement of disciplines specified as management science, psychology and sociology of work, and the content of the legislation, peculiarly in terms of defining and preventing different forms of force at work, should take account of the advancement made in this area. In addition, attention should be paid to the emerging fresh undesirable and dangerous phenomena generated by the improvement of modern technologies, including cyber-violence at work, which become peculiarly visible erstwhile applying flexible forms of work in practice, specified as distant work.

Thank you for talking to me.