How Workplace Harassment Can Impact Mental Health
Whether a career-oriented California employee loves their job and has objectives for advancing in their business, or simply works hard every day to support themselves and their family, all employees have a right to a safe work environment that is free from harassment. Unfortunately, workplace harassment remains more common than most people would like to think, including in California, which has robust protections for employees under the Civil Rights Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).
Suffering harassment in the workplace is shocking and demoralizing when it occurs, but many employees also discover distressing long-term effects on mental health and overall well-being.
What Constitutes Harassment in the Workplace?
In the workplace, the term “harassment” encompasses a broad range of unpleasant or unwelcome behaviors, including verbal, written, and visual forms of harassment, as well as physical misconduct. Harassment may target a specific employee or a class of employees. Harassment may stem from an employer or supervisor to an employee or from one employee against another. Examples of workplace harassment include the following:
- Sexual harassment
- Verbal or psychological harassment, such as yelling, name-calling, intimidation, threats, or offensive jokes
- Bullying
- Physical harassment, such as assaults or physically blocking or cornering
- Visual harassment, such as making intimidating signs or hanging sexually provocative or offensive posters
- Racial slurs or making racial jokes
- Making age-related comments or jokes
- Using gender-based slurs, or slurs based on an individual’s sexual preference or gender identity
- Abuse of authority or power-based harassment
- Quid-pro-quo, or conditioning job advancement on specific behaviors, often sexual favors
- Online harassment through emails or social media
- Retaliatory harassment
- Intentional exclusion from meetings and educational opportunities
- Sabotaging an employee’s work
- Spreading rumors
According to a disturbing Gallup poll, 23% of surveyed employees report experiencing harassment at work. Harassment creates a hostile work environment and violates an employee’s rights.
Understanding the Long-Term Effects of Workplace Harassment on Mental Health
Harassed employees often report immediate adverse impacts, such as anxiety, fear, and depression, and reluctance to go to work. Psychology Today reports a 20% decrease in work productivity among harassment victims.
In addition to short-term adverse effects, a clinical study on long-term emotional impacts of both general and sexual harassment at work revealed that victims of sexual or general harassment are more prone to the following:
- Alcohol or drug abuse disorder
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Increased hostility
- Negative career outcomes
- Self-isolation or social withdrawal
The study followed victims of harassment who required legal services. Participants were surveyed for years following their cases. Researchers collected data based on the victims’ use of professional and spiritual services such as psychological counseling, individual and group therapies, and spiritual counseling through clergy. According to the study, these mental health impacts persisted even after the study adjusted for the participants’ current work-related stressors.
How Do Employers Create Supportive, Harassment-Free Work Environments?
Employers should develop, train, and implement policies to identify and promptly mitigate forms of workplace harassment. Employers may also require annual training on recognizing and preventing all forms of workplace harassment.
Employees must understand their rights, including the right to report harassment and to be free from retaliatory measures after reporting. Contact our Orange County employment lawyers for a free consultation today.