By Humane Organisations-Africa (HORG-AFRICA)
Finding work is every person’s dream. Work has been defined as a purposeful human activity involving physical or mental exertion that creates economic value. Aside economic value, work provides:
1.The opportunity to build a career.
2.The space to put one’s cognitive resources to use.
3.A sense of purpose and a place to live out one’s life.
In addition to the above, the workplace is a community of people with a culture. That is because in every grouping of people, culture develops or is purposely formed and that culture governs the way the community interacts with one another and execute their mission.
Research indicates that given a university completion age of 22 (on average) the average time a person will spend at the workplace (if retirement is set at age 60) is 38years, all things being equal. Which means, given a lifespan of 70 years, a person will spend about 54% of their lifetime at the workplace.
That percentage represents a person’s active life. This is the stage at which life must be enjoyed. That is the stage one raises family, strives to achieve at least the five basic needs (Maslow’s needs) namely: Physiological needs, Safety needs, Belongingness and love need, Esteem needs and Self-actualization needs. And work helps or should help achieve these needs.
Work should not hurt anyone (Workplace Bullying Institute). However, the workplace can be either toxic, damaging a person’s psyche, physic and zest for life or it may be healthy enabling growth, productivity and spiritedness. The culture determines the character of the workplace. So how healthy is your workplace culture?
Humane Organisations-Africa (HORG-AFRICA), is an organisation focused on researching, advocating and consulting on Care, Compassion, Civility and Career Support in the workplace. These four elements form the bedrock of any organisation’s culture, employee wellbeing and determine the quality of the workplace culture. Their presence or absence make the workplace either Humane or Inhumane respectively. HORG-AFRICA supports organisations to achieve these significant milestones and corporate values.
Research conducted by staff of HORG-AFRICA among staff in Ghanaian Universities, Health workers and Hospitality workers, specifically hotel staff found Incivility or bullying and sexual harassment to be two of the principal problems in these workplaces.
In the University environment, a 2021 study of 371 lecturers sampled from ten (10) Ghanaian universities (5 private and 5 public) showed that university lecturers experienced bullying which manifested in different forms including: Social Isolation (S.I) (i.e. ‘ostracizing the individual or assigning them to work in isolation; ‘Denying one access to information needed; ‘Constantly trivializing one’s opinion publicly to shut them up’; ‘Encouraging mobbing from colleagues’)
Work-Related Harassment (WRH) (i.e. ‘Always ridiculing a person’; ‘Talking behind one’s back.’);Threat to Personal Standing (TPERS) (i.e.’ Constantly ignoring requests for help or advice; ‘Labelling a person as a trouble maker’; ‘Using performance appraisal unfairly’), Intimidation (INT) (i.e. Giving one unpleasant jobs or positions’; ‘using words like “I’ll show you where power lies”; ‘Discriminating in his/her dealings with staff’ and Threat to Professional Standing (TPS) (i.e. Constantly criticizing one’s work’; ‘Attacking one’s professionalism’; ‘Setting extremely high targets’; and ‘Undermining one’s credibility with other staff’).
However, the nature of these bullying behaviours varied with institutions, with public universities showing higher instances of Work-Related Harassment (WRH) while private universities reported more cases of intimidation and social isolation.
These uncivil behaviours or bullying resulted in adversarial and aggressive academic work environments contrary to the outwardly impressive university image we often see. It is an indication that in some universities, people lead dehumanized, fearful lives making the university an academic dystopia. Another study in 2025 indicated that university workers felt psychologically unsafe in their work environments thus posing serious threats to their mental health.
In the health sector, a qualitative study conducted among nurses in some public health facilities indicated that bullying is endemic among nurses in Ghana. Nurses experience person-related, work-related, and physically intimating bullying on a regular basis. Ignorance about the existence of legislation against bullying or the lack of policy against this behaviour accounted largely for the persistence of this negative culture.
Ghanaian culture which tends to influence the workplace culture, to some extent also contributed to the occurrence of bullying behaviour in the population studied. 120 nurses interviewed all indicated that they had been targets of one form of bullying or witness a colleague being bullied. Majority of the participants even lacked the vocabulary to describe their experiences as bullying and rather explained that that was the prevalent culture to which they were accustomed and an experience which they lived daily.
The experience or witness of others being bullied was associated with high physiological trauma, emotional distress and physical effects. At the group level bullying disrupted communication among group members leading to vengeful activities and back-stabbing which eventually affected patient care in terms of reduced innovation, increased risk of medical error and high employee turnover.
In the hospitality industry, research has also established that hotel staff encounter bullying or uncivil behaviour in many forms. These may include any or some of the following: hostile guest behaviour which manifests by way of profanity, derision, shouting and patronizing with sexual harassment being the most dominant bullying act suffered especially by front of office staff (receptionists, room attendants).
Other forms of bullying include unwanted sexual attention; spreading of gossip and rumours about the staff; having insulting or offensive remarks made about your person; being shouted at or being the target of spontaneous anger; invasion of personal space, shoving, blocking/barring the way; threats of violence or physical abuse; guests making sexual advances/passes; being overly demanding and difficult.
Others include badmouthing staff to management; guests making work difficult by refusing to comply with rules and regulations; guests violently attacking staff (especially when drunk); making derogatory or racially laced remarks; raping or sexually molesting staff while they are providing service; shouting at staff; intentionally creating more work for staff in their rooms; and asking staff to make errands or provide services outside their job roles.
A study in 2023 of 346 samples from 38 hotels in the capital city of Ghana, Accra, comprising of junior to senior employees of various departments showed that all 346 staff reported experiencing guest-bullying in one way or the other. These resulted in outcomes such as employee strain, decreased productivity, frequent malingering, withdrawal intentions and emotional exhaustion.
The causes identified for guest-bullying behaviour against hotel staff included: High Service-Oriented Nature of Hotels (The customer is king’’; ‘The customer is right ‘; ‘The customer is the reason for our being’ ) ; Nature of Level of Permissiveness for Guests (Guest freedom to consume alcohol and/or drugs’ ‘Management excusing problematic guest behaviour ‘; ‘Guests permitted to be anonymous’; ‘Employees not speaking their mind about bad guest behaviour’); ‘Management and Staff Laxity on Appropriate Behaviours’ (‘Lack of clear policy guidelines on appropriate guest behaviours’; ‘Leaving guest management to staff discretion’; ‘Blurred lines of behaviour expected of guests’).
In addition to these forms of bullying identified in the Ghanaian workplaces researched, victims of bullying also suffer the additional experience of Gaslighting.
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation which may involve perpetrators undermining the perceptions, confidence and mental health of the targets. Gaslighting is more difficult to identify because the perpetrator would normally publicly appear friendly and supportive of the target but behind closed doors, they would intentionally but unjustifiably exclude them from meetings or sharing of information with excuses such as “I forgot to copy you into the email”.
There can also be deliberate lies and misinformation peddled among especially leadership team-members about something the victim is purported to have done or said thus making the perpetrator’s actions seem legitimate. Gaslighting has two principal effects or purposes: One, it masks the perpetrator’s bullying behaviour in the eyes of others, so no one really notices that a colleague is being bullied making it even more difficult for the victim to complain of being bullied to others.
Secondly, it makes the victim question their own reality, doubt their sanity and self-worth and this can have a serious impact on their performance at work and their mental health.
In spite of the experiences of all the respondents sampled in the various studies cited above, the average Ghanaian worker does not report uncivil behaviour or is unaware of ways they are being bullied. In some cases, whiles awareness may be present, individuals do not know where to report such injustices or simply try to live with it or resign to their fate especially for fear of job loss and inability to find future employment.
Some also fear reporting or blowing the whistle on bullies especially if the perpetrator is a boss or a superior officer for fear of reprisal and stigma from fellow colleagues. These responses ultimately result in Psychosomatic illnesses for some, burnout in others and generally make the workplace miserable.
The ILO Lloyd’s Register Foundation-Gallup report on “Experiences of violence and harassment at work: a global first survey” has shown violence and harassment in the world of work is a widespread, persistent, and recurrent phenomenon, with more than one in five persons in employment having experienced it during their working life (ILO and LRF, 2022).
Considering that a person spends a minimum of 30% of their life at the workplace, there is the need for the workplace to offer a safe, enjoyable and life-giving environment to thrive in. There is also the heightened need for both leaders/managers and co-workers to be trauma-informed so as not only to avoid engaging in uncivil or bullying behaviours but also to prevent it or intervene its occurrence.
The importance of healthy workplace cultures transcends beyond the individuals affected. It is critical for the achievement of Goal 8 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which recommends “Decent work and economic growth” defined as “opportunities for everyone to get work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration” (UN, 2021). Goal 8 has among other targets: “Protecting labour rights and promoting safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment”
This is the mission of Humane Organisations-Africa (HORG-AFRICA). HORG-AFRICA provides consultancy on ways corporate entities can achieve healthy workplace cultures and enhance employee well-being. We also conduct research to help organisations gain understanding of the quality of their workplace cultures and train on these values. Individuals needing counseling and legal representation can also consult us in confidence. We also assess organisations and give accreditation in humaneness, an important requirement for global competitiveness and attractiveness.
Members of HORG-AFRICA hold expertise in the area of workplace humaneness and are members of the International Association of Workplace Bullying and Harassment.
Contact us on: 0208238694/0204333613 / Email: [email protected]
