By Milica D. Djekic
The violence at the workplace could start as the common insult, continue as the verbal abuse and end up as the mobbing attack that could get correlated with any way of the psychological assault. In other words, it’s quite obvious why any kind of workplace violence should go under the Criminal Code and why the cases of any sort of mobbing are treated as the crime. The point is anyone breaching the behavioral codex at the work should get reported to the authorities as they could use such information to run the investigation. In the business surrounding, there is no place for a personal level as there are the recommended methods of dealing with co-workers. Also, any kind of abusive and rude behavior should get stated to the manager as he would find a way to resolve such an incidental situation. The well-developed organizations should get adopted the best practice how to tackle such a concern and in so many cases the abusive employees could get suspended from the work or even fired with the complaint to the Police as they would deeply break the law and put anyone under the stressful condition. Stress is a huge disadvantage to anyone and the person coping with such a state could suffer the real traumatic syndromes. In addition, there are plenty of sensitive working groups including persons with disabilities or any kind of disorder that should get handled carefully as they could get deeply affected by any kind of violent behavior. According to the United Nations conventions these people need extra care and any employer getting those guys in its team is the equal opportunity employment provider and it would go under the entire procedure of benefits and appreciations giving the chance to such hard-working individuals to contribute.
On the other hand, it could be quite difficult managing the person with the inappropriate vocabulary, poor manners, and any lack of the good family education and does not matter how those persons being effective at the work or not – they should learn their behavior is adequate for the street, not the office. The office is not the place for the unkind persons as everyone in the business is overloaded enough with his tasks and schedules, so what the people need the most is the support and fair treatment. Anyone being exposed to workplace violence is the victim of the crime and no intelligent employer would tolerate such behavior. Why? If you support someone being so aggressive about the other people mostly for his intent to obtain some of his commonly unrealistic ambitions and prove some sort of professionalism – you are doing so wrong. There are ways to investigate and prove the violence at the work and anyone encouraging such an atmosphere at the workplace is committing the crime as well. Sometimes the employee is the victim of the mobbing would complain to the manager seeking from him to resolve such an incident and the manager would show the insufficient skill to deal with such a situation, so probably being driven with some irrationalities he would just fire the person who reported the abusive behavior at the workplace. In other words, it’s not professional at all getting no business manners and being so subjective about everyone. The victim of the mobbing needs support as everyone deserves the respect and even if there are no well-developed procedures and policies in the organization how to tackle such a concern – the employer should know that it must discourage such a tendency.
The business arena is like the other sports courts – it’s not enough to deal with the skill only, you need to cope with the fair play and meet so strict requirements and rules. If you are abusive in any sport and that can happen especially if you lose your tamper – you would definitely suffer some restrictions suggesting you that the sport’s battlefield is not the place to heal your deep frustrations on anyone and anything. A similar situation is with the business! It’s not sufficient to get competitive only – you need to operate according to the law; otherwise, you are not legally acceptable at all. No legal business would need the troubling staff at most and if anyone tolerates such a condition in his office that person is equally guilty as anyone committing the crime over his co-workers. Simply, it’s not about the unhealthy relations at the work – it’s about the criminal justice case. The rules are rules and no one could avoid them, so it’s clear that any kind of violent behavior at the work could pull with itself some legal sanctions. It’s quite difficult working in the office with so disturbed working correlations and anyone belonging to the sensitive group of the people could develop some sort of the shock or the real trauma that could get confirmed through the medical examinations. So, if you do not want to pay a lot for your lack of ethics about your staff – you should develop the good behavioral codex that would cope with all possible legal frameworks and regulations, so far.
The fact is we live at a quite fast pace and the people could get anxious for so many reasons. Apparently, that’s not the reason to take all your private frustrations with yourself and embarrass the other people with all of those. If you feel the stress about anything in your life – just attend your doctor and he would prescribe you the adequate remedies on. For instance, in the developed countries – the autism is so treatable condition and any kid suffering from so would never get left without any social care and attention. In other words, there are plenty of programs supporting such a sensitive group of people. In our opinion, the reason why so many people would break the law in the working environment is that they would suffer some kind of psychological concern. Maybe they would get stressed, worried, or scared about something, so they would not choose to look for the healthcare support – but they would rather express themselves as troubling and deal in the quite uncivilized and impatient manners putting their everything on the risk. It’s the 21st century and it’s not the shame of seeking medical advice or attending your healthcare professional for any reason. Anyone with modern beliefs should understand so!
Through this effort, we would try to discuss the need for smart gadgets in proving the violence in the workplace. At this stage, it’s quite clear that there are the methodologies and steps to evident that sort of the crime, but the point is if the recordings of the smart gadgets regarding some incidental situations could get approved as the valid clues in the criminal justice case – that could open up nearly limitless options to those gadgets manufacturers to get the bigger marketplace for their solutions that could get in need for many people. In other words, if you get the permission to record some condition and if such a recording is the valid proof, the number of your customers would increase as those products could be trusted by the authorities. At this moment, there are so many companies worldwide that can make the wide spectrum of the smart gadgets for practically any usage, and the majority of those products are attested which guarantees they would work accurately, but if someone makes the legal regulations suggesting their footage could serve in the criminal justice case under the defined conditions – it’s clear that so many people could buy those gadgets in order to prevent or prove something getting deeply illegal.
In other words, this effort is all about the proposed business ideas and some explanations of how the good business plan could cope with the marketplace demands. Also, it’s the suggestion to many governments across the globe how to leverage their economies putting into their laws and frameworks the outputs of the emerging technologies as stuff that could find their applications even under the Criminal Code, so far.
Assumption #1. Workplace violence could be a consequence of stress.
Explanation #1. Getting at the workday by day and coping with no break could be quite annoying. Apparently, there are some lunch pauses, but sooner or later you would get aware that you are beginning preoccupied with your daily schedule. For such a reason, it’s recommended by the medical experts to make at least a half of hour break per working day. Would this support you remain fresh throughout the entire working week? Probably yes, but many people would need some holiday time to recover from the heavy tasks and renew their energy resources. The fact is so many professions cannot offer to their staff to take that long leave and those employees could count on several days off per year. The fact is in so many cases those hard-working persons would not get even the weekend off. Many would say they would be in the shape to work that hard, but sooner or later they would deal with the deeply accumulated stress. For such a reason, it’s recommended to keep your professional manners and try to avoid any sort of bullying at work. Why? You do not need anyone to provoke you as you do not need to provoke anyone as that person can get back to you. In both cases, the conflicting situation is unavoidable, and even if you are trying to appear as perfect someone could try to challenge your perfection targeting your psyche being oversaturated with the stress and if you make an incident you would need to provide so many explanations before you return things into balance. So, if anyone chooses workplace violence as the response to the stress in the workplace it’s clear that’s the result of overtiredness, shocking events, and a lot of struggling with the schedules and deadlines. The good manager should take all these into consideration as he would be responsible for his employees’ wellbeing. The fact is so many outsourcing businesses would choose the less developed parts of the world to run the business as the workforce would be cheap, but suitable – so the profits getting available from there would be so high. Any business is about the risk and if the government of some developing economy attracts the investors to make a factory in their country they should know there would be plenty of challenges to get managed for a reason those communities could be the sources of some kind of instability. The smart investors would take everything into account and as they would cope with the paid intelligence on a daily basis they would figure out if it is worth that to take such a risk on. Any profit maker would want to get the highest possible incomes from his activities counting on the lowest feasible expenses, so far. For such a reason, those clever guys would offer a minimal salary to their staff in order to reduce that sort of cost. The people must feed their families from those wedges and on the other hand, their employers would seek the maximal level of professionalism, productivity, and effectiveness in return. In the case of the outsourcing business, it would appear someone would exploit someone. Also, the situation in the developed countries is not far more different as any capitalist would want to take advantage on the marketplace and his key players would get satisfied with their incomes, but they would need to push hard and hard as well as offer the new and innovative solutions and approaches pulling the entire company ahead. In other words, those guys are not part of the assembly business as the case is with the developing societies. They are someone who would be with the brain and who would need to create ingenious ideas. Does not matter if you would work for the normative or the new business strategy sooner or later you would figure out that the stress is something that can distract you from being well-productive and well-creative. In other words, if you are overloaded day by day even the good intended suggestion from your co-worker could make you attempt the workplace violence and once that happens you would be in the trouble. Basically, it’s up to your manager how hard you would need to work. Anyone making the profit would want your maximal effort for the minimal time and if you can provide the encouraging results within so short deadlines you would get the compliments that you are competitive. If not, the people would just say thank you for everything! That’s quite stressful, right?
Assumption #2. Employees with medical conditions could be more sensitive to stress.
Explanation #2. If you hire a person with a disability or another medical condition, you should be extremely careful about how you would manage that staff. Those persons could be partially dysfunctional about some sorts of tasks, but if managed skillfully they can give their maximum with something. The disability could be mental, physical, sensing, or the other and even if you want to hire a totally blind person you should know that individuals can contribute as well and get some kind of personal satisfaction for getting the chance to work. There are a lot of blind people who would deliver online classes in a foreign language. Maybe they would not see well enough, but they would hear exceptionally and adopt some skills using their bright minds. It’s not always pushing the poor people aside and making them get marginalized. It’s about giving them the opportunity to work and feed their kids. So, if you want to hire the person with the special condition, you need to provide him the special circumstances. Many people would believe that cyber defense area is only for the highly skillful persons. We would disagree with so! Even someone with a mental or physical disadvantage could become the IT security professional, but that person should not get discriminated at the beginning. There are so many talented people who cannot hear or walk, but they can sit in front of the screen and create so amazing software solutions being competitive even for the highest standard IT industries. The fact is those guys are so sensitive to the stress and it needs the skill to manage them. Remember the Rain Man and the guy with autism who got the genius mind. That’s what we talk about! Just try to figure out what could happen if anyone wanted to discriminate that person. The situation in the developing world in such a sense is hard. There are still a lot of unresolved concerns about the support and opportunities those folks get from their communities. Practically, there are some legal regulations, but they are not strictly followed and someone who could contribute in some manner would stay without the chance to even attempt to do so. On the other hand, the developed societies would show some care about those guys and they would create them the conditions to work and progress in their occupation. So surprisingly, some companies from the developed economies that would run the outsourcing business would choose to remain blind in front of those people’s needs probably for the reason their local sources would suggest them it’s better to pay some penalties to the government than to hire the person with a disability. Would there be a difference between the guy with a disability in the developed and developing economy? Basically, no! So, the only reasons why some respectful companies would not treat those people equally as they would do in their counties are so irrational stories from their outsourcing managers who would not cope with the skill to handle those hard-working individuals. Luckily, the rational part of the humankind would not discriminate anyone and that’s why we have the Paralympics Games every single season across the globe. If the business is only who would take advantage over whom a lot of brilliant people would miss the chance to make something out of their lives. No one can succeed on his own and indeed, there is the need for support and encouragement from the entire community. The nations that would help their people make progress would be the nations of successful people, while the small nations would look for the chance to revenge leading themselves to suffer and nothing else. In other words, go beyond your limits and think big no matter how poor your conditions are.
Assumption #3. The stress management techniques could reduce violence at work.
Explanation #3. The people under stressful conditions could develop some kind of anxiety, tension, or fear about what is going on around them. That sort of negative emotion could sabotage their efforts to be productive and effective at the workplace. Also, they can react so aggressively if anyone says anything because they are overloaded with their obligations. In addition, people can express the violence for working hard and making some kind of flaw that could go under the self-criticism or the criticism of their surroundings. Simply, they are a lot of reasons why someone can feel the pressure and give so assaultive response to that condition. The experience in criminology would suggest that so many violent offenders have been the victims of mobbing in some period of their lives. So, if someone is under the pressure chronically that person can develop resilience or respond with the dose of despite and probably some kind of the violence. The good manager should understand the limits as well as the strong and weak sides of his team and so skillfully manage all of them. If the conflict occurs, the team leader should know how to put it under the control and following the procedures so carefully investigate what has happened for real. It’s not only about collecting the claims through the catch-up interview; it’s more about coping with the best practice of how the inconvenient situation could get resolved peacefully. Any competitive organization should deal with such a level of development and also, it’s necessary to organize some sort of stress management workshops for your employees as they could get the free advice and instruction on how to reduce their amount of stress. It’s also about the level of trust and confidence the employees have about each other as sometimes there is the need to openly talk about your concerns without any fear that you would get put under the wrong and misunderstanding interpretation. In other words, the co-workers should see each other as support, not the competitors as they work united like a team in order to beat the competition on the marketplace for their employer. Every good manager should know that and if anyone complains to him that person should receive the support to overcome such a situation. The point is being assertive, not revenging! If you maintain that “I win – You win” attitude you would easily figure out it’s all about solidarity and team effort that can make everyone succeeds. The main trick is anyone with bad manners would take the criticism so personally and that person could try to do some kind of bullying once she got reported to her principles. The employees could warn about someone’s inappropriate behavior and it’s not always about the reward and punishment – it’s about teaching the staff how to work as the one. The fact is the stress management training could be so expansive and the employer that wants to reduce his costs would not pay even a cent for that, in his opinion, unnecessary stuff. That’s the quite wrong decision for a reason those sorts of things could serve as a good preventive measure in avoiding the violence at the workplace. Apparently, a good employer should get developed adequate procedures, policies, and best practices for tackling that spectrum of situations. Any kind of mobbing is something that goes under the Criminal Code and anyone who wants to remain within the legal constraints would try to prevent that sort of behavior amongst his organization. So, the stress management techniques could reduce workplace violence and it’s not wasting anything protecting your own interests investing in that sort of prevention, so far.
Assumption #4. Smart gadgets could serve in monitoring the condition of the organism.
Explanation #4. Stress is the natural follower of any organism’s activity and according to some studies, there is a certain amount of stress the body can handle. Anything above that could be disadvantageous to the health and cause some acute or chronic medical conditions. So, if it’s defined by some medical research studies which level of the stress can impact our health and how long it’s necessary to get under that condition in order to develop some symptoms – it’s quite clear that anyone or anything throwing us through such a drawback could deal with some kind of guiltiness or crime’s responsibility. In other words, if your boss is doing the mobbing about you every single day and if you can notice through your smart hand-wear that your heart rate is increasing then and especially if that is happening day by day – you can say that such a guy is directly responsible for your cardiovascular disorder. So, if your smartwatch is telling you your body is in the concerning condition and if such a product has passed through the laboratory testing and validation, so it got the approval it works accurately – it’s obvious that the recordings of that gadget can serve as something for proving something else being under the criminal justice. The point is if the lawmakers would create the law suggesting that those footages could get used as the valid evidence in the case for proving someone guiltiness in causing the stressful condition and directly affecting someone’s wellbeing that could mean anyone getting the capacity to manufacture those devices could sell them on the marketplace for a reason the people would buy them in order to assure the liability of their claims in front of the authorities. So, if your blood pressure is going up and your heart rate is getting arrhythmic because of someone’s violence in the workplace there are ways to prove that condition and leave the minimal space to the suspect to bend the truth on the court. On the other hand, lawmakers could make a decision to put something like so into the legal framework because of the interests of their economies that could progress taking advantage over that sort of the business. It’s all about the business and in so many times it’s not enough to tell your story to your doctor in order to prove something. Apparently, there are so many approved methods in collating the evidence, but once you get in a position to deal with something such a rigid and touchable no one could try to avoid the responsibility. The stress is so unhealthy and only very few people would welcome so and, in other words, it would harm anyone’s organism and anyone causing the harm is committing the crime, right? For such a reason the mobbing is seen as the crime in so many countries across the world. In addition, if you cope with your passively aggressive co-worker who would give you some sort of the psychological pressure and violence, you can easily suggest him that your smart gadget can record how you feel about him and once that recording gets the valid evidence on the court that aggressive person get a count on the punishment only. At this stage, the medical forensic investigators could count on the approved procedures on statements gathering as well as expert’s estimation of the made disadvantages. On the other hand, if you have reported the incident to the authorities and if even they can catch the internet signal from your smart gadget – it’s obvious how the case could get its strength in front of the public. The good thing about the smart devices is that they got assigned their IP address and apparently, that’s the security concern, but also so convenient channel to the investigation to trace what such a gadget can sense or measure. What’s needed is to approve that methodology in the legal fashion as well as provide the devices’ manufacturers to obtain the right to produce the solutions that could serve as the evidence collectors.
Comments
In this effort, we would provide a deep insight into a certain topic in order to explain some of its perspectives in more detail. In our opinion, such a review could get used as the starting point for the development of some security and safety procedures and policies. Also, it could help the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to navigate some investigative process as well as create the law enforcement and intelligence knowledge bases. Next, this effort could support forensic detectives and investigators in their need to clarify some aspects of their work. In addition, those could be helpful updates to the lawmakers to cover on and respond to all the security challenges through the appropriate legal frameworks and regulations. In our belief, some suggestions to the best practice in the criminal justice environment have been made as well. Finally, this review would cope with some business ideas and it could serve as the encouragement to an emerging marketplace economy, so far.
About the Author
Milica D. Djekic is an Independent Researcher from Subotica, Republic of Serbia. She received her engineering background from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade. She writes for some domestic and overseas presses and she is also the author of the book “The Internet of Things: Concept, Applications, and Security” being published in 2017 with the Lambert Academic Publishing. Milica is also a speaker with the BrightTALK expert’s channel. She is a member of ASIS International since 2017 and contributor to the Australian Cyber Security Magazine since 2018. Milica’s research efforts are recognized with the Computer Emergency Response Team for the European Union (CERT-EU), Censys Press, and EASA European Centre for Cybersecurity in Aviation (ECCSA). Her fields of interest are cyber defense, technology, and business. Milica is a person with a disability.
