case study on bullying in the workplace

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Persisting Menace: A Case-Based Study of Remote Workplace Bullying in India

Satyalakshmi kompella.

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Corresponding author.

Accepted 2022 Nov 11.

This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

Workplace bullying refers to the aggressive behavior and mistreatment towards an employee from peers and/or superiors. When this behavior takes place frequently and for long duration, it causes a high level of stress in the employee, in turn causing direct and indirect damage to the organization. The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a massive shift from the physical office environment to the work-from-home situation. As the face-to-face interactions between the employees were replaced by video conferencing and other technology-induced interactions, it was expected that the problem of workplace bullying will disappear or will be reduced to a great extent. Instead, the incidents of harassment by colleagues and superiors continue to be reported by employees who are working from home. Organizations are most likely to continue with the work-from-home arrangements even after the easing of the pandemic situation. In this likelihood, developing a comprehensive understanding of bullying in the remote workplace assumes vital significance. The paper uses the case study approach to explore the elements involved in the bullying of remote employees. Analysis of remote bullying incidents from various perspectives revealed that the harassment experienced by the employees in the remote workplace displays all the elements of workplace bullying. Research on the concept and manifestation of remote bullying is in a nascent stage. The study holds significant implications for policymakers and organizations.

Keywords: Remote workplace, Bullying, Stress, Communications, Power imbalance

Introduction

Globally, millions of workers were asked to work from home due to the lockdown conditions in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic. Once the epidemic abates and the situation returns to almost normal, employees may return to the physical workplace, but some employees may continue to work in the remote environment. In their 2020 global survey report titled “Reworking Work: Understanding the Rise of Work Anywhere,” Atlassian Corporation reported that 66% of the Indian workforce wanted to continue working from home, higher than all the countries in the survey (Most Indian prefer to work remotely, 2021 ). Reports from the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and other surveys reveal that the post-COVID scenario may see more employees continuing in the work-from-home mode than before.

Some companies may resort to a hybrid model where some jobs are permanently assigned to work-from-home mode. Indian technology giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has developed a risk assessment model termed “Intelligent Urban Exchange,” to determine the modalities of a possible hybrid model. So, it can be concluded that the option of working from home will continue for selected employees in selected organizations in the post-pandemic situation. In this regard, awareness of the impact of remote bullying is of great significance. Understanding the forms of remote bullying and its impact on the employees’ productivity and stress level, often leading to the decision to exit from employment, is of special interest to organizations and human resource managers. Workplace bullying has been found to be prevalent in all organizations, regardless of level and sector. According to a survey conducted in 2019, more than 50% of the employees in India have reported that they have experienced bullying at the workplace in some form or the other (55% Indian employees bullied at work, 2020 ). Many researchers have studied the forms of bullying, the causes, and its effects and have suggested measures for the prevention of bullying in the workplace. With the shift of workplace from physical offices to remote locations after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was initially considered to be advantageous to the employees as they could spend more time with families (Purwanto et al.,  2020 ). Incidences of bullying were found to be more pervasive in “collated teams” (Flanigan,  2020 ). The absence of collocated teams in the post-pandemic situation was expected to minimize the risk of harassment from colleagues and managers. Moreover, the employees were experiencing the safety of home. Instead, the incidence of bullying continues to be reported from work-from-home situations, and this type of bullying has been found to adopt various forms that are different from those seen in face-to-face bullying and bullying in a group.

The effects of this type of bullying are no less devastating than the bullying in a physical workplace. Remedial actions also suffer from the lack of clear policy guidelines by organizations on harassment of employees working from home. The incidents of workplace bullying in a physical workplace have been shown to have a direct relationship with the decision to leave the job (Djurkovic et al.,  2003 ; Hoel et al.,  2020 ; Yom et al.,  2017a , b ). This study probes into the effect of workplace bullying on job stress and the job retention decisions of employees working from home. This study is based on case studies that describe the workplace bullying experienced by employees who are working from home, and these cases have been collated after several months of observation and discussion.

Few studies are available on the impact and incidence of bullying behavior among employees operating in a remote environment. Ezerins and Ludwig ( 2021 ) reported that organizational behavior management (OBM) strategies may provide additional insight for developing sustainable ifound to be beneficial to organizationsnterventions for workplace incivility. A study conducted in Spain and Germany showed that workplace cyberbullying (WCB) can have a more detrimental impact on victims’ mental health than traditional face-to-face bullying (Czakert et al.,  2021 ). To understand the effect of bullying on the performance of remote workers, the impact of bullying on employees in the physical workplace can be considered the benchmark. Parallels can also be drawn between the negative impact of cyber aggression and cyberbullying on children and adults (Craig et al.,  2020 ; Uludasdemir & Kucuk,  2019 ). As the remote workers are connected to the teams and managers through the networks, the bullying experienced by these workers may be a form of cyberbullying albeit in a workplace context.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the nascent body of literature on the impact of bullying in remote environments by drawing from the literature on bullying in the workplace and the phenomenon of cyberbullying. The study has two objectives:

To determine if the harassment of employees working from home can be termed bullying and

To build-up an assessment model that incorporates the modalities of the virtual workplace into the basic aspects of bullying in the workplace.

The distinguishing characteristics of the remote workers and the tools of communication used to accomplish the given tasks are taken into consideration to provide a comprehensive picture of bullying in the remote environment.

This study covers two forms of virtual bullying: one involves the display of unprofessional and inappropriate behavior towards the female employee, and the other is undermining the relevance of the employee. The study uses case studies where the recipients of bullying reported it directly to the reporting managers, who are the aggressors. Analysis of the case events was performed to draw parallels between bullying in physical and virtual environments (Table 1 ).

Responses to the questions from the questionnaire

The introduction is followed by a review of the literature. The methodology followed in the study is detailed in the third section followed by results and discussions. Limitations and scope for further research are explained in the last section.

Literature Review

Workplace bullying in the physical workplace.

Bullying (or mobbing) is a situation where “an employee is persistently subjected to negative and aggressive behaviors at work, mainly of a psychological nature. The employee is constantly teased, badgered, and insulted, and perceives that he or she has little recourse to retaliate in kind” (Einarsen,  2000 , p 381). The characteristics of workplace bullying are displayed in Table 2 .

Characteristics of workplace bullying

Source: Lee et al.,  2014 . Einarsen et al.,  2009

As pointed out by Einarsen et al. ( 2009 ), bullying can involve aggression and mistreatment from colleagues (horizontal bullying), from managers (downward bullying), or from subordinates (upward bullying). When a single act of the above behavior is directed against a particular employee, the behavior may be termed as “unruly.” They are considered as minor issues or of some nuisance value and are generally handled in the context of organizational culture.

When these unruly acts are repeatedly targeted against the employee(s) for a long period of time, the recipient employee(s) feel(s) extreme stress (Palinkas et al, 2015 ). To be classified as bullying, the workplace aggressions should be frequent and persistent (Einarsen et al., 2000 ).

The bullied employee displays work-related behaviors like burnout, absenteeism, and low morale, often leading to resignations. Employees who experience bullying also display health-related, psychological, and affective problems (Bartlett & Bartlett,  2011 ). When employees of a workplace are subjected to bullying, the organization also faces adverse effects. Incidents of bullying negatively impact the organization in terms of productivity, costs, culture, and legal and reputation damages (Einarsen et al.,  2009 ).

Effects of Bullying in the Workplace

Significant research on workplace bullying can be found in studies by Leymann ( 1996 ) and Liefooghe and Olafsson ( 1999 ) based on Scandinavian, German, and European populations. Workplace bullying causes a high level of stress in the employee, destroying his/her self-confidence and self-esteem (Hsu et al, 2019 ). The bullying experiences frequently result in the employees questioning their own self-worth and losing confidence (Conway et al.,  2021 ). Employees also adopt passive coping strategies in response to workplace mistreatment, like using employee silence (Rai & Agarwal,  2018 ). The victim of bullying displays deliberate or unintentional withholding of crucial and general information from the organization. This is referred to as “employee silence,” and it is shown to hamper the functioning of the concerned team or the department (Rai & Agarwal,  2018 ).

The Remote Workplace

The term “remote workplace” refers to the work environment in which the employees work outside of a traditional office environment. These employees are not required to report to a specific, physical space on a regular basis to get their work done. Various terms like “working from home” (Waizenegger et al.,  2020 ), “distributed workplace” (Ruhleder & Jordan,  2001 ), and “location-independent workplace” (Nash,  2019 ) have been used in the previous studies to indicate the remote environment and will be used synonymously in this article. Prior to the pandemic-induced changes, “co-located” workplaces were the preferred workplace arrangements where employees worked side by side.

Individuals working from home are not a recent phenomenon or a pandemic-induced new work adaptation, as there have been instances of employees working from home during the early 1900s. The concept became popular with improved work arrangements, aided by changes in technology. In their article “Two cheers for the virtual office,” Davenport and Pearlson ( 1998 ) attributed the advent of technology to the adoption of remote working as a way of getting work done. Work-from-home arrangements benefit employers in terms of direct cost savings by way of reduced or no maintenance of office premises and indirect cost savings like reduced turnover associated with increased employee satisfaction (Dutcher & Saral,  2012 ). Employing virtual teams is found to be beneficial to organizations in terms of accessing talented employees from all around the globe without the constraints of place and time (Treinen & Miller-Frost,  2006 ).

The COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing meant that organizations had to look for alternative workplaces as employees could not operate from offices. This gave rise to a remote working arrangement or work from home (WFH), which enabled businesses to perform most of the activities using mobile or other digital platforms (Kaushik & Guleria,  2020 ). Remote working was not a preference or a choice for the employees but a compulsion, irrespective of the nature of the job or their abilities. Employees working from home had to adapt quickly to the situation while continuing to perform their designated roles (Dubey & Tripathi,  2020 ).

Face-to-face interaction with peers, supervisors, and top executives was replaced by mediated communication or interaction through technology. Interactions, both brief and extended, were taking place using ICT tools (Swain et al, 2020 ). It has been shown that such technology-mediated interactions are often responsible for conflicts based on esteem, control, and affiliation (relational conflicts) among employees (Salonen,  2017 ).

Since organizations had to quickly create an effective remote work environment due to the March 2020 declaration of lockdown in India, employees had to effect the transformation from a co-located environment to a remote environment with very little or no training. This has put pressure on employees to acclimate to the new communication methods and achieve effective communication (Irawanto et al.,  2021 ).

The Physical Workplace vs. the Remote Workplace

Before initiating the discussion on bullying in the remote workplace, it is necessary to understand the essential differences between the physical and remote workplaces in terms of usage of digital tools, management, communication, and productivity (Stich,  2020 ). The physical workplace helps develop camaraderie between employees through casual and official interactions and helps build organizational culture. The creation of trust, collaboration, and communication can be established in the physical workplace (Barbosa & Ferreira-Lopes,  2021 ). However, this work environment also suffers from the possibility of pseudo-productive work accomplishment (Sundin,  2010 ). The remote workplace, on the other hand, has been shown to promote flexibility, adaptability, and problem-solving (Janene-Nelson & Sutherland,  2020 ) (see Table 3 ).

Comparison of work execution in physical workplace vs remote workplace

Workplace Cyberbullying

The term “workplace cyberbullying” refers to the situation where employees are subjected to bullying by their colleagues, not face-to-face but through the information and communications technology (ICT) medium (Loh & Snyman,  2020 ). Employees may be victimized by cyberbullying during and/or after work hours (Keskin et al.,  2016 ). Cyberbullying involves aggressive and uncivil behavior by the aggressor in the form of comments or the posting of pictures against the targeted employee via phone messages, emails, websites, and social media posts (Cassidy et al., 2018 ). This type of bullying enables the aggressor to remain anonymous while making the comments or while replying to posts (Kamara, 2020 ). The employees in the physical workplace are subjected to cyberbullying, which may occur as a standalone incident or in tandem with traditional bullying.

When cyberbullying is characterized by repetitive acts of aggressive behavior and happens between two individuals with a power imbalance, it is seen that the victim is under a great deal of stress, ultimately impacting the employee’s performance in the workplace (Zhang et al.,  2021 ). Workplace cyberbullying has been shown to be conceptually similar to traditional face-to-face bullying in the physical workplace (Farley et al.,  2016 ).

Knowledge about cyberbullying becomes crucial for the present study as the bullying in the remote workplace shares some similarities with cyberbullying (Wang et al, 2019 ). The occurrence of both of these acts is aided by the medium of ICT, which is the channel where cyberbullying takes place (Willard, 2006 , 2007 ). The remote workplace also involves ICT tools, as face-to-face interactions are vastly minimized in the remote workplace and communication is mediated through the tools of ICT. Also, bullying can take place anywhere and at any time in both of these forms of bullying, bridging the gaps of time and space divides (D’Cruz & Noronha,  2018a , b ).

On the other hand, cyberbullying differs from bullying in the remote workplace in the degree of anonymity that is available to the cyberbully while committing the acts of bullying. Cyberbullies largely remain anonymous on various platforms, and that is the reason why anonymity has been associated with higher rates of bullying (Szczyglowski,  2018 ). However, when bullying occurs in a remote workplace, the bully(ies) can be seen and heard and are clearly identifiable. Another difference is that cyberbullying facilitates the sustenance and escalation of the bullying episodes through the multiple likes and shares available on the social media platforms, whereas in the case of the remote workplace, the bullying episodes remain within the team (Chan et al.,  2020 ; Privitera & Campbell,  2009 ).

Bullying in the Remote Workplace

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the transformation of physical workplaces into remote workplaces. During the pandemic, remote working was not a preference or a choice for the employees but a compulsion, irrespective of the nature of the job or their abilities.

Face-to-face interactions in the physical workplace or co-presence with the team members and managers promote workplace culture and help make sense of the employees’ emotions, body language, and embodied experiences. The communication through virtual channels is different and novel for the work-from-home employees due to the absence of face-to-face interactions (Howard-Grenville,  2020 ). All these factors culminate in the remote employees’ sense of psychological stress due to the distance, reliance, and technology (Flanigan,  2020 ). A survey by McKinsey and Company indicated that the unprecedented move to WFH and subsequent recurring waves of occurrence of the infection have caused anxiety and work and performance-related stress in the remote workers (The future of work after COVID-19,  2021 ).

Anxiety about the future and stress arising out of remote work have been shown to be strongly associated with bullying at the workplace (Feijó et al.,  2019 ). In view of these findings, the susceptibility of the remote workers to bullying from peers and managers needs to be studied. Very few studies are available on the incidence and effects of bullying among employees in remote environments. There are some studies that have probed into the impact of bullying on virtual workers (Mortensen & Hinds, 2001 ). A dissertation conducted on virtual workers divulged that they are at risk of workplace bullying and that the effects of bullying are in accordance with the physical, psychological, and social effects found in several studies regarding collocated workers. Findings also reveal that the nature of virtual work can increase the likelihood of bullying among these workers (Flanigan,  2020 ). In her book on “Online bullying of workers,” D’Cruz ( 2016 ) has observed that online bullying of workers is a widespread problem and is expected to increase considerably in the future.

The present study focuses on the Indian employees who are presently working from home since the declaration of lockdown in 2020. Before this period, these employees were mostly co-located and worked from the office environment. The study combines aspects of the extant literature on bullying in the workplace and cyberbullying to probe into the phenomenon of bullying among employees working from home.

Methodology

The method adopted for this study is qualitative research with an exploratory approach. The flexibility afforded by this method helped in developing an understanding of the phenomenon under study (Ponelis,  2015 ). This method allowed the author to find answers to the questions involving the causes of workplace bullying in a remote work environment, how this has developed, and why it exists. This method helped establish credibility regarding the existence of the phenomenon of workplace bullying in a work-from-home situation. No empirical data was collected, as the objective of the study was not to generalize across the entire working population who are working from home.

Research Design

The research design adopted for this study was the case study approach. Two case studies that reflect the scope and seriousness of the issues faced by working professionals presently working from home since the announcement of lockdown in India were used to illustrate the phenomenon of workplace bullying. The case study approach is appropriate for this paper as it allows the researcher to identify and understand the reasons for the existence of bullying in remote environments using probing and in-depth interviews. The paper used a case study approach to identify the nature and causes of workplace bullying. Though qualitative research results cannot be applied to the entire population (as no testing of hypotheses is performed), they helped in providing a thorough understanding of the phenomenon. This understanding would be helpful for organizational leaders to take appropriate corrective and preventive measures.

The present study used purposeful sampling to identify and select individuals who have experienced some form of workplace bullying in a traditional or remote work environment. Purposeful sampling is a technique widely used in qualitative research for the identification and selection of information-rich cases for the most effective use of limited resources (Yin,  2014a ). Additionally, only those individuals who were available and willing to participate in the research and could communicate their experiences and opinions in a clear and concise manner were considered.

The profiles of working individuals were sourced from the author’s connections at LinkedIn, the online social network. A short message requesting participation was posted to their links, and it was stressed that participation was purely voluntary. The message also briefly outlined the details of the intended study. It was reiterated that the information was being collected for academic purposes only. A short questionnaire was sent to those individuals who responded positively to this message. Based on the request of the respondents, the questionnaires were sent to their personal email ids. The aim of the questionnaire was to determine if they had been subject to any form of harassment while working from home or if they knew of or had observed any instance of harassment happening to others (see Appendix for the questionnaire).

The questionnaire first ascertained if the respondents were working from home. Any replies that indicated that the respondents were no longer working or taking a sabbatical were not considered for the study. The age and gender of the respondents, along with the sector of work, were also elicited through the questions.

The questionnaire was aimed at examining whether the respondents were subjected to any bullying in the workplace or not. The questions were designed to elicit information on the details of bullying that the respondent was subjected to (if any). “Are you bullied at work?” helped reveal if the respondents were bullied. Those respondents who reported some forms of bullying were considered for further study. Those who did not report any bullying behavior were asked not to continue with the questionnaire. The question “When did the bullying start?” helped identify whether the bullying incidents were recent or not. It was noted that all bullying incidents were recent and started between less than a month ago and 3 months before the respondents were contacted by the author.

The respondents were asked to identify the bully to understand if the bullying was perpetrated by managers, colleagues, or subordinates of others. All bullying was reported to be perpetrated by managers, and no bullying was reported from colleagues, subordinates, or others.

Sometimes, the employee may or may not be subjected to bullying but may witness others being bullied. This information was also elicited through the question, “Have you witnessed bullying at work?”.

The question “Number of people bullied” probed into whether bullying was experienced by other employees or not. Both of these questions were answered mostly in the negative by the respondents. This response could be attributed to the fact that employees were working from home and had no opportunity to observe other employees and their interactions with the managers. Details of responses to the questions from the questionnaire are presented in Table 1 .

The respondents were also asked to share the questionnaire with their colleagues, friends, or family members who were working from home. This modified form of “snowball sampling” was used to generate as many leads as possible and identify the incidence of bullying. This method of sample collection was the most effective option for collecting information as the employees were functioning in a remote work environment. Unlike the traditional office work environment, where a large group of employees was available in a single location, the present group of employees was geographically scattered.

Most individuals prefer to ignore instances of harassment or bullying for fear of exposure or ridicule and are apt to reveal details of any harassment only under the condition of anonymity. In this paper, all the respondents answered the questionnaire on the condition of anonymity. The original list of 19 respondents contained LinkedIn profiles of connections who reported to be working from home since the commencement of national lockdown in March 2020. Each of them was asked to pass on the questionnaire to their contacts who were bullied or had seen bullying around them. The responses received from sharing the questionnaire varied from a minimum of 2 per respondent to a maximum of 6 per respondent. After rejecting incomplete responses, 48 final responses were obtained, where most of them stated that they were subjected to some form of bullying or that they were aware of some cases of bullying happening to their acquaintances. These responses were considered for further investigation.

A short email was sent to all 48 individuals, in which they were assured of the complete anonymity of their replies. To obtain relevant information from the respondents, prolonged communication between the respondents and the author was undertaken. Frank and accurate information was needed from the respondents to potentially searching and in-depth questions. The respondents were made aware of these requirements and were asked to email their responses.

Two respondents were zeroed in for in-depth study after they consented to answering further queries. Both victims were female and had worked in the offices before the lockdown. They have been working from home since March 2020. The aggressors were female in case 1 and male in case 2. Both were reporting managers, and the victims were reporting directly to them (see Table 4 ). Case study building was done using extensive interviews and individual narratives.

Details of the cases studied

The interviews included question and answer sessions, reports, and discussions on workplace incidents that involved bullying behaviors and the victims’ reactions and thought processes. Due care was taken by the author in wording the probing questions. The words “bullying” or “negative action incidents” were used to describe the bullying actions. The words “perpetrator,” “aggressor,” or “bully” were used to describe the perpetrators. The respondents were also advised to use these words while describing the incidents. Words like “harassment,” “sexual harassment,” and “abuse” were completely avoided by the author in the emails. This was done to ensure that only bullying experiences were described by the respondents and that any other negative experiences outside the category of bullying were kept out of the study. The initial communication between the victims (or respondents) and the author was meant for confidence-building and to develop an understanding of the nature of aggression experienced by the respondents. By the time the victims were approached by the author, they had already been facing the bullying experiences for some time and had expressed their opinions clearly. Victims’ narratives of the aggressive behavior directed towards them helped the author ascertain whether the victims were subjected to person-related bullying, work-related bullying, or intimidation towards a person (Erwandi et al., 2021 ).

A considerable number of emails were exchanged to ascertain whether the respondents were indeed facing bullying behaviors or not. It was clarified from both respondents that.

They were at the receiving end of negative actions from one or more individuals.

The individual who was subjecting them to negative actions was a manager, colleague, or subordinate.

They (the respondents) were unable to defend themselves against those negative actions perpetrated against them.

The negative actions were not one-off incidents but occurred with a frequency of more than once a week (Erwandi et al., 2021 ).

At the beginning of the communication with the author, the respondents were merely responding to questions and were not offering any additional information regarding their experiences at the workplace. It took some time and an exchange of emails before both started speaking freely regarding the bullying experiences. Details of bullying behavior were elicited through questions with emphasis on the bully’s actions, the respondents’ handling of the situation, and the respondents’ state of mind. Emphasis was laid on the respondents’ feelings, reactions, and thought processes during the bullying episodes.

In the communication with the author, both victims were sure that they were unfairly subjected to aggressive treatment from their superiors, and as a result, they were agitated and experienced a state of stress. Bullying-related stress is common in employees who are subject to workplace bullying (Reknes et al., 2021 ). The victims clearly described the actions of the managers and how these behaviors impacted their performance and undermined their confidence and self-esteem. The victims noted that organizational mediation or escalation was not forthcoming to handle the bullying.

The communication with the victims ended after their decision to quit their respective organizations. In their final communications, the victims noted that they could have continued in the organization if a supportive organizational climate had been provided where they were safe from bullying. The interviews with the respondents started in August 2020 and continued till May 2021. A total of 172 and 220 emails were exchanged between the author and respondents of cases 1 and 2, respectively. Around 492 email transcript pages were analyzed to gather relevant information. Two emails were exchanged with the HR manager in case 1 respondent’s organization. The other HR in case 2 did not respond to the author’s emails.

Case Study 1: Experiences of an Employee with the Reporting Manager Undermining the Relevance of the Employee

The respondent in the case study is an executive with an edutech company. We will call her K. She is 36 years old and is presently head of an 8-member sales team. Her team is involved in scrutinizing the requirements of non-corporate clients and providing the details for customizing the products as per the client’s needs. These details are passed on to the delivery team. K reports to the product manager, A, who handles the leads team, delivery teams, and K’s team.

K was previously reporting to another product manager in the pre-COVID period. Since the initiation of work from home, K has been reporting to A. K has met A previously during the office work meetings, but this is the first time that she is reporting to A. K was confident that she would be able to work with A and anticipated no problems. But 4 weeks after the start of work from home, the bullying began.

It started with Zoom meetings. A wanted to be present in all Zoom meetings, whether it was with team members, the leads team, or the operations team. She also wanted to be sent the Zoom link for meetings that K scheduled with clients. A also insisted that her credentials should be mentioned in K’s introduction talk. These actions caused K a great deal of agitation and annoyance.

“Her presence was unnecessary for these meetings, and I felt I was under scrutiny throughout. Also, her presence was creating confusion in the minds of the clients and some team members. I was also not sure if she would silently participate in the meetings and listen to the proceedings or suddenly pitch in with clarifications or observations. This was really stressing me.”

Some clients asked K if they should address further correspondence to A, as she was the senior person. K felt that A had no confidence in her work and was looking to find faults in the way she managed her team and clients. But she did not take up the issue with A; she felt the matter would smooth out on its own in due time.

But matters escalated, and the bullying extended into real-time work monitoring. K’s team was a mix of experienced and newly hired employees. So, K, as an experienced team leader, monitored the newcomers much more closely than the others. K said,

“I knew the capabilities and issues with the older team members. If the work was being done on time, I did not interfere much.”

This was not acceptable to A. She instructed K to monitor the team much more closely and not let any slack in the team’s functioning. One of the team members, P, was having some domestic issues and wanted to report late to work for a week. He was good at his work, and he made up for lost time by foregoing his breaks or extending the work sessions. He explained his situation to K and pleaded for some relaxation during his work hours. K had no issues with this arrangement as P was an important member of the team. However, A made it a point to mention the issue of P’s late reporting at the weekly review and sent emails to all the team members, cautioning them not to follow in P’s footsteps.

“She was undermining my leadership and team handling. I was unable to function properly and was always conscious of being under watch.”

The breaking point was reached when A forwarded these emails to the department head and showcased them as K’s inability to deal with the team. A reported that K was not satisfactory as the team lead and failed to impose discipline and control on the team. The department head asked K for an explanation. K was devastated.

“What do I do now? If I bring in charges of bullying against A, it will seem as if I am offering excuses.”

In her most recent communication with the author, K confided that she had resigned and was presently working out her notice period.

Case Study 2: Experiences of a Gaming Industry Employee with the Manager-Unprofessional Conduct During Videoconferencing

The second case concerns an individual who is an employee of a gaming firm. She will be referred to as M. She takes care of weapon design in a warfare game, and she has been working in the gaming industry for the last 6 months. Before the announcement of lockdown in March 2020, M was working with the entire team on the night shift. After the lockdown, she started working from home with the same timings. Initially, M was very happy with the remote work situation. She had a toddler at home, and she felt she could spend more time with her child.

M’s discomfort began with the daily review meeting with her manager (who will be hereafter referred to as S). The review meetings were scheduled for the end of the day ostensibly to review the work completed in the day. M was working the night shift (1 PM to 10 PM). So daily report meetings inevitably took place after 10 p.m.

M realized that something was wrong when S showed up for the meeting 1 day with his shirt buttons undone and went shirtless the next day. She tried to keep the meeting short and kept her eyes on the notes.

“I was embarrassed at first, and I was not very familiar with the remote working protocol. I thought the manager was also confused about the protocol. But within a short time, I understood that something was not right.”

S continued to remain casually dressed during the Zoom meetings, and his remarks started becoming personal.

“At first, he asked me about work and how I responded to emails from the testing team. But slowly, he started making personal comments. He would ask me if I were in my nightdress. He would invariably make a comment on my appearance. In another instance, he asked me if I was working from the bedroom.”

M was not only uncomfortable but also felt stressed due to the harassment. She started dreading the review meetings and often made excuses to avoid them.

“I used to send a message citing a power cut or faulty Wi-Fi connection and get out of the meeting. My stress levels were very high. My personal life was also getting affected due to this harassment. My husband could sense that something was wrong.”

But M was not comfortable sharing any of these misbehaviors with her colleagues or her family members.

“I don’t want to bring in an escalation regarding the manager’s behavior with the HR. I feel that I will be seen as a provocative person.”

The breaking point was reached when S chaired a review meeting and was visibly drunk. He made several remarks about M’s personal appearance and her relationship with him. M was shocked at his appearance and behavior. She decided to report S’s behavior to the HR. Her emails to HR elicited no response.

“I called the HR manager personally and explained the incidents. There was a long pause after my narration. The HR manager said he would get back to me shortly. He has not done so. I decided to end this harassment by resigning.”

Both cases demonstrate bullying of employees by reporting managers in workplace situations and show discriminating behavior adopted by managers towards the subordinates. Analysis of the incidents and other information revealed that they fall within the parameters of workplace bullying and four different concepts related to workplace bullying in a remote environment. The case studies revealed the four components: negative behavior of the perpetrator, power imbalance between the bullying victim and perpetrator, duration and frequency of persistent negative behaviors of the perpetrator, and negative impacts of bullying on the victim (Einarsen et al.,  2009 ; Lee et al.,  2014 ; Medina et al.,  2020 ; Salin,  2021 ).

Negative Behavior of Perpetrator

This component of bullying involves a personal attack on the victim by the perpetrator, erosion of the victim’s professional competence and reputation, and attack through work roles and tasks. These acts are done with the intention to harm, control, or manipulate the victim. Perpetrators of bullying deliberately target other people, undermining their self-esteem and their work, and their acts are deliberate, not accidental (Saunders,  2007 ). Targets of workplace bullying can feel humiliated, ashamed, upset, anxious, and depressed.

In case 1, the perpetrator reported that she found the victim “not satisfactory as the team lead.” Prior to this comment, there is evidence that the perpetrator has deliberately tried to undermine the confidence and self-esteem of the victim. The victim was subjected to unwanted scrutiny and supervision during meetings with clients and team members. The victim’s authority was being undermined as a reporting authority with clients. Her role as a team leader was also under threat as the perpetrator was questioning the way K dealt with her team members in matters of attendance and performance. There was no evidence that K failed in team management or client handling, but A was undermining K’s role as a team leader with negative behavior.

Making insulting or offensive remarks about a person, attitudes or private life is considered a part of person-related bullying activity (Einarsen et al.,  2009 ). Studies on workplace bullying have shown that unpleasant personal remarks are among the most prevalent bullying behaviors (Tehrani,  2004 ). In case 2, the perpetrator made several personal comments about the victim’s attire and place of work. The professional dress code and professional behavior were not followed by the manager of the victim.

Power Imbalance Between Bullying Victim and Perpetrator

This component is of significance as it provides information about the imbalance of power. The power imbalance exists between the aggressor and the victim, where both are at different levels of the organizational hierarchical structure with well-defined reporting structures. The imbalance of power is central to the bullying episodes and the entire concept of bullying. Most of the bullying has been reported to be perpetrated by a person in the higher authority in the organizational structure towards someone at the lower end of the structure (Branch et al., 2013 ). The power gap limits the victim’s capability to resist, defend, or effectively cope with the bullying behaviors (Zapf & Einarsen,  2001 ). In both cases, the aggressors or perpetrators were the reporting authority of the victims.

In case 1, the aggressor was the product manager, and the victim was the team lead reporting to the product manager. The victim was the recipient of negative behaviors by the product manager who is her immediate reporting authority. Though she was under stress due to the bullying behaviors, she did not escalate the matter to the higher authorities and did not confront the perpetrator. All of this is characteristic of response to bullying behaviors. As pointed out by Salin ( 2021 ), a power deficit in a professional relationship makes the individual more sensitive to perceived threats and, in turn, may restrict his or her capability to cope and resist the bullying behaviors exhibited by a reporting authority.

In case 2, the aggressor was the team leader, and the victim was his team member, reporting to him. Despite repeated instances of inappropriate remarks about her dress and person, the victim neither shared the experiences with her family nor with the HR personnel. It was only after the situation deteriorated rapidly, the victim tried to escalate the matter. The victim’s reluctance to deal with the bullying in an assertive and timely manner resulted in limited and unsatisfactory results. This kind of reluctant behavior may be attributed to the way employees look at bullying. As pointed out by Tehrani ( 2004 ), bullying is a private event.

Duration and Frequency of Persistent Negative Behaviors of the Perpetrator

Many of the definitions of workplace bullying include the criterion that a behavior cannot be a standalone event. Bullying must occur more than once and must be experienced by the target on a frequent and persistent basis (Einarsen et al.,  2009 ).

In other words, the occurrence of persistent negative behavior once or twice every week for a period of 6 to 12 months and further is mandatory for the behavior to be labeled as bullying (Nielsen & Einarsen,  2012 ). One-off clashes and incidents resulting from workplace incivility and intra-employee conflicts take place routinely at the workplace, but they are not seen to produce long-lasting and severe consequences such as bullying behaviors (Kim et al.,  2019 ).

In both cases described in this paper, it is clear that the behaviors are not one-off clashes and are not spur-of-the-moment events but were reported to be repetitive and frequent. The negative behavior of the perpetrator towards the victim had been happening frequently many times a week. The negative behaviors were present at the time of starting the interviews with the case subjects and continued till the end of the interview (from the first reach out in Aug. 2020 till the last contact in June 2021).

In case 1, the victim experienced repeated instances of fault-finding, undermining the leadership skills, and interference. The incidents began after 1 month of working together and continued for more than 6 months. The victim decided to quit after experiencing various bullying incidents for more than 11 months.

In case 2, the victim reported the occurrence of incidents in June 2020, and they continued till February 2021, for a period of 10 months. The victim experienced incidents of uncalled for personal remarks and intimidating and unprofessional behavior from the reporting officer.

Negative Impacts of Bullying on the Victim

Almost every study on workplace bullying has focused on the effects of bullying on employees (Einarsen et al.,  2020 , p147). Attendance, turnover, and productivity have been shown to be adversely affected by incidents of bullying in the workplace (Einarsen et al.,  2020 ). Earlier studies have also documented the increased utilization of sick leave and the prevalence of suicidal tendencies in bullied employees (Vartia,  2001 ). Bullying behavior has been consistently shown to negatively impact the employee physically, psychologically, and occupationally (Rai & Agarwal,  2018 ; Robert, 2018 ).

In the first case, the victim was experiencing mental stress due to the bullying actions of the manager, and she was being damaged career-wise; she was being portrayed as an inefficient team leader. These kinds of negative comments could have a detrimental effect on the victim’s future career path.

In case 2, the aggressor was causing mental stress to the victim who was deliberately missing meetings with him. The victim also experienced mental anguish due to his unprofessional behavior which created problems between the victim and her family.

In both cases, the victims decided to resign from their job, which is a common result of workplace bullying (Notelaers et al.,  2019 ) (Table 5 ).

Case incidents correlating to the four components of workplace bullying (Einarsen et al.,  2009 )

The negative consequences of workplace bullying are summarized in eight factors (Medina et al.,  2020 , p 8) as displayed in Table 6 .

Evidences of bullying

The role of the HR departments of both case subjects has been taken into consideration in this study. When contacted by the author, the HR in case 1 revealed that the firm does not have a work-from-home policy document in place and one such is in the pipeline. She, however, denied any knowledge of the issues between the aggressor and the victim. She also revealed that the organization had a Sexual Harassment Cell (SHC) which was constituted in 2019 and it was functional. Regarding the WFH arrangement, the organization issued certain dos and don’ts regarding the log-in and log-out for work and rules regarding data privacy.

The HR manager of the organization in case 2 did not respond to emails from the author. The victim reported that the HR had given a patient hearing regarding her complaints against the manager but failed to take any corrective action.

Considering case 2, the form of bullying faced by the victim is unique in several ways. One is the workplace environment. As a result of the lockdown imposed in India, employees were mandated to work from home. As stated by the HR executive of the organization in case 1, the protocols required to manage the WFH situations were yet to be implemented. It is evident that the victims and their managers are in a new work environment and are in the process of getting oriented to the new way of working and communication. Due to the imposition of the national lockdown, employees had to adapt quickly to WFH, and the identification of obstacles and enablers to employees’ well-being and job performance was a priority for many organizations (Galanti et al.,  2021 ). The HR executive of the organization in case 2 revealed that the WFH guidelines issued to employees included details of log-in and log-out but did not contain any dress code and other guidelines to be adopted during interactions.

The other unique aspect of remote environments is the enabling of face-to-face interactions between the team members and their managers in WFH situations. The one-to-one interaction between employees is mandatory for the purpose of communication or problem-solving, and it enables sharing of personal space between the individuals. Without proper protocols in place, there is a high possibility that the sharing of personal environments could be misused which is evident in case 2.

The present study combines the perspectives of bullying in the physical workplace with that of cyberbullying to understand the concept of bullying in the remote workplace.

One of the contributions of this study is the development of the concept of workplace bullying in a remote environment, especially in the context of employees working from home. Despite the absence of face-to-face interactions and a focus on technology-mediated communication, work-from-home situations were found to be highly susceptible to workplace bullying. This is in accordance with the view that the nature of virtual work increases the likelihood of bullying (Flanigan,  2020 ). Though remote working is linked to improved productivity, job satisfaction, and work engagement, remote workers are likely to be subjected to frequent and relentless bullying at the workplace and face considerable stress (Yom et al.,  2017a ).

The study also revealed that bullying experienced by employees working from home displayed all the characteristics of traditional workplace bullying (Einarsen et al.,  2009 ; Lee et al.,  2014 ).

The employees observed in this study were subject to repeated and persistent negative behaviors that are aggressive or appear to be aggressive to the victim. This is in line with the observed manifestation of traditional workplace bullying (Einarsen et al.,  2020 ; Leymann, 1990 ,  1996 ).

The bullying episodes analyzed in the present study show a clear power imbalance between bullying victim and perpetrator. The victims are at a lower hierarchical level in comparison to the aggressor. The presence of an imbalance in power between the aggressor and the victim has been shown to be crucial to the concept of workplace bullying (Chirilă & Constantin, 2013 ; Einarsen et al.,  2009 ). The power imbalance in workplaces could result due to individual, situational, or societal characteristics (Salin,  2003 ). But the present study involves cases that depict the imbalance of power due to organizational hierarchical structure.

As both victims are women, a tendency to attribute the occurrence of bullying incidents to gender differences does arise. But previous studies on bullying and gender have cautioned not to look for a linear relationship between gender and bullying but rather as a “gendered context” (Salin,  2021 , p 24). More in-depth studies would be needed to study the relationship between bullying tendencies and gender in remote environments.

“At first, he asked me about work and how I responded to emails from the testing team. But slowly he started making personal comments.”

In the cases presented in the study, both the victims suffered from severe mental stress and were exiting the organization. The organization experienced a loss of a talented workforce.

The study contributes to the study of the remote environment in terms of the parameters used to analyze the effect of bullying. The work-from-home situated mandated due to the COVID-19 situation has blurred the boundaries between home and work, and this has led to changes in work culture (Waizenegger et al.,  2020 ). The assessment incorporated the technology-mediated communication channels and the changes in the work culture that is a part of the work-from-home environment (Karl et al.,  2021 ). The increased use of videoconferencing for communication has provided opportunities for bullying of the employees as seen in case 2. The face-to-face meetings of the traditional workplace have given way to video conferences which have their own set of problems as seen in case 1.

The role of organizations in the management of workplace bullying assumes high significance. Both the organizations featured in the paper had no clear HR policy against bullying. As pointed out by Verma and Barua ( 2021 ), workplace bullying in India is generally actionable under the law only if the bullying behavior is directed against certain vulnerable sections of society or can be classified as abetment to suicide. Noopur and Burman ( 2021 ) noted that the increasing prevalence of work bullying is common in Information Technology (IT) organizations and has a psychological and physical impact on employees; hence, employers must acknowledge and accept the existence of the bullying phenomenon. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, (POSH) is the main policy awarding protection against harassment in the Indian workplace, which the HR experts say needs clarification on its validity in the remote workplace, thus creating a lacuna (Poonia,  2019 ). If the work-from-home situation is likely to continue post-pandemic (even partially), there is a need for a full-fledged policy against workplace bullying in the remote environment from both the government and organizations (Jain,  2018 ).

Limitations and Further Research

The paper suffers from the usual disadvantages that are observed in a case study-based approach to research (Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2001 ; Zainal,  2007 ). The paper presents only two instances of workplace bullying which cannot be generalized to the entire remote environment in India at present. However, the cases are indicative of the scope and nature of bullying in this environment and offer an opportunity for further investigation into the concept and forms of bullying in the remote workplace.

Further research is required into the phenomenon of bullying in the remote environment in order to obtain an understanding of the elements of abusive supervision (Tepper,  2000 ) on workplace harassment.

As it appears that the work-from-home situation is here to stay, more research needs to be done to understand the scope and forms of bullying that can manifest in a remote workplace. This will help policymakers to create an appropriate regulatory framework for effective and safe workplace creation.

Acknowledgements

The author is thankful to the reviewers for their value-adding and insightful suggestions and comments.

Appendix. A Study On Workplace Bullying

Thank you for consenting to answer the questionnaire on workplace bullying. The questions elicit responses on various aspects of bullying. The data will be used for academic purposes only, and all the details of the respondent will be kept confidential.

Are you working from home due to COVID-19 lockdown?

Your age (in years)

Your gender

Sector where you are working

Are you bullied at work?

No/Yes, rarely/Yes, often/Yes, everyday/Do not want to answer.

When did the bullying start?

Less than a month ago/Between 1 and 3 months/Between 3 and 6 months/Going on from a long time/Do not remember.

Identity of the bully Manager/colleague/subordinate/other

Number of people bullied

Only me/Me and others/Everybody at work/Did not notice.

Have you witnessed bullying at work? Yes/No/Do not want to answer

Based on your replies, can the author of this questionnaire reach out to you for further questions?

Yes/No (if yes, please provide your email id for further communication).

Declarations

Conflict of interest.

The author declares no competing interests.

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