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According to the latest survey by the STEM/MARK marketing agency, mobbing at work was experienced in 2011 by almost one fifth of the working population in the Czech Republic aged over 15 years. Nonetheless, the phenomenon had diminished to almost 2007 levels after a steep increase in reports of workplace mobbing in 2009, attributed to the initial effects of the global economic crisis. In both 2009 and 2011, undervaluation of performance was the most frequent type of mobbing.
Mobbing at work was one of the issues examined in research by the marketing agency STEM/MARK in 2009 and 2011 with the aim of mapping the extent and nature of mobbing in a work environment.
The research formed part of the agency’s regular ‘Omnibus research’, multi-thematic enquiries based on a sample of 1,000 respondents selected to give a representative sample of the population of the Czech Republic aged 15+ years. Mobbing-related data were analysed on a subsample of the working population amounting to 742 people in 2009 and 648 people in 2011.
Some form of mobbing at work had been experienced by one-fifth (19.3%) of respondents to the 2011 survey who undertake some type of paid work. This was a marked decrease compared with 2009 when 27.5% of respondents reported being exposed to some form of mobbing, but still higher than in 2007 when 16% of the working population reported having been mobbed. The growth in mobbing at work in 2009 is ascribed by STEM/MARK analysts to the impact of the global economic crisis.
Workers under the age of 29 were the group most frequently encountering mobbing in 2011. However, the percentage of people exposed to mobbing in this age group declined between 2009 and 2011 from 33% to 25%.
In terms of education, the highest decline in the percentage of mobbed people between 2009 and 2011 occurred in the group with full secondary education (that is, having passed the secondary school leaving examination). Unexpectedly, the highest percentage of people exposed to mobbing in the 2011 sample was in the group with a university degree (Figure 1).
Mobbing at work was reported in 2011 by a quarter of respondents living in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. People in small localities encounter mobbing less often.
Figure 1: Experience of mobbing in different groups of educational attainment (%)
Source: STEM/MARK, Omnibus 2009 and 2011
The most frequent types of mobbing encountered by respondents in both 2009 and 2011 were:
These and other types of mobbing identified in 2011 are summarised in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Incidence of particular types of mobbing at work (%)
Source: STEM/MARK, Omnibus 2009 and 2011
According to the survey, undervaluation of an employee’s performance and assignment of duties that are outside the worker’s qualifications are mostly nuisances found in big cities with a population of over 100,000 inhabitants. Respondents from the youngest age category (that is, below 29 years) and from low-income groups are relatively more often assigned senseless tasks at work than those from other age and income groups. People with lower than full secondary education are relatively more often exposed to criticism of their work as well as their private life, and insults by colleagues or superiors. Women are more often victims of sexual harassment.
Almost 45% of those who have experienced mobbing reported being exposed to mobbing at least once a week. An alarming fact is the significant increase (by 20 percentage points) between 2009 and 2011 in the percentage of people who had been exposed to mobbing for more than a year (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Time for which the respondent was exposed to mobbing (%)
Source: STEM/MARK, Omnibus 2009 and 2011
A more positive fact is that half the workers (51%) concerned try to resolve the situation, most often by informing their superiors (42%), or by leaving the job and finding another employer (25%). But at a time of economic crisis and a high unemployment rate, this strategy was a less common solution in 2011 than it was in previous years. This may account for the increasing percentage of people exposed to long-term mobbing.
Večerková, B. (2009), Je nárůst šikany na pracovišti důsledkem finanční krize? (46Kb PDF) [Is the increase in mobbing at work a consequence of the financial crisis?], Press release, STEM/MARK, Prague.
Večerková, B. (2011), Se šikanou na pracovišti má aktuálně zkušenost necelá pětina osob [Mobbing at work currently experienced by less than a fifth of population], Press release, STEM/MARK, Prague.
Pfeiferová Štěpánka, Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs (RILSA)