A client calls to reduce their monthly order. They inform you that the issue has nothing to do with your company or your job performance but rather their shrinking operations budget.
You pass the information along, only for your boss to come storming over to scream at you in front of the whole team. They call you incompetent, lazy or pathetic for losing sales from a client that the company has had for decades. They humiliate you in front of your co-workers and attack you personally over something that you had no control over. Many people accept such mistreatment, not realizing it may violate their basic workplace rights.
Such verbal abuse can damage how you feel about your job and your overall self-esteem and mental health. Such personal, targeted verbal abuse in the workplace is not acceptable.
Verbal abuse can be a form of discrimination
Employees should not have to tolerate abusive rhetoric from their supervisor or co-workers as part of their job. Companies should actively seek to prevent hostile work environments where certain people feel scared to go to work.
Keeping management from engaging in personal attacks and verbal harassment is a basic obligation of the companies to its workers. Failing to address verbal harassment might lead to claims of discrimination against a business. This is especially true when the supervisor or manager targets people with certain shared, protected characteristics.
Statements about your age, sex or race may make it clear that verbal abuse is actually discrimination. Even if the boss doesn’t say such things openly, they may only target certain workers for this kind of mistreatment. Reporting and carefully documenting verbal abuse can help employees fight back from this common form of workplace discrimination.