WORKPLACE OSTRACISM

What is Ostracism? Why should you know about it?

The definition of ostracism describes it as an act of excluding someone from society. Most people have suffered ostracism in some form or the other. Imagine one of the lunch breaks during school. You happily pave your way to the playground towards your friends. You see them talking and chirping about something. When you reach there, there is a cold silence. You inquisitively ask, “What’s going on?” One of them replies, “Nothing”. You try to crack a joke but no one laughs. There is an awkward silence. This clearly signals that you are not welcome there. You silently move out and hear them laughing behind your back again.

Workplace Ostracism is a situation where an employee feels excluded, disregarded, left out or dismissed in a group. The person going through ostracism might feel that he is invisible or is made to feel rejected at all times. There are various manifestations of ostracism in the workplace. Shunning, abashing someone every time in a social interaction, avoiding someone during a meetup, estrangement, silent treatment against someone, etc.

The term ostracism originates from the word ‘ostrskismos’. It was a practice in ancient Greece where people voted the name of the person who was considered a threat to democracy. They wrote the name of the person to be expelled on ostraca (a piece of broken clay pottery) and the person who got the most significant number of votes had to spend years in solitude in exile as a punishment. Humans are social animals and the phenomenon of human evolution has brought the act of ostracism to light. Ostracism behaviours can have a negative impact on employees’ morale, and self-esteem and can lead to psychological strains, absenteeism, low productivity, quiet-quitting and a lot more. In a study, it was found that internal attribution has a direct relation to self-esteem. Ostracism behaviours can result in an employee associating negative internal self-attributes. Thus, it is extremely important to remind the employees to have team-oriented behaviour to boost their morale.

Much research has been done to adduce the fact that ostracism has a negative impact on psychology and personal relations. The spillover effect of ostracism makes employees’ spouses vulnerable to the effects of ostracism. Negative workplace behaviour and negative impact on organizational growth are other harmful effects of ostracism.

In further blogs, we will try to delve deep into how workplace ostracism is shaping an organization’s work culture and how it impacts employee behaviour in an organization.