Workplace victims are prevalent and can add drama, frustration, and negativity to the place of employment. The purpose of this article is to further examine the victim mentality in the workplace.
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Unfortunately, many of our coworkers and colleagues are self-made victims who have the 'woe is me' outlook on life. According to Phin (2012), there can be no doubt that today's workplace is overrun with a victim mentality. This way of thinking is negative and can be detrimental to others who must come into contact with workplace victims.
The typical workplace victim has a mentality that leads him or her to avoid taking personal responsibility for any negative issues that arise at work. These individuals tend to view themselves as victims of workplaces where coworkers, supervisors, managers, and even patients are out to get them. They refuse to believe that they've ever done anything wrong, and prefer to blame other people or events for their shortcomings and lackluster job performance.
For instance, if the unit manager issues a verbal written warning to a nurse with a victim mentality for accruing multiple unexcused tardies over the past three months, instead of being accountable and making a better effort to report to work on time, the employee takes more comfort in believing that the manager wants to sabotage her work record. The patient care technician who portrays himself as a victim will attribute a broken Hoyer lift to poor timing and bad luck, and would rather feel sorry for himself than realize that the piece of equipment is not working due to mechanical failure.
Another classic example is the nurse who has been terminated from five jobs in less than two years. Rather than examine personal reasons for her inability to keep a job or seeing where she might have gone wrong, she criticizes every former coworker and manager with whom she's encountered. In a nutshell, workplace victims feel that they cannot control their own outcomes. This thought process hinders personal and professional development and pushes others away.
Are there any effective techniques on handling these self-proclaimed victims of the workplace? The people who are forced to work with workplace victims can certainly step in with a creative solution. According to Stephson (2012), your job as supervisor or coworker is to try to get the victim to develop a larger work-related intention, goal, or desired outcome that energizes them. Get them to focus on educational tasks, acquiring new skills, or enacting changes to the issues that bother them. Problems will still arise, of course, but if the employee can focus on being a creator who is moving, however slowly, in a positive direction, that is a far different mindset than that of the victim (Stephson, 2012).
Although the employee with a victim mentality can add a sense of drama and frustration to the workplace, he or she can be helped. Remember to be patient, take responsibility for your own actions, and do not allow the victim's negativity to rub off on you. Good luck!
