Workplace Bullying, Sexual Harassment, Discrimination: A Bane for Female Employees’ Career in the Private Banking Industry of Bangladesh

Abstract

The study was conducted to identify the relationship between workplace bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination and the female employees' career failure in the field of private banking sector of Bangladesh. In this study, workplace bullying (repeated and unreasonable behavior to women that creates a risk to health and safety), sexual harassment (unwelcome sexual conduct by males that creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for women), discrimination (unequal or unfair treatment in women's professional opportunities) were independent variables and female employees' career failure (failure to continue a long term career in their workplace and result of quitting the career) was dependent variable. A total number of 240 female employees working in various private commercial banks inside Dhaka city were surveyed by a structured questionnaire for the purpose of primary data collection. Both the correlation analysis and stepwise regression were applied to analyze the proposed hypothesis. The correlation analysis strongly supported the entire hypothesis but the stepwise regression provided partial support to the hypothesis. After scrutinizing the collected data, the study found that the measured independent variable such as workplace bullying was correlated statistically and significantly with the female employees' career failure. Therefore, the study concluded that the minimum level of workplace bullying is still prevailing in our banking industry which has been considered as a strong cause of career failure among female employees.