the sensation of feeling separated from other
people or the same company, since on some
occasions, they come to consider that they lose
their impact on it, coming to perceive that the
organization forgets about him and is not taken
into account like other workers (Acevedo et al.,
2018).
Regarding mobbing, it refers to hostile or
immoral behavior towards an employee in a
specific organization, which, in addition to the
physical and psychological consequences, brings
with it a break in the social context, breaking the
subject's interpersonal relationships
(Carvajal-Orozco & Dávila-Londoño, 2013).
For Oviedo-Vega & Vásquez-Flores (2016) and
Iñaki & Zabala (2015), mobbing causes severe
psychological damage to the person who is
harassed. When referring to this point, it does so
in the following terms: workplace bullying is
intended to intimidate, diminish, reduce, flatten,
threaten, and emotionally and intellectually
consume the victim, to eliminate them from the
organization or satisfy the insatiable need to
attack, control and destroy, which is usually
presented by the harasser, who takes advantage
of the opportunity offered by the particular
organizational situation (reorganization, cost
reduction, bureaucratization, dizzying changes,
etc.) to channel a series of impulses and
psychopathic tendencies (Iñaki & Zabala, 2015).
In the implementation of teleworking, there are
also problems, such as abuse of power, work
overload, and personal and organizational
conflicts, which lead to workplace harassment or
mobbing (Oviedo-Vega & Vásquez-Flores,
2016). If we realize there is a fine line between
the disputes of teleworking and mobbing, leading
one situation to another. Coming to be expressed
as psychological violence, this can include verbal
abuse, sexual or psychological harassment,
intimidation, and threats, and in turn can consist
of "... isolating people, manipulating reputations,
withholding information, assigning tasks that do
not match the capacities and assign goals and
deadlines that are impossible to meet” (Moore,
2018). All this makes it a phenomenon that, by
affecting people physically and psychologically,
becomes challenging, and its study is critical.
In a study carried out by the Global Union in
Commerce, Services and Related Sectors (UNI),
an increase in technological and digital jobs is
revealed that has an impact on well-being and
dignity at work since the increased use of
technology provides a sense of control and
harassment, which causes stress in workers,
intensifying work and pressure, since the limits
between personal time and work time become
blurred, thus affecting the perception of decent
work (Pilinger, 2017).
Teleworking has become a necessary tool for
labor, social and economic transformation at a
national and international level, considered a
phenomenon of organizational development. It is
there where it becomes crucial to emphasize
health and safety at work because, for the
Organización Internacional del Trabajo (ILO), it
is a principle of protection for workers by
organizations that monitor the prevention of
occupational diseases and accidents, since
according to the same entity, every year two
million people die from these conditions
(Bonilla-Prieto et al., 2014).
Studying the relationship between mobbing and
teleworking is relevant since it directly affects
the worker, causing physical, psychological, and
social conditions. Given the importance and
growing modality of teleworking, it becomes
imperative to pay attention to the consequent
problems in the area of Safety and Health at
Work (OSH) since the main objective is to
prevent injuries and illnesses caused by work
circumstances, promote health, and improving
their conditions in the work environment
(Ministerio de Protección Social de Colombia,
2015).
The presence of mobbing in teleworking can be
clarified according to (Oviedo-Vega &
Vásquez-Flores, 2016), who states that the
implementation of teleworking has modernized
the management of organizations. However, it
also brings negative implications, such as abuse
of power or workplace harassment by the
employer or any other colleague. Likewise, it can
develop ascending, descending, or horizontally
and involves the workers.
Therefore, as has been exposed, mobbing can
occur in teleworking since it meets the
characteristics of a regular job, such as: having
bosses and colleagues; meeting goals; workload,
among others. In the interaction process of the
actors in this environment (bosses, subordinates,
and colleagues), there is the possibility that this
phenomenon occurs, and the future of abuse of
power, exclusion, or creation of rumors, among
others, affects the organizational climate and
unleashes workplace bullying.