Ottawa's evolving work culture — shaped by pandemic-era upheaval, hybrid arrangements, and pressure-cooker corporate environments — has created fertile ground for a workplace phenomenon that most people have never heard of: mobbing.
The term might sound dramatic, but workplace experts are increasingly using it to describe a pattern of coordinated, sustained mistreatment by a group of coworkers or managers against a single target. It's subtler than traditional bullying, often harder to prove, and according to a new book excerpt featured in the Ottawa Business Journal, it's becoming more common as workplace dynamics shift.
What Is Mobbing, Exactly?
Unlike one-on-one workplace harassment, mobbing involves a collective — sometimes an entire team or department — gradually pushing someone out through exclusion, rumour, undermining, or relentless criticism. The target is often isolated, gaslit, and left wondering if they're imagining things.
Think of it as the professional equivalent of a high school pile-on, except the stakes are people's livelihoods, reputations, and mental health.
What makes mobbing particularly insidious is that each individual act often seems small or deniable in isolation. A missed meeting invite here, a dismissive comment in front of a client there. It's only when the pattern is viewed as a whole that the damage becomes clear.
Why Changing Workplaces Are Making It Worse
The book excerpt argues that shifts in workplace culture — flatter hierarchies, remote work silos, increased performance anxiety — have eroded the informal checks that once kept group dynamics in balance.
When teams are stressed, leaderless, or competing for diminishing resources, scapegoating becomes a release valve. Someone gets targeted, consciously or not, and the group coalesces around pushing them out.
In Ottawa specifically, sectors like the federal public service, tech, and non-profits have all undergone significant structural changes over the past few years. Return-to-office mandates, team restructuring, and layoffs have heightened anxieties across the board — creating exactly the kind of instability that experts say enables mobbing to take root.
The Toll on Targets
Research consistently links workplace mobbing to serious mental health consequences: anxiety, depression, PTSD, and long-term career disruption. Many targets don't report what's happening because the behaviour is so diffuse — there's rarely one clear aggressor to point to.
For HR departments and managers, that ambiguity is also a challenge. Standard harassment protocols are built around individual bad actors. Mobbing requires a different lens entirely.
What Can Ottawa Workers and Employers Do?
Awareness is the first step. Knowing the term — and what the pattern looks like — allows targets to name what's happening and seek support sooner. It also gives managers and HR professionals a framework to recognize warning signs before things escalate.
Organizations that invest in psychological safety, transparent conflict resolution processes, and healthy team culture are best positioned to prevent mobbing from taking hold.
For anyone who suspects they're experiencing it, documenting incidents methodically and reaching out to an employee assistance program (EAP) or a workplace mediator is a strong first move.
Ottawa has no shortage of workplace wellness resources, and as awareness of mobbing grows, so does the toolkit for addressing it.
Source: Ottawa Business Journal — Book excerpt: How changing workplace culture gives rise to behaviours like 'mobbing'
