1. Workplace bullying and Harassment
Dr Michelle Tuckey
Workplace bullying and Harassment
Towards bullying-free workplaces

2. Thank you to my collaborators
acknowledgements
Thank you to my collaborators
Yiqiong Li
Peter Chen
Maureen Dollard
Annabelle Neall
Sharon Kwan
Sarven McLinton
Alex Rogers
Funded by

3. workplace Bullying Bullying occurs when:
a person or a group of people repeatedly behaves unreasonably towards a worker or a group of workers at work
AND
the behaviour creates a risk to health and safety
Bullying does not include reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable manner
Fair Work Commission – 'Guide: Anti-workplace bullying’
Safe Work Australia – ‘Guide for preventing and responding to workplace bullying’

4. Workplace bullying
A single incident is not bullying, but should not be ignored
Conflict or aggression
Enabling signals
Bullying
Conflict or aggression
Counter-aggression
Bullying

5. Bullying behaviours Variety of negative behaviours Person-related
Personal derogation
Social isolation
Violence and intimidation
Work-related
Work-related harassment
Work overload

6. Costs of bullying 40% of targets have contemplated suicide
Productivity Commission (2010)
Cost of bullying to Australian society is $6-36 billion p.a.
Safe Work Australia (2013, 2014)
Per claim, the median payment for bullying claims ($16,400) is more than 10 times greater than for all claims ($1,500)
Bullying claims result in median lost time from work of 8.6 weeks, which is 14 times greater than for all claims (0.6 weeks)
Evidence from 66 studies ( )
Mental health problems Anxiety Depression Post-traumatic stress Generalized strain Psychosomatic symptoms Burnout Physical health problems

7. OBJECTIVE COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE
Source: Unpublished data

10. Report to the Royal Aust. College of Surgeons
Exposure
Key factors
Workplace bullying: 39%
Discrimination:18% (mainly racial)
Workplace harassment: 19%
Sexual harassment: 7%
Bullying is embedded within the culture
Abuse of power, poor role modelling, fear of reprisal, bystander silence,
Complaints = ‘career suicide’
Lack of confidence and trust in complaints process
Senior/supervising surgeons need guidance in how to provide feedback and development
Lack of action due to market share
Unhealthy work design
Supervisors have excellent technical skills but lack the capability to guide, mentor, and educate more junior surgeons

11. Bullying... is primarily influenced by the work environment
Evidence from 90 studies ( )
Key findings
Organisational factors are more important than individual factors (e.g., self-esteem, tendency towards negative emotions) in determining bullying exposure
Job stressors increase the likelihood of being exposed to bullying
Role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload
Work constraints
Job resources decrease the likelihood of being exposed to bullying
Autonomy (job control)

12. Role-specific resources
Police Sergeants (task domains)
Operational management
Organisational management
Community policing
Correspondence/paperwork
Police Constables (task domains)
Operational policing
Investigating crime
Court duties
Partnership policing
Correspondence/ paperwork
Front desk duties
Interpersonal interactions
Reducing the road toll
Resources = time, people, vehicles, computers and office equipment, training, operational equipment, budget
To given an example, we studied the role of task-specific job demands and resources in police work. In our study, job demands and resources were assessed in relation a range of specific task domains, separately for police Constables and police Sergeants.
Sergeants rated the degree to which activities associated with Operational Management, Organisational Management, Community policing, and Correspondence/paperwork were demanding.
Constables made similar ratings in relation to Operational policing, Investigating crime, and all of these other task domains [point to slide].
The task-specific, tangible resources we examined were time, people, vehicles, computers and office equipment, training, operational equipment, and – for Sergeants only – budget.

13. Constables
The pattern of results across the task domains, highlighted in blue here on the slide, is that when Police Constables reported under-resourcing at the task-level, there were more likely to also report being bullied by other officers.
High demands were only significantly associated with bullying for those domains in which the tasks mostly involved police-offender interactions [list domains from slide]. Now this is quite an interesting issue in and of itself, but it’s not one that I’m going to go into today.
{It’s possible that the experience of having been bullied undermined officers’ confidence to interact with offenders, or caused officers to act in a way that led to more negative interactions with offenders, so those sort of tasks were then rated as more demanding}.
The key thing I want to point out here is that, almost across the board, lack of resources was a significant factor leading to increased odds of Police Constables being bullied at work.

14. Sergeants
For Police Sergeants the same pattern emerged – low resources, but not demands, were significant predictors of bullying exposure.
Overall then, irrespective of how demanding the police tasks were, under-resourcing in terms of tangible, task-specific resources emerged as the important factor linked with elevated risk of bullying. This reflects a work environment issue – a problem of inadequate resourcing.
Source: Tuckey, M.R., Chrisopoulos, S., & Dollard, M.F. (2012). Job demands, resource deficiencies, and workplace harassment: Evidence for micro level effects. International Journal of Stress Management, 19,

15. Bullying... is a symptom of (poor) organisational functioning
Sample of 342 bullying complaints lodged with SafeWork SA from
Thematic analysis of all case materials (complaint form, evidence, inspector reports, outcome letters, etc)
Over 5000 pages of information
Key findings
Supervisor-employee interface creates fertile soil for bullying and its perception
Abusive, unfair management practices are a direct form of bullying
Supervisory behaviour during interactions in key areas of organisational functioning shapes perceptions of the job and of workplace bullying
*** These are the functional risk contexts for bullying ***

16. functional risk areas Day-to-day supervision
Coordinating and administrating
Rostering and scheduling
Dealing with pay, leave, and entitlements
Managing work performance
Guiding, directing, and motivating performance
Training and development
Recognition and feedback
Clarifying tasks and roles
Managing under-performance
Shaping relationships and work environment
Showing favouritism
Maintaining a safe and respectful environment
Showing dishonesty

17. functional risk areas Day-to-day supervision
Risk management efforts should target these areas BEFORE bullying occurs
functional risk areas
Day-to-day supervision
Coordinating and administrating
Rostering and scheduling
Dealing with pay, leave, and entitlements
Managing work performance
Guiding, directing, and motivating performance
Training and development
Recognition and feedback
Clarifying tasks and roles
Managing under-performance
Shaping relationships and work environment
Showing favouritism
Maintaining a safe and respectful environment
Showing dishonesty

18. Organisational culture... shapes bullying escalation
Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC)
Reflects the value placed on mental health and well-being and the processes and procedures in place to support psychological safety at work
Source: Kwan, S., Tuckey, M.R., & Dollard, M.F. (in press). The role of the Psychosocial Safety Climate in coping with workplace bullying: A grounded theory and sequential tree analysis. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.

19. Organisational culture... shapes responses to bullying
Target
What makes the difference?
Good managers = early resolution
When PSC is high, workers feel comfortable talking to their managers and expect that their managers will effectively resolve the problem
Managers personally take responsibility for resolving the issue; they do something to stop the bullying behaviour before it escalates
High PSC
Low PSC
Neglect and avoidance
Voice
Status quo
Resolved
Can’t withstand the bullying
Unresolved
Voice
Turnover
Source: Kwan, S., Tuckey, M.R., & Dollard, M.F. (in press). The role of Psychosocial Safety Climate in coping with workplace bullying: A grounded theory and sequential tree analysis. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.

21. WHY pay attention to culture?
In the ‘wrong’ organisational culture:
Staff may not report EARLY, which is vital for effective resolution
There may not be support or tools to get a meaningful solution/change in behaviour
Early resolution and perceptions of fair processes and outcomes determine the likelihood of:
The behaviour escalating into a serious, ongoing bullying situation
The likelihood of an employee lodging a workers’ compensation claim (Jenkins et al., 2013)

22. Managers accused of being bullies…
Interviews with 24 managers accused of bullying (Jenkins et al., 2012)
100% agreed they had used negative behaviours against others
90% claimed never to have bullied anyone at work (even though the bullying claims were substantiated against 26%)
Major themes
Stressful work environment (e.g., work pressure, role conflict, role ambiguity, lack of personal resources) contributed to the behaviour
Reasonable managerial action was interpreted as bullying
Organisational practices were interpreted as bullying
Accused bullies also believed they were being bullied (66%)
These findings again highlight the work environment (system) and daily supervision issues

23. Data from volunteer fire-fighters and captains from 68 brigades
Leadership... buffers against system pressure spilling down onto workers
Data from volunteer fire-fighters and captains from 68 brigades

24. Key messages
Bullying is not primarily a problem of interpersonal differences
Bullying reflects the functioning of the organisational system
It is the symptom, not the disease to be treated  Need to work on the system issues
Supervisory behaviour shapes whether or not a stressful work environment (system) will lead to bullying and what happens when bullying does occur
Using ‘voice’ (i.e., speaking out) reduces the chance of further bullying
The key system issues to tackle include:
Supporting managers to undertake effective and fair daily supervision of workers
Supporting managers to recognise and respond early to resolve conflict
Creating the right climate to empower managers to be successful in these two crucial areas, and empower employees to speak up and resolve issues early

25. Towards bullying-Free workplaces
Organisations must support managers to:
Improve their daily supervision key functional areas (risk contexts)
Coordinating and administrating the work (e.g., rostering, entitlements)
Managing work performance (e.g., role and task clarification, under-performance issues)
Creating positive relationships and work environment (e.g., favouritism, dishonesty, safety)
Identify and address negative behaviours early (and informally)
Keep in regular contact with the work group
Listen to workers’ concerns, don’t just hear them
Workers must feel safe to raise concerns, and confident that a meaningful solution will be reached
Resolve issues quickly before the situation escalates

26. Towards bullying-Free workplaces
How?
Provide managers with training, support, feedback, and performance goals to:
Optimise day-to-day frontline management and supervision
Build capacity to manage under-performance issues and mentor staff
Develop skills to identify and resolve conflict very early, before it escalates
Improve the organisational climate by:
Reducing pressure and demands in the system
Providing mechanisms for workers to have direct input into issues that affect their mental health and safety
Setting KPIs for bullying rates and employee mental health outcomes as goals in their own right

27. Blueprint for success Improve supervision in the functional risk areas
Set bullying & mental health KPIs
Identify and resolve conflict early & enable use of voice
Empower workers (and supervisors) & value their mental health
Blueprint for success