Understanding and Managing Workplace Bullying
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Professor Tim Bentley Director of Healthy Work Group Associate Head of School of Management, Massey University Private Bag 102904, Albany, Auckland 0745 t.bentley@massey.ac.nz (Invited, Wednesday 26, Ilott Room, 3.50)
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Understanding and Managing Workplace Bullying
- 1. Understanding and Managing Workplace Bullying Professor Tim Bentley Healthy Work Group School of Management Presentation to OHSIG 2011
- 7. Examples of Bullying Behaviours Being humiliated or ridiculed Being ignored or excluded Insulting or offensive remarks Intimidating behaviour Persistent criticism of your work Excessive monitoring of your work Threats of violence or abuse Having important information withheld from you Ordered to do work below your level of competence Being exposed to an unmanageable workload Repeated reminders of your mistakes Gossip or rumours
- 8. Bullying and Harassment Harassment Bullying A single incident, a few incidents, many incidents Accumulation of many small incidents It is obvious you are being harassed May not realise you are being bullying for weeks or months Revealed through use of offensive vocabulary Trivial criticisms, false allegations, etc. Harassment has a strong clear focus (race, sex, disability) Focus is on competence (envy) and popularity (jealousy) Harassment often for peer approval, bravado, image Tends to be secret – no witnesses Target is perceived as easy Target is a threat to control, subjugate, eliminate Harasser lacks self-discipline Driven by envy and jealousy
- 9. Individual Costs of Bullying
- 10. Organisational Costs of Bullying
- 11. Typical Bullying Sequence The employer realises they have backed the wrong person, but are unlikely to admit it
- 13. The NZ Workplace Bullying Study
- 17. Reported Work Experiences of Targets
- 18. Reported Effects of Bullying
- 19. Most Effective Organisational Responses
- 21. Survey of OHS Practitioners
- 28. Recommendations for Managing Bullying
- 33. Questions for me …
Editor's Notes
- Workplace bullying is a problem many feel is connected only with the school yard, and not so much a problem for organisations. However, the reality is that bullying is a growing problem in workplaces, and has an important impact on health, productivity and the experience of work for people in organisations. In NZ we are only beginning to understand the problem, and are very poor at managing it. Our mission is to help organisations and employees better understand what bullying is and how to manage it.
- This speaks to the core of the problem – the bullying culture – socialising middle managers and subordinates in the wrong way to communicate and manage in the workplace!
- According to one group of leading researchers, the majority of employees will, at some time during their careers, be exposed to workplace bullying directly, or indirectly as observers (Einarsen et al., 2003b).
- In the US, 25% of orgs report bullying in their org.
- The behaviours most likely to relate to health effects were those suggesting marginalisation or exclusion such as criticism, ignoring or hints to quit (Hoel et al., 2004), judging work unjustly or in an offending manner, restricting the expression of opinions, and assaults on private life (Vartia, 2001). The most damaging forms of bullying were those such as undermining and belittlement which harmed a targets’ self-image and reduced the ability to use effective coping strategies.
- Note, 2 ways to measure bullying … Experienced two or more negative behaviours, at least weekly during the past 6 months See nature of behaviours – many argue that this would be regarded as normal working life – and certainly there is a real need to develop more effective tools for the measurement of bullying
- Compared to non-targets …significant difference in reporting experiences Same for witnesses to bullying!
- Compared to non-targets, these outcomes were significantly more likely to be reported. Also for witnesses to bullying.
- Respondents reported these org responses to be most effective – this fits well with what we know about what works in bullying prevention, and the idea of promoting a positive and healthy work environment. It also shows that the org needs tools/measures to manage bullying.
- Example findings from the interview survey of managers from the surveyed organisations. At odds with survey findings – high prevalence of bullying but low acknowledgement. Some options: 1. not willing to believe there is a problem; 2. not wanting to acknowledge the problem; 3. ignorance of problem. Les than one-half recognised bullying as a hazard; quite a few without policy or reporting system. Encouraging number want to see guidelines for best practice.
- The findings that org factors and management bullying prevention activity were so important led to the HWG undertaking this study.
- Here’s some of the key findings – suggest a low understanding of the concept and issues with leading an anti-bullying culture, developing policy and training staff.
- The key thing here is was that the work environment was the best predictor of whether orgs took anti-bullying actions – with these factors being most important – not how they match well with the factors respondents to the bullying prevalence survey rated most highly!
- Policy A policy that defines bullying, details consequences along with complaint and resolution procedures; also confidentiality Set within in a context of just and fair treatment for all employees and emphasing organisations core values Recognises and focuses on organisational as well as interpersonal factors Weaves many aspects of the organisation together i.e. linked to other key organisaitonal systems Suggest a positive approach to policy – e.g. “respectful work environment/climate’ or ‘healthy work culture’. Performance Ensure the org hires sound, well-adjusted people whose values are appropriate. With changes to the legislation around stress, orgs need to be very careful who they appoint and promote – can use assessment centre and psychometric testing. Interviews alone are no good. Must speak to previous employer! 360 survey; done by a review team, feedback from each person carries equal weight, - but note, great care needed as TARGET may be vulnerable where the manager is the WB Need to review an individual’s contribution to the team and org; plan to develop them; recognition of what’s going well; and agreement on working to fix what’s not so good. HR Need to have the skills and authority to stand up to senior management and work with them to do the right thing for the org. This includes: working with management to get the right culture, policy and systems to eliminate WB. They should never collaborate with the WB, but can be tough – they can become targets themselves if they seek to support the Target. Healthy work Develop a relationship of trust and loyalty; reward staff on basis of performance and contribution to total effort. Management the key to developing trust.
- It would be nice to be able to tell you to access the DoL’s guidelines for best practice, but as things stand they are not available. There is a draft WorkSafe Code of Practice – this may be helpful.