Management training - management interventions to reduce negative behaviour and bullying at work |
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Author(s): Helge Hoel, Sabir Giga and Brian Faragher Country: United Kingdom |
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Is the intervention sector specific? |
No |
Is the intervention usable with different enterprise sizes? |
Yes |
Is the intervention equally applicable to both genders? |
Yes |
Is the intervention based on theory? |
Yes |
Can the intervention approach be adapted/ tailored? |
Yes |
Does the intervention promote CSR and how? |
Yes, the intervention is directed at management, and directly focuses on increasing the commitment and responsibility of managers in addressing bullying at work. |
Does the intervention promote social dialogue and how? |
The intervention does not directly promote social dialogue. |
Overview (including risk assessment and law – legal requirements etc.):
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Implementation: Three different bullying training programmes were used: 1) Policy communication; training time 30 minutes, 2) Stress management training programme; training time 3 hours, and 3) Negative behaviour awareness training programme; training time 3 hours.
About 20-25 managers (and other employees) were invited to attend the respective training sessions in all organisations. During the project, the Bullying Risk Assessment Tool (BRAT) was developed to measure potential risk factors of bullying. The tool examines the following themes: organisational fairness, team conflict, role conflict, workload and leadership. |
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Practical applications: The management intervention was carried out in five organisations, demonstrating its practical applicability across a wide variety of occupational sectors and sizes of enterprises. Additionally, a trained psychologist is required to conduct the training programmes. |
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Innovative aspects:
This was the first academic anti-bullying intervention study which included different organisational contexts and different variations of interventions. Additionally, through this study the BRAT risk assessment tool was developed. |
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Evaluation (including process issues, outcomes and sustainability):
The interventions were evaluated by means of participant feedback at the end of the training sessions and six months afterwards, by pre and post intervention surveys and feedback from post-intervention focus groups. The time lag between the pre- and post- surveys was 6 months.
In order to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention programmes and validity of the risk-assessment tool, a comprehensive questionnaire comprising of questions related to experiences of bullying and negative behaviour, and potential risk-factors of bullying was used. The questionnaire survey allowed the comparison of pre- and post- training data.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the different training programmes, five study groups were formed: 1) control group, 2) policy communication group, that received only policy communication training, 3) policy and stress management group, that received both policy communication training and stress management training, 4) policy and negative behaviour awareness group, that received policy communication training and Negative Behaviour awareness training and 5) a final group that was trained with all three training programmes. Additionally, trainers' feedback was collected following each session. |
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Benefits (including cost effectiveness):
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References:
Hoel, H. & Giga, S. (2006). Destructive Interpersonal Conflict in the Workplace: The Effectiveness of Management Intervention, The University of Manchester,Manchester Business School. Retrieved from http://www.bohrf.org.uk/downloads/bullyrpt.pdf. |
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Comments:
A key success factor for the implementation of the intervention is stability, having a proper team to work with systematically and take responsibility, and management commitment. One key challenge was how to get some specific people to actively participate and, moreover, to attend the training sessions. |