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Organisational responses ameliorate the impact of workplace bullying on
employee engagement
Tony Cotton
University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia
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Organisational responses ameliorate the impact of workplace bullying on employee
engagement
Abstract
Employee engagement is a complex workplace phenomenon with well-documented positive outcomes for organisations however, its nature is less well understood. This study considers the role that trust plays in employee engagement by examining the positive impact on employee engagement that occurs when an organisation responds in an active way to employee-reported bullying. Bullying is a breach of trust in the workplace and has a negative impact on all aspects of engagement but when an agency responds to employee reported bullying this reinforces trust and has a positive impact on employee engagement, in some cases returning engagement levels to the same as those who do not report having experienced bullying.
Keywords: employee engagement, trust, conflict resolution, public sector motivation.
The concept of employee engagement is well known to both managers and human resource practitioners and has received substantial research attention in both the private and public sector, although research in the public sector has been more limited (Scottish Executive, 2007). High levels of employee engagement have positive outcomes for an organisation (Harter, Schmidt, &
Killham, 2003) and have been shown to be related to, among other things, sick leave use and intention to leave (Australian Public Service Commission, 2011); there are real organisational benefits to maintaining employee engagement.
The search for employee engagement has become something of a quest for both managers and human resource practitioners alike with some seeing an increase in employee engagement as an end unto itself (Macey & Schneider, 2008). But while most seek those conditions that improve employee engagement, less attention has been paid to those characteristics of the workplace that might reduce employee engagement; one workplace characteristic that is widely regarded as Page 3 of 13 ANZAM 2012
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having a negative impact on employees is workplace bullying (Bowling & Beehr, 2006;
Berthelsen, Skogstad, Lau, & Einarsen, 2011).
Bullying is a difficult and highly damaging workplace behaviour that, among other things,
fundamentally damages trust (Georgakopoulos, Wilkin, & Kent, 2011, Mckay & Fratzl, 2011) in
the workplace. It has been hypothesised that trust plays a key role in employee engagement
(Australian Public Service Commission, 2011a) through the psychological contract that exists
between an employee and their work (Coyle-Shapiro & Kessler, 2003; Rousseau, 1995). Trust is
fundamental to the psychological contract (Atkinson, 2007; Robinson, 1996) and there are broad
range of negative consequences that occur as a result of a breach of the psychological contract
(Rousseau, 1995), including the impact that a breach of the psychological contract has on
employee engagement (Scottish Executive, 2007). So, if trust is a fundamental part of employee
engagement, and bullying affects trust, then bullying will have a profound effect on employee
engagement.
If bullying affects employee engagement because of its effect on trust in the workplace, can an
organisation recover trust, once an employee has been bullied? Moreover, what workplace
responses to bullying can an organisation employ that will not only rebuild trust but also recover
employee engagement?
Common organisational responses to bullying fall into two categories; those that attempt to
prevent the behaviour and are those that provide a response once bullying has occurred.
Preventative responses often focus on the importance of “...treating workmates with dignity and ANZAM 2012 Page 4 of 13
3 respect...” and often include things like promoting a positive workplace culture, commitment from senior managers, communication and consultation, and the development of organisational policies and procedures (Mikkelsen, Hogh, & Puggaard, 2011). While these approaches meet most accepted standards of good practice in workplace behaviour, the efficacy of preventative strategies for bullying are yet to be proved conclusively. One study has shown, at best, equivocal results for the efficacy of programs to prevent bullying behaviour in schools
(Ferguson, Miguel, Kilburn, & Sanchez, 2007). As far as workplace programs are concerned, the Australian Public Service has a comprehensive suite of strategies designed to prevent, or reduce, workplace bullying and harassment (Comcare, 2009b, 2009c) yet rates of bullying behaviour experienced by APS employees have remained largely unchanged over the past ten years (Australian Public Service Commission, 2011b).
Organisational responses to occurrences of workplace bullying are typically broad and include, investigating whether bullying should be recognised within existing organisational policies
(Kieseker & Marchant, 1999), developing effective reporting mechanisms, and investigating whether or not the workplace culture is supportive of bullying or not (Salin, 2009). There can be a range of motivations for the development of such responses, including some that are clearly organizationally focused, e.g., to reduce the costs associated with bullying (Giga, Hoel, & Lewis,
2008; Hoel, Sparks, & Cooper, 2002), but organisational responses to bullying can also be seen as the organisation taking active steps to address the “wrong” that has been done and could be considered an attempt to restore the breach of trust that has been occasioned, although repairing trust has been shown to be difficult (Pate, Morgan-Thomas, & Beaumont, 2012).
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Bullying is typically committed by an individual in the workplace, usually a colleague or
supervisor (see, for example, Meglich, Faley, & Dubois, 2012), but Rhodes, Pullen, Vickers,
Clegg, & Pitsis (2010) argue that while workplaces can’t necessarily be held responsible for the
acts of individuals, the workplace in which the bullying occurs has an ethical obligation to
address bullying. It follows therefore, that by responding to a report of workplace bullying the
organisation meets these obligations and might contribute to rebuilding trust in the workplace,
and, if trust has an impact on employee engagement, then employees who believe that their
workplace has responded bullying should show higher levels of employee engagement.
Hypothesis: Employees who believe that their workplace has responded to their report of
bullying will have higher levels of employee engagement than employees who do not believe
their workplace has responded.
METHOD
As part of its statutory obligation to provide to the Australian Parliament each year a State of the Service
Report (SoSR), the Australian Public Service Commission administers a survey to a sample of individuals
employed under the Australian Public Service Act (1999) in agencies with at least 100 employees. The
data described in this paper was taken from the 2011 State of the Service Employee survey.
Research Design
A quasi-experimental design was used with individuals assigned to comparison groups
based on their responses to the questions regarding whether action had been taken as a result of
them reporting being bullied. Mean engagement levels were compared across the groups of ANZAM 2012 Page 6 of 13
5 respondents using one-way analysis of variance and effect sizes were estimated using Cohen’s f
(Cohen, 1992).
A subsequent analysis then compared engagement levels of those who reported action being
“fully” taken with those who did not report experiencing bullying at all in the previous twelve months. T-tests were used to test comparisons of average engagement levels for these groups of employees; Cohen’s D was used to estimate the effect sizes for these comparisons.
Participants
In 2011 the SoS Employee Survey was administered to 17,326 employees who were selected as a stratified random sample from the 164, 832 individuals employed by APS agencies with more than 100 employees. A total of 10,222 responded, giving a response rate of 59%. The survey respondents were representative of the APS workforce; 30.4% were employed at the management level and 44.54% of respondents were male.
Among a broad range of factual and opinion items, respondents were asked whether they had been subject to bullying or harassment in the previous twelve months; of the 9,525 who responded to this item, a total of 1,683 or 17.7% responded in the affirmative. These respondents were asked, “Did you report the bullying?” and a total of 663 (or 39.4%) responded in the affirmative. These respondents were then asked whether any action was taken as a result of them reporting the bullying; 77 (11.7%) indicated that action was “fully” taken, 338 (51.1%) indicated that action was taken to some extent, 191 (28.9%) indicted that no action was taken and 55 Page 7 of 13 ANZAM 2012
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(8.3%) were not sure.
Measures
Employee engagement is measured in the APS Employee Survey via the APS Employee
Engagement Model (Australian Public Service Commission, 2011); this measures four elements
of employee engagement on a 0-10 point standardised scale score. The elements of engagement
measured in the APS Employee Engagement Model are:
• Job engagement – job challenge and job identification.
• Team engagement – job recognition and team identification.
• Supervisor engagement – supervisor behaviour and work conditions.
• Agency engagement – agency behaviour, development, agency leadership, and agency
identification.
RESULTS
The results for ANOVAs comparing mean engagement scores for groups based on what form of
action was taken as a result of them reporting bullying are shown in Table 1 below. This shows
that statistically significant differences occurred for each comparison and the effect sizes could
be considered medium in all cases (Cohen, 1992). Post-hoc comparisons showed that those who
reported that action was “fully” taken as a result of them reporting bullying behaviour had
significantly higher engagement scores than those who reported no action being taken or who
were unsure whether action was taken. For supervisor and agency engagement, respondents who
reported that action had been “fully” taken had significantly higher levels than those who
reported that action was taken “to some extent”. ANZAM 2012 Page 8 of 13
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Insert Table 1 here.
The subsequent analysis compared the engagement scores of those who experienced action being
“fully” taken as a result of them reporting having been bullied with those who reported not having experienced bullying behaviour at all in the previous twelve months. These results show that both groups had equal levels of job, supervisor, and agency engagement and that only team engagement levels were significantly lower for those who had been bullied and those who had not experienced bullying behaviour; these data are shown in Table 2.
Insert Table 2 here.
DISCUSSION
Employee engagement has been conceptualised as the relationship that an employee has with a number of aspects of their work including their job, their team, the supervisor for whom they work and the organisation in which they work. It has been previously hypothesised that trust is fundamental to employee engagement and that if this trust is breached, for example by being bullied, this will have a negative and substantial effect on all aspects of engagement. It was hypothesised in this paper, that if the organisation actively responds to an employee who has been bullied, this will contribute to repairing this trust and therefore will have a positive effect on employee engagement.
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The results presented above support the hypothesis that when an organisation takes some action
in response to an employee reporting bullying then these employees will show higher levels of
engagement than when no action is taken and therefore supports the notion that trust plays an
important role in employee engagement. The analyses also show that this effect is profound, and
employees who report that action was taken by their organisation have engagement levels similar
to employees who have not been bullied; this result occurs irrespective of the employee’s level’s
of satisfaction with the outcomes of the action. These results show very clearly that an active
response to a breach of trust leads to substantial gains in employee engagement, reinforcing the
link between trust and employee engagement.
Providing some form of organisational response to workplace bullying is a requirement in most
modern workplaces, particularly in the APS. The results presented here support the notion that
as well as meeting compliance and regulatory requirements, the provision of an organisational
response to workplace bullying has a positive impact on employee engagement. Given the
known relationship between employee engagement and organisational outcomes, it therefore
follows that implementing an effective organisational response to workplace bullying will have
positive organisational outcomes as well.
These results have shown that any organisational response to bullying will have a positive effect
on employee engagement without specifying the type of action taken by the organisation in
response to bullying. Given the broad range of possible organisational responses to bullying,
there is scope for research investigating whether different responses contribute differentially in
terms of their effect on trust and, subsequently, on employee engagement. ANZAM 2012 Page 10 of 13
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Most research on employee engagement seeks to identify those workplace conditions that improve engagement; few look at what diminishes it. This study has shown the negative effects on employee engagement of workplace bullying and the role that an active response by the workplace can play in improving employee engagement through the mechanism of trust. By understanding the nature of employee engagement better, i.e., the role that trust plays in engagement, organisations can better target their efforts to influence employee engagement and real the organisational benefits that can accrue from improving engagement.
This study has examined the nature of the role trust plays in employee engagement by examining the impact an organisational response to a breach of trust, in this case being bullied, can have on employee engagement. The hypothesis that employees who believe their workplace has responded to their report of bullying would have higher engagement levels than those who do not believe this to be the case has been supported. The importance of the role that trust plays in employee engagement is further supported by the finding that employees who believe that some action has been taken by the agency in response to them being bullied have similar levels of engagement as employees who have not been bullied. Page 11 of 13 ANZAM 2012
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Table 1: ANOVA Results
Engagement Element Job Team Supervisor Agency Action taken? Yes, fully 6.7 6.4 6.97 6.29 Yes, to some extent 5.96 5.71 5.91 5.43 Not sure 5.16 4.66 4.95 5.06 No 5.09 5.01 4.95 4.68 Statistics F 12.38** 12.48** 17.04** 13.28** Degrees of freedom 3 3 3 3 Cohen’s f 0.24 0.25 0.29 0.28 Sample size 629 624 632 529 ** p < 0.01
Table 2: T-test results
Engagement Element Job Team Supervisor Agency Action taken 6.70 6.40 6.97 6.29 Not Bullied 6.72 6.92 7.18 6.14 t-value 0.10 2.79** 1.02 -0.78 ** p < 0.01