Ralph Fevre and Trevor Jones, School of
Social Sciences, Cardiff University
Duncan Lewis, Business School, Plymouth
University
Overview of presentation
 The research study
 Key findings
 Violence and injury
 Unreasonable treatment
 Incivility and disrespect
 Questions for discussion
The Research
• British Workplace Behaviour Survey 2008:
representative sample of 4000 British employees
• Case studies of four large employers
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Engineering
Logistics and communications
Financial services
NHS trust
• The ‘Negative Acts’ questionnaire
• Pilot work
Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ)
 Being treated unfairly compared to others in your workplace
 Your employer not following proper procedure
 Being given unmanageable workload or impossible deadlines
 Someone continually checking up on you when it is not necessary
 Having your opinions and views ignored
 Pressure from someone else to do work below your level of competence
 Someone withholding information which affects your performance
 Feeling threatened in any way while at work
 Intimidating behaviour from people at work
 Being shouted at or someone losing their temper with you
 Teasing, mocking, sarcasm or jokes which go too far
 Persistent criticism of your work or performance which is unfair
 Hints or signals from others that you should quit your job
 People excluding you from their group
 Being treated in a disrespectful or rude way
 Being insulted or having offensive remarks made about you
 Gossip and rumours being spread about you or having allegations made about you
 Being humiliated or ridiculed in connection to your work
 Actual physical violence at work
 Being injured in some way as a result of violence or aggression at work
Headline findings
 Three broad categories of ill-treatment at work; violence and
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injury; unreasonable treatment; incivility and disrespect
About 5% of workforce reported physical violence
Nearly 50% reported unreasonable treatment
About 40% had experienced incivility and disrespect
Employees with long-term health problems or disabilities;
LGBT employees were significantly more likely to experience
ill-treatment at work
Ethnicity: Looking at labour force as a whole, employees from
BME groups no more likely to experience ill-treatment
Age: Employees from younger groups more likely to report illtreatment
Gender: Men and women equally likely to experience illtreatment
Workplace violence
Percentage of respondents experiencing
violence and injury: specific items
3.8%
Injury in some way as
a result of violence or
aggression at work
4.9%
Actual physical
violence at work
5.1%
0%
1%
2%
3%
FTAW
4%
WBS
5%
6%
Workers at risk of violence
• Employees with a psychological or emotional condition
or a learning disability (7x more likely to experience
violence)
• Controlling for perpetrator types, LGBT employees 5x
more at risk of violence at work compared to
heterosexual respondents
• Those with managerial or supervisory duties, FT
workers and TU members
• Personal service occupations more at risk of violence
(also significant for injury)
Workplace violence: Who does it and
where?
 Perpetrators mostly clients/general public (75%)
 Higher in public sector and third sector (both 9%)
compared to private sector (3%)
 Highest rates of inter-worker violence in private
sector
 Health and Social Work – 3x average rate of
workplace violence
 Public administration and defence (including ‘bluelight’ services) – 2x average rate of workplace
violence
 Education was the third worst industry
 Highest rates in more ethnically diverse workplaces
and those with under 250 employees.
Unreasonable treatment
Perecengage of respondents experiencing
unreasonable treatment: specific items
14.8%
Being treated unfairly compared to others in
your workplace
21.3%
Your employer not following proper
procedures
14.9%
29.1%
33.1%
Being given an unmanageable workload or
impossible deadlines
8.8%
11.8%
Pressure from someone else not to claim
something which by right you are entitled to
17.5%
Someone continually checking up on you or
your work when it is not necessary
27.0%
Having your opinions and views ignored
11.9%
Pressure from someone else to do work
below your level of competence
14.2%
Someone withholding information which
affects your performance
0%
5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
FTAW
WBS
Which workers are most at risk of Unreasonable Treatment?
 Employees with impairments, including learning difficulties, or had a
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long-term health condition
Younger workers more at risk
Higher earners more likely to experience UT
Having less control over your work increased the risk of seven out of
eight types
Employees who said that the nature of their work had changed, and/or
the pace of their work had increased more likely to report UT
The biggest risk was working where you felt the needs of the
organisation always came before the needs of people, you had to
compromise your principles and people were not treated as individuals
(the FARE questions)
Unreasonable treatment: Who does it and where?
 Perpetrators: Just over two-thirds of incidents were
blamed on employers, managers or supervisors
 As with workplace violence, unreasonable
treatment more common in health and social
work, public administration and defence
 Unlike violence, it was also more common in the
utilities and financial intermediation
 More likely in a small-to-medium-sized workplace
which was part of a larger organisation with human
resource functions, union recognition and highlyskilled and well-paid workforces
Patterns of risk of unreasonable treatment
 Employees with ‘other’ disabilities or conditions, and those
with psychological conditions, were 3 times as likely to say
their employer had not followed proper procedures.
 Employees with impairments put at risk because of the
manner in which employers deal with sick leave, returning
to work after sickness absence, the management of ongoing
conditions and ‘reasonable adjustments’.
 White employees were more at risk of unreasonable
treatment because they were more likely to work in
workplaces that were hotspots.
 Even within those hotspots, White employees were more at
risk of their employer not following proper procedures.
Women who worked in hotspots were more likely than
men in those workplaces to be unfairly treated.
Incivility and disrespect
Percentage of respondents experiencing
incivility & disrespect: specific items
Fe e ling thre ate ne d in any way while at
work
10.9%
13.3%
Be ing shoute d at or some one losing the ir
te mpe r with you
23.6%
11.1%
Pe rsiste nt criticism of your work or
pe rformance which is unfair
11.5%
7.2%
7.8%
Pe ople e xcluding you from the ir group
22.3%
26.1%
Be ing insulte d or hav ing offe nsiv e
re marks made about you
14.7%
17.6%
10.5%
Be ing humiliate d or ridicule d in
conne ction with your work
7.6%
8.3%
0%
5%
10%
15% 20% 25% 30%
FTAW
WBS
Which workers are most at risk of incivility and
disrespect?
• Disabilities and LT health conditions are important risk factors for
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incivility and disrespect
The psychological/learning disabilities sub-group were most at risk
Roughly half of the types of incivility and disrespect experienced by
people with psychological problems or learning disabilities were of the
type which were more likely to come from clients, customers or the
general public. The other half were of the kind more likely to originate
with co-workers
People with physical impairments barely experienced more incivility or
disrespect than employees without disabilities. They did not experience
more insults, ridicule, humiliation or teasing; only more shouting
The risk of incivility and disrespect for LGBT employees was almost as
great as it was for employees with disabilities
Beyond protected groups, no clear indication of vulnerable, or
marginalised, workers being more at risk. Significant risk factors were
having less control over work, and finding the pace of work too intense.
Incivility and disrespect: Who does it and where?
 Employers, managers or supervisors were main perpetrators
(40%); clients/customers and the general public accounted for 27
per cent and co-workers for (22 per cent)
 Typical workplace has 50-249 employees and incivility and
disrespect goes up as size increases
 Incivility and disrespect also share some patterns with violence
and injury, for example both were more common in the public
sector. Hotspots in public administration and defence, health and
social work
 As with unreasonable treatment, incivility and disrespect is more
of a problem in highly visible organisations with HR functions,
union recognition and highly-skilled, well-paid workforces
Patterns of incivility and disrespect
 Bisexual employees significantly more likely to experience hints they should
quit, and intimidation, and in both cases the effects were massive
 Younger workers slightly more likely to experience gossip, rudeness, hints to
quit, persistent criticism, teasing and being shouted at
 Employees with Asian backgrounds much less likely to report insults,
rudeness, persistent criticism, shouting, intimidation and feeling threatened
 Looking only at employees in hotspots, BME employees 4x as likely as non-
BME employees to receive hints to quit their jobs, and no less likely to suffer
other types of ill-treatment than anyone else.
 Women who worked in hotspots more likely than men in those workplaces
to be insulted and intimidated
 Women 4x as likely as men in the hotspots to be insulted (but less likely than
men to be threatened).
Proportion of respondents across 3 factors
100%
80%
60%
3 or more items
1 or 2 items
40%
None
20%
0%
Unreasonable
Mgmt
Denigration &
Disrespect
Violence
DENIGRATION &
DISRESPECT
40%
UNREASONABLE
MANAGEMENT
47%
33%
5%
1%
VIOLENCE
6%
DENIGRATION &
DISRESPECT
13%
UNREASONABLE
MANAGEMENT
17%
9%
0.8%
VIOLENCE
1%
Questions for discussion 1# Violence and Injury
Do you have experience to share from sectors
like health and social care where the risks of
violence are greater?
2. Why are managers particularly at risk of
violence?
3. Violence continues to be a problem even in
workplaces where zero tolerance is professed.
What other solutions might there be?
4. How can we minimise the risks of violence
towards LGBT and, possibly, employees with
disabilities or health problems?
1.
Questions for discussion 2# Unreasonable Treatment.
1.
2.
3.
Some complaints about unreasonable treatment
might be interpreted as challenges to the right to
manage. How would you distinguish the two?
In your experience, is there a difference in the
treatment of people with psychological
problems and those with other types of chronic
illness?
Why are sickness absences, returning to work
processes and reasonable adjustments so
problematic?
Might your organisation be a hotspot for
unreasonable treatment?
What special problems do you associate
with these factors and how can they be
addressed?
4.
5.
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6.
Reduced job control
Change in the nature
Change in the pace of work
Super-intense work
How would your organisation measure up
against the FARE questions?
Questions for discussion 3# Incivility and
Disrespect
1.
2.
3.
Is incivility and disrespect directed at employees
with psychological problems or learning
disabilities a problem you recognise?
And what about the other equality strands,
particularly LGBT?
Do you have any good practice to recommend in
any of these areas? How do you avoid employees
perceiving any interventions as routine
compliance rather than something the
organisation really wishes to enact?
4. Might your organisation be a hotspot for incivility
and disrespect?
5. What special problems do you associate with these
factors and how can they be solved?
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Reduced job control
Change in the nature
Change in the pace of work
Super-intense work
6. How would your organisation measure up against
the FARE questions?
7. Why are mainstream organisations with HR
functions and policies on dignity at work and
equality and diversity faring no better on
measures of ill-treatment?
Prevention and intervention
 Conventional solutions do not work
 One-size does not fit all
 Managing sickness policies
 Managing the managers more generally: not only
responsible for ill-treatment dished out by others
but directly responsible for
 70 percent of unreasonable treatment
 40 percent or incivility and disrespect
Mandating civility and
respect
 Managers are responsible for most unreasonable
treatment and constitute the single most important
source of incivility and disrespect.
 Much of this has nothing to do with the character or
personalities of managers and everything to do with
their position in the organisation, and the employer’s
expectations of them.
 It is up to leaders in an organisation to mandate staff
with managerial responsibilities to treat everyone
fairly and with respect.
 This mandate requires specific expectations of the
management role.
 Managers must be required to fulfil these
expectations as part of reviews of their performance
and for promotion and progression.
 The requirement to promote fairness and respect
needs to be embedded in all managerial roles and,
on occasion, it may give them new ones.
 The prime example is the extension of the
requirement to include a management
responsibility for the behaviour from customers,
clients and the general public, to which employees
are exposed.
 Mandating fairness and respect means taking the
complaints procedure out of the hands of managers
but giving responsibility to an ill-trained employee
in a call-centre is not good enough.
 The managers who build the mandate into their
everyday practices should not be expected to add
this role alongside all the others.
 Expecting them to add the promoting fairness and
respect to their workloads, without a reduction in
the other demands made of them, would be selfdefeating.
 Much could be done by looking again at the
distribution of responsibilities between line
managers and HR professionals.
 Employers should not assume that all employees,
including those with managerial responsibilities, will
understand what fairness and respect mean if this is
not spelled out to them.
 Spelling out what fairness and respect mean will take
much more than those well-intentioned behaviour
expected of all employees.
 By creating an interactive environment that
demonstrates the subtle, and not so subtle aspects of
workplace ill-treatment, it is possible to test
knowledge, skills and understanding and to adjust
the manner of learning to the role of the participant.
 A major caveat here is that all employees should take
part.
 How might HR seek to influence the top
management of organizations to set the
behavioural tone for organizational culture?
 What practical steps might HR take in areas such
as job descriptions, person specifications as well as
in policy arenas to embrace the findings from this
report?
 What interventions do you see as necessary to
tackle manager behaviour?