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Workplace bullying a risk for permanent employees

Workplace bullying a risk for permanent employees G lobally, work has been identified as a social determinant of health, with lower health outcomes often associated with more ‘precarious’ employment arrangements, typified by the absence of a permanent job. Among the possible mechanisms through which employment arrangements could harm health, most research attention has focused on psycho‐social hazards such as job security or job strain. Differential exposure to bullying is another plausible link between employment arrangements and health. There is growing evidence of the health impacts of bullying, and its association with unequal power relationships suggests that the incidence of bullying may vary systematically with contract type. In Australia, the largest group of precarious workers are employed on casual contracts. There is little data on the associations between casual work and health, and debate is still centred on the relative quality of casual work. However, given that casual workers are easier to dismiss, they could be seen as more vulnerable to abuse from both supervisors and fellow workers. High‐profile media cases (e.g. Suicide victim was bullied in Melbourne cafe workplace , The Australian , 6 February 2010) have no doubt reinforced notions of the perceived vulnerability of casual employees. The value of population‐level surveys to assess prevalence of workplace phenomena with high external validity is widely recognised. However, unlike sexual harassment in the workplace, for which there were national surveys repeated in 2003 and 2008, there have been no comparable national data of the prevalence of workplace bullying. Most research on workplace bullying in Australia has been conducted at the organisational, occupational or sector level. We conducted a population‐based survey to test hypotheses related to bullying and employment arrangements, specifically that workplace bullying is more prevalent in casual than in permanent employment. Methods Study design and sample Questions on bullying and other working conditions were included as a supplement to a Health Monitor survey in 2009, a CATI (computer‐assisted telephone interview) survey administered by the South Australian Department of Health. A letter introducing the survey was sent to households randomly selected from the telephone directory. In each household, the last person over 18 years old to have a birthday was surveyed. Survey data were weighted to represent the South Australian population by age, sex, metropolitan/regional status and the probability of selection within a household. From an initial sample of 4,500 households, and 3,103 in‐frame contacts, 1,853 households were surveyed with a response rate of 59.7%. Measures The experience of bullying was surveyed with all participants who self‐reported as currently employed (n=1,016). After the following definition: “Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed toward an employee or group of employees” participants were asked “Have you personally experienced bullying in your current job?” and “Have you witnessed bullying in your current job?”. Where participants had more than one job, they were asked to report the hazard only for their main job, i.e. the one in which they worked the most hours. ‘Unsure’ responses (1.4%) were coded as missing. Length of tenure in current main job and working hours (usual number of hours per week in current main job) were also asked of respondents. We acknowledge that casual workers in particular are more likely to hold multiple jobs and work more irregular hours, which complicates measurement of exposure. However, in the interests of parsimony, we confined our analysis to the current main job, which for 87.8% of participants and 80.3% of casual workers was their only one. Employed participants were asked to identify themselves into one of eight mutually exclusive forms of employment, integrating contract type and part‐time status. For ease of comparison and because working hours were also utilised in the analysis, four commonly distinguished categories were used: permanent, casual, fixed‐term employees and the self‐employed. Age, sex, marital status, education and occupational skill level (eight categories, single‐digit level of ANZSCO first edition) were also recorded. As a proxy for socioeconomic status, participants were asked ‘How would you say you are managing financially at the moment?’ with responses coded as either ‘Living very comfortably’, ‘Living quite comfortably’, ‘Getting by’, ‘Finding it quite difficult’ or ‘Finding it very difficult’. The final category only made up 1.6% of the data and so was collapsed into the penultimate one. Analysis Categorical variables were summarised as frequencies and continuous variables as means. Bivariate associations of the experience of bullying with categorical variables were tested using Pearson chi square. Independent t‐tests were used to determine whether working hours or job tenure differed between those who had/had not reported bullying. Multivariate logistic regression was used to model the probability of experiencing bullying in relation to employment arrangement, working hours, years in job, age, sex, education, occupational skill level, marital status and managing financially. Variables were entered as a single block. Data were analysed in SPSS (IBM, Chicago, IL). Results Overall, 15.2% (174) respondents reported that they had experienced bullying in their current job. Table 1 outlines the bivariate relationships of workplace bullying from the survey. Bullying was markedly more prevalent in permanent employment arrangements (19.6%) than for casual workers (7.7%) or the self‐employed (3.2%), with fixed‐term workers reporting intermediate prevalence (12.2%). 1 Bivariate relationships with employment arrangement and demographics. Workplace bullying reported N (row %) Total N (row) p ‐value (Pearson chi‐square) Employment arrangement (n=1,141) 0.000 Permanent 150 (19.6%) 765 Casual 14 (7.7%) 181 Fixed‐term 5 (12.2%) 41 Self‐employed 5 (3.2%) 154 Sex (n=1,142) 0.251 Male 84 (14.1%) 597 Female 90 (16.5%) 545 Marital status (n=1,141) 0.001 Married / de facto 124 (12.2%) 848 Separated / divorced / widowed 23 (28.8%) 70 Never married 26 (14.6%) 213 Educational level (n=1,140) 0.029 Secondary or less 59 (14.1%) 417 Vocational 46 (12.4%) 370 University 68 (19.3%) 353 Managing financially (n=1,139) 0.894 Living very comfortably 27 (16.9%) 160 Living quite comfortably 85 (14.6%) 582 Getting by 49 (14.8%) 330 Finding it quite/very difficult 11 (16.4%) 67 Occupational skill level (n=1,141) 0.019 Manager 28 (15.2%) 184 Professional 58 (19.4%) 299 Technician / trades worker 14 (12.3%) 114 Community / personal service worker 9 (8.0%) 113 Clerical / administrative worker 36 (20.2%) 178 Sales worker 9 (10.1%) 89 Machinery operator / driver 4 (8.9%) 45 Labourer 15 (12.6%) 119 The experience of bullying was not significantly associated ( p <0.05) with sex or how respondents were managing financially ( Table 1 ). However, prevalence did vary significantly among occupational skill levels (highest for clerical/administrative and professional levels), educational level (highest for those with university education) and marital status (highest for those separated, divorced or widowed). In t ‐tests, neither age nor job tenure were significantly different between groups with or without experience of bullying, however current working hours were greater ( p =0.016) for those who had reported bullying (mean = 38.64 hours per week) than those who had not (36.17). Following adjustment in regression modelling, employment arrangement remained significantly associated with workplace bullying ( Table 2 ). Compared to permanent employees, casual workers had lower odds of reporting bullying, as did the self‐employed. Fixed‐term employees’ risk was equivalent to that of permanent employees. Marital status also remained a significant correlate. The odds of reporting bullying for respondents who were separated, divorced or widowed were more than two‐fold those of respondents who were either married or de facto (the reference category) or never married. No other variables were significant in the model. 2 Logistic regression modelling in relation to employment arrangement and other variables. Adjusted odds ratios are shown for significant variables ( p ‐value <0.05), and for age and sex (n = 999). Odds ratio 95% CI Employment arrangement Permanent Reference Casual 0.41 0.20 – 0.82 Fixed term 0.55 0.19 – 1.53 Self‐employed 0.12 0.05 – 0.33 Age 1.01 0.99 – 1.030 Sex Female Reference Male 1.11 0.75 – 1.64 Marital status Married/defacto Reference Separated/divorced/widowed 2.26 1.28 – 3.99 Never married 1.06 0.61 – 1.82 Discussion A higher prevalence of workplace bullying was reported by permanent and fixed‐term employees than casual employees and the self‐employed in this study. Other forms of workplace harassment have previously been associated with precarious employment so our findings were surprising. We suggest three plausible, non‐mutually exclusive explanations for this finding: 1 Permanent and (to a lesser extent) fixed‐term employees are more likely to remain in their job in spite of bullying to retain the benefits of their contract, whereas casual workers are more likely to leave for employment elsewhere. 2 Permanent and fixed‐term employees are more likely to report bullying when surveyed as they are better equipped to recognise bullying behaviours as a result of health promotion and union endeavours in their workplaces. 3 Bullying is more institutionalised in workplaces dominated by permanent/fixed‐term employees, such as the public sector. These tend to have more hierarchical power structures. We were unable to assess the relative validity of these explanations from our data, and few studies explicitly assess the relationship between contract type and bullying. A recent Norwegian study found a relationship similar to ours and proposed that explanation 1 was responsible, but that employee volition moderated the relationship; a large Finnish study found no association. In Australia, a Queensland study reported that workplace bullying was reported to a working women's advocacy organisation more frequently by permanent employees and attributed this to our explanation 2. Campbell and Chalmers’ explanation seems most likely to explain our findings; they found that for part‐time work in the retail industry (in which the largest proportion of casual employees work), permanency is not necessarily synonymous with better conditions. The exposure of fixed‐term workers to workplace bullying, along with unwanted sexual advances and job insecurity highlight this group of workers as worthy of further investigation. The overall 15.2% prevalence of bullying found in our study falls within the range outlined in reviews, and the more recent working population surveys from Europe. Similarly, those surveys found no consistent sex or age difference in the prevalence of bullying. Given the level of exposure identified in this study, we would echo calls for workplace aggression to be the subject of legislation, as are other forms of harassment. Separated, divorced or widowed workers reported greater exposure to bullying in our study. The relative timing of the bullying and relationship events is unknown. This obfuscates an explanation of this link, however it does suggest that those formerly partnered but living alone may be vulnerable to pressures additional to those usually noted. We note the following additional limitations to our study: the intensity of bullying was not measured, so all reports were assumed to be equally weighted; the bullying event may have occurred at any time in the job tenure, whereas other work and demographic characteristics were only measured at the time of survey. Bullying risk may vary among industry groupings, however industry data for comparison were not collected in this study. In conclusion, a population representative survey of South Australian workers revealed that the prevalence of self‐reported bullying in permanent employment was more than twice that in casual employment, contrary to expectations. This finding challenges the notion that working conditions are better in permanent employment and highlights the importance of looking beyond dichotomies of permanent versus casual to the underlying employment conditions and health risks. Acknowledgements The authors thank the research participants of this study, which was funded by the National Health & Medical Research Council (grant #375196). http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health Wiley

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References (22)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2012 The Authors. ANZJPH © 2012 Public Health Association of Australia
ISSN
1326-0200
eISSN
1753-6405
DOI
10.1111/j.1753-6405.2011.00780.x
pmid
22487344
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

G lobally, work has been identified as a social determinant of health, with lower health outcomes often associated with more ‘precarious’ employment arrangements, typified by the absence of a permanent job. Among the possible mechanisms through which employment arrangements could harm health, most research attention has focused on psycho‐social hazards such as job security or job strain. Differential exposure to bullying is another plausible link between employment arrangements and health. There is growing evidence of the health impacts of bullying, and its association with unequal power relationships suggests that the incidence of bullying may vary systematically with contract type. In Australia, the largest group of precarious workers are employed on casual contracts. There is little data on the associations between casual work and health, and debate is still centred on the relative quality of casual work. However, given that casual workers are easier to dismiss, they could be seen as more vulnerable to abuse from both supervisors and fellow workers. High‐profile media cases (e.g. Suicide victim was bullied in Melbourne cafe workplace , The Australian , 6 February 2010) have no doubt reinforced notions of the perceived vulnerability of casual employees. The value of population‐level surveys to assess prevalence of workplace phenomena with high external validity is widely recognised. However, unlike sexual harassment in the workplace, for which there were national surveys repeated in 2003 and 2008, there have been no comparable national data of the prevalence of workplace bullying. Most research on workplace bullying in Australia has been conducted at the organisational, occupational or sector level. We conducted a population‐based survey to test hypotheses related to bullying and employment arrangements, specifically that workplace bullying is more prevalent in casual than in permanent employment. Methods Study design and sample Questions on bullying and other working conditions were included as a supplement to a Health Monitor survey in 2009, a CATI (computer‐assisted telephone interview) survey administered by the South Australian Department of Health. A letter introducing the survey was sent to households randomly selected from the telephone directory. In each household, the last person over 18 years old to have a birthday was surveyed. Survey data were weighted to represent the South Australian population by age, sex, metropolitan/regional status and the probability of selection within a household. From an initial sample of 4,500 households, and 3,103 in‐frame contacts, 1,853 households were surveyed with a response rate of 59.7%. Measures The experience of bullying was surveyed with all participants who self‐reported as currently employed (n=1,016). After the following definition: “Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed toward an employee or group of employees” participants were asked “Have you personally experienced bullying in your current job?” and “Have you witnessed bullying in your current job?”. Where participants had more than one job, they were asked to report the hazard only for their main job, i.e. the one in which they worked the most hours. ‘Unsure’ responses (1.4%) were coded as missing. Length of tenure in current main job and working hours (usual number of hours per week in current main job) were also asked of respondents. We acknowledge that casual workers in particular are more likely to hold multiple jobs and work more irregular hours, which complicates measurement of exposure. However, in the interests of parsimony, we confined our analysis to the current main job, which for 87.8% of participants and 80.3% of casual workers was their only one. Employed participants were asked to identify themselves into one of eight mutually exclusive forms of employment, integrating contract type and part‐time status. For ease of comparison and because working hours were also utilised in the analysis, four commonly distinguished categories were used: permanent, casual, fixed‐term employees and the self‐employed. Age, sex, marital status, education and occupational skill level (eight categories, single‐digit level of ANZSCO first edition) were also recorded. As a proxy for socioeconomic status, participants were asked ‘How would you say you are managing financially at the moment?’ with responses coded as either ‘Living very comfortably’, ‘Living quite comfortably’, ‘Getting by’, ‘Finding it quite difficult’ or ‘Finding it very difficult’. The final category only made up 1.6% of the data and so was collapsed into the penultimate one. Analysis Categorical variables were summarised as frequencies and continuous variables as means. Bivariate associations of the experience of bullying with categorical variables were tested using Pearson chi square. Independent t‐tests were used to determine whether working hours or job tenure differed between those who had/had not reported bullying. Multivariate logistic regression was used to model the probability of experiencing bullying in relation to employment arrangement, working hours, years in job, age, sex, education, occupational skill level, marital status and managing financially. Variables were entered as a single block. Data were analysed in SPSS (IBM, Chicago, IL). Results Overall, 15.2% (174) respondents reported that they had experienced bullying in their current job. Table 1 outlines the bivariate relationships of workplace bullying from the survey. Bullying was markedly more prevalent in permanent employment arrangements (19.6%) than for casual workers (7.7%) or the self‐employed (3.2%), with fixed‐term workers reporting intermediate prevalence (12.2%). 1 Bivariate relationships with employment arrangement and demographics. Workplace bullying reported N (row %) Total N (row) p ‐value (Pearson chi‐square) Employment arrangement (n=1,141) 0.000 Permanent 150 (19.6%) 765 Casual 14 (7.7%) 181 Fixed‐term 5 (12.2%) 41 Self‐employed 5 (3.2%) 154 Sex (n=1,142) 0.251 Male 84 (14.1%) 597 Female 90 (16.5%) 545 Marital status (n=1,141) 0.001 Married / de facto 124 (12.2%) 848 Separated / divorced / widowed 23 (28.8%) 70 Never married 26 (14.6%) 213 Educational level (n=1,140) 0.029 Secondary or less 59 (14.1%) 417 Vocational 46 (12.4%) 370 University 68 (19.3%) 353 Managing financially (n=1,139) 0.894 Living very comfortably 27 (16.9%) 160 Living quite comfortably 85 (14.6%) 582 Getting by 49 (14.8%) 330 Finding it quite/very difficult 11 (16.4%) 67 Occupational skill level (n=1,141) 0.019 Manager 28 (15.2%) 184 Professional 58 (19.4%) 299 Technician / trades worker 14 (12.3%) 114 Community / personal service worker 9 (8.0%) 113 Clerical / administrative worker 36 (20.2%) 178 Sales worker 9 (10.1%) 89 Machinery operator / driver 4 (8.9%) 45 Labourer 15 (12.6%) 119 The experience of bullying was not significantly associated ( p <0.05) with sex or how respondents were managing financially ( Table 1 ). However, prevalence did vary significantly among occupational skill levels (highest for clerical/administrative and professional levels), educational level (highest for those with university education) and marital status (highest for those separated, divorced or widowed). In t ‐tests, neither age nor job tenure were significantly different between groups with or without experience of bullying, however current working hours were greater ( p =0.016) for those who had reported bullying (mean = 38.64 hours per week) than those who had not (36.17). Following adjustment in regression modelling, employment arrangement remained significantly associated with workplace bullying ( Table 2 ). Compared to permanent employees, casual workers had lower odds of reporting bullying, as did the self‐employed. Fixed‐term employees’ risk was equivalent to that of permanent employees. Marital status also remained a significant correlate. The odds of reporting bullying for respondents who were separated, divorced or widowed were more than two‐fold those of respondents who were either married or de facto (the reference category) or never married. No other variables were significant in the model. 2 Logistic regression modelling in relation to employment arrangement and other variables. Adjusted odds ratios are shown for significant variables ( p ‐value <0.05), and for age and sex (n = 999). Odds ratio 95% CI Employment arrangement Permanent Reference Casual 0.41 0.20 – 0.82 Fixed term 0.55 0.19 – 1.53 Self‐employed 0.12 0.05 – 0.33 Age 1.01 0.99 – 1.030 Sex Female Reference Male 1.11 0.75 – 1.64 Marital status Married/defacto Reference Separated/divorced/widowed 2.26 1.28 – 3.99 Never married 1.06 0.61 – 1.82 Discussion A higher prevalence of workplace bullying was reported by permanent and fixed‐term employees than casual employees and the self‐employed in this study. Other forms of workplace harassment have previously been associated with precarious employment so our findings were surprising. We suggest three plausible, non‐mutually exclusive explanations for this finding: 1 Permanent and (to a lesser extent) fixed‐term employees are more likely to remain in their job in spite of bullying to retain the benefits of their contract, whereas casual workers are more likely to leave for employment elsewhere. 2 Permanent and fixed‐term employees are more likely to report bullying when surveyed as they are better equipped to recognise bullying behaviours as a result of health promotion and union endeavours in their workplaces. 3 Bullying is more institutionalised in workplaces dominated by permanent/fixed‐term employees, such as the public sector. These tend to have more hierarchical power structures. We were unable to assess the relative validity of these explanations from our data, and few studies explicitly assess the relationship between contract type and bullying. A recent Norwegian study found a relationship similar to ours and proposed that explanation 1 was responsible, but that employee volition moderated the relationship; a large Finnish study found no association. In Australia, a Queensland study reported that workplace bullying was reported to a working women's advocacy organisation more frequently by permanent employees and attributed this to our explanation 2. Campbell and Chalmers’ explanation seems most likely to explain our findings; they found that for part‐time work in the retail industry (in which the largest proportion of casual employees work), permanency is not necessarily synonymous with better conditions. The exposure of fixed‐term workers to workplace bullying, along with unwanted sexual advances and job insecurity highlight this group of workers as worthy of further investigation. The overall 15.2% prevalence of bullying found in our study falls within the range outlined in reviews, and the more recent working population surveys from Europe. Similarly, those surveys found no consistent sex or age difference in the prevalence of bullying. Given the level of exposure identified in this study, we would echo calls for workplace aggression to be the subject of legislation, as are other forms of harassment. Separated, divorced or widowed workers reported greater exposure to bullying in our study. The relative timing of the bullying and relationship events is unknown. This obfuscates an explanation of this link, however it does suggest that those formerly partnered but living alone may be vulnerable to pressures additional to those usually noted. We note the following additional limitations to our study: the intensity of bullying was not measured, so all reports were assumed to be equally weighted; the bullying event may have occurred at any time in the job tenure, whereas other work and demographic characteristics were only measured at the time of survey. Bullying risk may vary among industry groupings, however industry data for comparison were not collected in this study. In conclusion, a population representative survey of South Australian workers revealed that the prevalence of self‐reported bullying in permanent employment was more than twice that in casual employment, contrary to expectations. This finding challenges the notion that working conditions are better in permanent employment and highlights the importance of looking beyond dichotomies of permanent versus casual to the underlying employment conditions and health risks. Acknowledgements The authors thank the research participants of this study, which was funded by the National Health & Medical Research Council (grant #375196).

Journal

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public HealthWiley

Published: Apr 1, 2012

There are no references for this article.