Managing workplace bullying and harassment in the Canadian work context: same old, same old
| Date | 29 May 2024 |
| Pages | 850-870 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-07-2023-0360 |
| Published date | 29 May 2024 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Ruth McKay,Aareni Uruthirapathy,Yulia Pankova |
Managing workplace bullying and
harassment in the Canadian work
context: same old, same old
Ruth McKay
Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Aareni Uruthirapathy
Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, and
Yulia Pankova
Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Abstract
Purpose –Canadian organizations started addressing workplace bullying and harassment in the 1990s.
Proactive organizations have written policies, trained managers and employees, created a complaint process
and conducted surveys. The objective of this study is to examine how effective these efforts by Canadian
organizations have been.
Design/methodology/approach –Data for this research were collected through a survey administered to
employees in Canadian workplaces (n51,000), including managers (n5461). A stratified sample was used to
facilitate a good representation of region, age, gender, sector and occupational level of working Canadians.
Findings –The survey indicated that some Canadian organizations continue to be negligent in addressing
workplace bullying and harassment and that the problem is particular to large organizations, young employees
and the private sector.
Research limitations/implications –The survey identifies that some Canadian organizations are still
negligent in addressing workplace bullying and harassment. The problem is particular to large organizations,
young employees and the public sector.
Practical implications –Senior and middle-level managers need to be aware that workplace bullying and
harassment continue to occur in their work environment. Further, given that managers at times defer
excessively to authority, thehuman resource (HR) department has a vital role in addressing workplace bullying
and harassment. HR needs to establish a reputation among employees that their complaints will be taken
seriously, and corrective actions will be taken.
Originality/value –This study examined the nature of workplace bullying andharassment in the Canadian
context. The study found that organizations are still neglecting issues of workplace bullying and harassment
and that there is a disconnect between what employees are experiencing and what senior management is
professing is the situation. This disconnect is a continued liability for organizations.
Keywords Workplace bullying, Harassment, Employee perspectives, Human resources management
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Workplace bullying and harassment can be disruptive, costly and, at times, sinister. Despite
more than 30 years of research on workplace bullying and harassment (Elias, 1986;Leymann,
1986;Sheehan, 1999), stronger legislation and more comprehensive organizational processes
to manage employee aggression, managers continue to seek solutions to aggressive employee
behaviours. Some employees, when they encounter failure in the process and negative
consequences to their health or career, take legal action which can be very costly to the
organization.
ER
46,4
850
Funding: This paper data was developed through a WorkSafeBC research program with funding from
the Alberta Ministry of Labour and Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance BoardResearch. The
funding number is RS2016-IG28.
Due to the nature of the research, due to [ethical/legal/commercial] supporting data is not available.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 20 July 2023
Revised 29 January 2024
13 April 2024
Accepted 15 April 2024
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 46 No. 4, 2024
pp. 850-870
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-07-2023-0360
A study by the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain estimated the cost of workplace
bullying and harassment for British organizations to be £2.281 billion annually. The NHS
identified the costs of workplace bullying and harassment as “staff health, sickness absence
costs to the employer, employee turnover, diminished productivity, sickness presenteeism,
compensation, litigation and industrial relations costs”(Kline and Lewis, 2019, p. 166). An
Australian study identified the financial costs of workplace bullying to include “absenteeism,
staff turnover, reduced productivity, workers’compensation claims, legal claims, grievance
procedures and the like”(p. 345) with an estimated cost to Australian industry as high as $36
billion Australian dollars annually (Hanley and O’Rourke, 2016). Also, in some professions,
such as nursing, workplace bullying and harassment are on the rise (Somani et al., 2022), thus
making these costs even higher. Further, the rates of workplace bullying found in research
vary considerably across countries, organizations and industries. “Frequency of bullying
depends very much on how it is measured”and “the general understanding of what
constitutes bullying”(Zapf et al., 2011, p. 76). For example, research by Butterworth et al.
(2013) found workplace bullying rates of 21% in academia in Australia, while in Canada,
Lipsett (2005) found a rate of 40% of teachers/instructors being bullied and 75% of employees
aware of co-workers being bullied. Research by Namie and Namie (2011) calculated the rate of
workplace bullying in the United States to be 39%. In nursing, Tr
epanier et al. (2012,2016)
calculated the rate to be 40%, while Houck and Colbert (2017) calculated the rate to range
from 26% to 77%. A study by Goh et al. (2022) determined that the rates vary within the
nursing profession depending on the country and area. What is clear is that despite the
variance in the rates, the prevalence is notably high in many cases.
Organizational leaders are still struggling with how to effectively deal with workplace
bullying and harassment, despite all the resources dedicated to their eradication. Some
studies have found that managers are the most common workplace bullies (McKay et al.,
2008;Zapf et al., 2011;Namie and Namie, 2011;Namie, 2021). Managers are enabled by the
authority they have over their personnel and, in some cases, at the most senior management
level, by the authority they have over the human resource (HR) department. Managers engage
in workplace bullying and harassment for a variety of reasons. First, it may be a situation
where managers are fixated on achieving higher output despite having limited employees
and other resources. Second, it could be that the manager is an ineffective leader subject to
time constraints or that they are simply cruel or calculating. Third, management style could
be the source of the problem. Aggressive management styles create an environment for
workplace bullying and harassment to flourish (Wright, 2020). Further, organizational
policies and procedures may be faulty. “There is a need for organisations to engage at a
deeper level, moving beyond the current individualistic understanding of bullying towards a
more nuanced understanding of how anti-bullying policies and procedures are themselves an
exercise in institutional power protecting and reinforcing dominant power structures,”
according to Hodgins et al. (2020, p. 266). It may also be that managers are tired of dealing
with bad employee behavior, and to get other work done, they sweep incidents under the rug
(Appelbaum et al., 2004). The outcome of aggressive behavior among employees, regardless
of their managerial status, is detrimental: others suffer, jobs are jeopardized, and the
organization’s effectiveness is diminished, potentially exposing it to liability if legal action is
taken by employees. Time and productivity are also lost.
The aim of this research was to examine how employees view their employer’s efforts to
manage workplace bullying and harassment. The findings were drawn from a survey of
1,000 Canadian employees, including 461 managers. The survey was conducted from
February through March 2018. There are three reasons this research is unique and provides a
contribution to the existing literature. First, there is a dearth of studies in Canada that have
looked at this phenomenon from the perspective of the employee. Second, the laws related to
workplace bullying and harassment, such as the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance
Employee
Relations: The
International
Journal
851
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