The Solution

This is what NTEU suggests:

Appointment of a bullying officer

We see the appointment of a bullying officer whose sole job is to carry out an initial investigation of complaints and do workplace training as a key component of making improvements in this area.

The incongruence of HR practitioners’ roles as both management, and supposedly, employee representative strongly suggests the need for wider oversight of particular cases to ensure fairness to all parties. We suggest that the appointee be a qualified welfare practitioner whose professional obligations are sourced from beyond the organisation and might be expected to meet a higher standard of impartiality. Many respondents commented that some bullies were considered to be in positions of power, inviolate from criticism, and that HR would not, or could not, discipline senior staff, especially if they were ‘high performers’.

Although we recognise the limitations of a bullying officer being a University employee and potentially subject to ‘management capture’, publicly stating that the bullying officer was empowered to investigate any matter ‘without fear or favour’ would go a long way to changing the culture of bullying that we feel is, so far, unchecked. It is vital that the incumbent be able to concentrate solely on this job and not have it as an ‘add on’ to an existing position. NTEU representatives who have handled bullying cases can attest that each situation can be very complex and take time to resolve. In one case alone, more than 200 emails were sent/received before the situation was ‘resolved’ by the departure of the bullying target. Given the NTEU alone handled eighteen bullying cases and several cases of misconduct and performance management that contained elements of bullying in the past two years, the workload would easily support a fulltime position. We think this is the case even if management were to adopt more methodical, routine and accountable practices for dealing with cases. The costs of investigation alone could be greatly reduced.

Training and organisational development

Bullying investigators

The workload involved in dealing with bullying also suggests that the bullying officer is a facilitator, rather than the sole ‘go to’ person on bullying, and that their job would involve training, supporting and monitoring a number of strategically placed staff members who take on investigating and reporting roles. By broadening the number of staff at who have a nuanced understanding of bullying issues, a number of problems would be addressed – bringing bullying out into the open, raising the level of debate about the issue, encouraging proactive responses to complaints and perhaps even prevention of future problems.

Training for managers

In many instances, line managers, such as heads of school and research centre directors revealed to us a distinct lack of understanding about their obligations to operate within the dictates of university policy, mandated procedures outlined in the relevant enterprise agreement and generally accepted ethical practices. It is often assumed that overworked heads of school have read and understood the implications of every policy that affects their day‐to‐day obligations as managers. This is often not the case. Failure to recognise and adequately address the lack of managerial skills in this area only serves to extend the suffering of bullying targets, exacerbates workplace conflicts and, even in managerialist terms, potentially exposes the University to risks of expensive litigation and embarrassing public exposure. One respondent commented on the lack of self‐awareness among senior staff which was revealed when a manager chastised them about certain behaviours they were surprised to learn were unacceptable. It is also likely that there are any number of academic supervisors of casual tutors who are not well versed about their responsibilities, making training in this area an important focus of attention.

Recognition of the necessary contextual preconditions for a bullying‐free environment 

Placing reasonable limits on management workload expectations, in our view, will be crucial to weakening the culture of overwork that forms the basis upon which bullies are supported – almost any behaviour, it seems, can be justified or condoned as a necessary component of performance and workload management. Of course, we would argue that the opposite is true and that unchecked workload and performance expectations will more often underpin burnout, loss of motivation and high turnover. Even a colleague who largely supported a ‘high performance culture’ saw the dangers involved in unreasonable managerial demands. As they put it: