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Bullying and harassment
The Code requires that an APS employee, when acting in the course of APS employment, must treat everyone with respect and courtesy, and without harassment (s. 13(3) of the Act).
In 2004–05, 17% of employees reported that they had been subjected to bullying or harassment in the previous 12 months, compared to 15% in 2003–04. In addition, 19 agencies reported that a total of 85 employees had been investigated for bullying or harassment with 49% found to have breached the Code. This was the third most frequent type of misconduct reported in 2004–05; however, it represents only 10% of employees investigated for misconduct.
It is disappointing that there has been a slight increase across the APS in the proportion of employees who report having been subjected to bullying or harassment in their workplace. There is no evidence that this increase can be attributed to particular agencies—where comparable data is available for 20 large agencies, only one agency showed a statistically significant increase8 in employees reporting being subjected to bullying and harassment over the last two years. It is not clear from the employee survey data whether the two percentage point increase is a result of increased incidence, or greater awareness, of the types of behaviour that are classed as bullying9 or harassment.10 The slight increase observed this year may also be partially affected by not including a question on the related issue of discrimination in the 2005 employee survey. It may be that this year some employees, in considering their responses to bullying and harassment, included behaviour that may have been reported as discrimination last year.
One response from the employee survey provides a perspective that may be relevant when considering this year’s increase.
I do not think this is a systemic issue in […] but there are certainly individuals at the middle management level who continue to bully and victimise. I think the agency has moved to the point where it has done a good job of changing the culture and raising the issues but it now needs to move to the next (more difficult phase) of actually weeding out individuals who have managed to remain below the radar during the first ‘cultural change and awareness raising’ type of approach.
employee survey
The Commission is developing a plain English guide on bullying and harassment, provisionally titled ‘Respect: A Good Practice Guide to Promoting a Culture Free from Bullying and Harassment in the APS’. It is anticipated that the guide will be released in 2006.
Additional analysis of the employee survey results on reports of bullying and harassment is included in Chapter 9, ‘Workplace Diversity’.
8 In this context the results were statistically significant at the 95% Confidence Interval (see Appendix 2 for more information on confidence intervals).
9 Bullying was defined in the employee survey as ‘repeated workplace behaviour that could reasonably be considered to be humiliating, intimidating, threatening or demeaning to an individual or group of individuals. It can be overt or covert’.
10 Harassment was defined in the employee survey as ‘offensive, belittling or threatening behaviour directed at an individual or group of APS employees. The behaviour is unwelcome, unsolicited, usually unreciprocated and usually but not always repeated.’
