Long-term consequences of workplace bullying on sickness absence

an article by Tine L. Mundbjerg Eriksen (Aarhus University, Denmark), Annie Hogh (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Åse Marie Hansen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark and The National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark) published in Labour Economics Volume 43 (December 2016)

Highlights

• Gender does not explain exposure to bullying once we include workplace fixed effects.
• We find that, bullying only increases women's long-term sickness absence.
• The findings are robust to personality and work environment characteristics.
• We analyze explanations such as health, turnover, and labor force participation.
• Results indicate that women's health deteriorates, while men leave the labor force.

Abstract

Bullying in workplaces is a problem thought to harm individual productivity. This paper investigates whether being exposed to bullying in the workplace increases long-term sickness absence. We analyze employees from a selection of workplaces from The Bullying Cohort Study conducted in Denmark in 2006.

The Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised was used to avoid bias related to self-labeling as being bullied. We account for important confounders, such as historical information on sickness absence and mental health, obtained through rich registry data. Our results show that gender does not significantly explain exposure to bullying and that exposure to bullying is associated with negative immediate self-reported health for both genders.

We also find, however, that only bullied females have higher, persistent increases in long-term sickness absence and adverse long-term health. This suggests that men and women have different coping strategies. We investigate plausible explanations for this and find that the differences cannot be explained by, for example, turnover or lack of employment.

Although insignificant, our results nonetheless indicate that men are twice as likely to leave the labor force immediately after exposure to bullying.

JEL classification: J15, J24, J81

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Work preferences after 50

a report from Eurofound


People aged 50+ have a wealth of experience and contribute to society in numerous ways, including paid work, informal care and volunteering. However, particularly in the Member States that have joined the EU since 2004, the situation of people aged 50+ can be a vulnerable one – especially in terms of access to healthcare, housing quality and material deprivation.

Part-time work facilitates a better work–life balance – particularly, it seems, for people aged 50+. Among people aged 50+, both in and out of employment, there is a preference for more part-time options.

Unemployed people of all ages want to work. However, unemployed people aged 50+ who can make ends meet would prefer a considerably shorter working week than those who have difficulties making ends meet – this difference is not found in younger age groups. About half of all retirees who are not in employment say they would like to work, often part-time. Proportions are higher for younger, highly educated and healthy retirees with work experience.

The desire to work among people aged 50+, both those in and out of employment, does not seem to be opposed by partners of people aged 50+.

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Dimensions of employee privacy: an empirical study

an article by Kirstie Ball and Elizabeth M. Daniel (Open University Business School, Milton Keynes, UK) and Chris Stride (University of Sheffield, UK) published in Information Technology & People Volume 25 Issue 4 (2012)

Abstract

Purpose
The study goes beyond the more frequent interest in information privacy to identify other notions of privacy within the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to explore how these additional notions of privacy relate to key demographic and employment characteristics and how data protection training, often instigated as a means of highlighting and addressing issues relating to privacy of customers’ data, is related to employees’ notions of their own workplace privacy.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was undertaken in two telephone call centres since they offered a working environment where staff are highly monitored and hence there are likely to be issues relating to employee privacy. The study is exploratory in nature and adopts a mixed method approach based on a questionnaire survey that was followed by semi-structured, qualitative face to face interviews.
Findings
The survey findings identified three distinct notions of privacy; the concern for personal information privacy (CfPIP), the concern for working environment privacy (CfWEP) and the concern for solitude privacy (CfSP). The findings were supported by the qualitative data provided by the interviews. CfWEP is found to be a gendered issue, with women showing a greater concern for the privacy of their working environment. Finally, the findings indicate that effective data protection training are associated with increased concern for their own privacy in the form of CfPIP, and that inclusion of data protection issues in performance reviews is associated their concern for CfWEP.
Originality/value
Previous studies of privacy in the workplace focus on the simplistic notion of information privacy. This study goes beyond such studies and provides empirically-based evidence of multiple dimensions of privacy operant in a single, real-world workplace setting. It also provides empirical insight to the previously unexplored issue of the association between data protection training employees’ notions of their own privacy.

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