4 Strategies to Prevent Workplace Bullying

While workplace bullying tends to be an issue that is not often discussed unless a formal complaint is made, it is the employer’s legal responsibility to provide an environment that is free of any unreasonable treatment of employees. A culture of bullying behaviours can be detrimental to productivity levels, staff retention and overall success of the business. This article explores four ways in which you can prevent bullying in your workplace.

1.  Set a good example.  

First and foremost, treat your employees as you would like to be treated. Embodying respect and courtesy will influence the work environment, assisting in the replication of those behaviours amongst the staff.

2.  Regular check-ins. 

Provide weekly opportunities for you employees to touch base with you. This is a great chance to develop a trusting rapport between you and your staff. As a result, they should feel comfortable enough to speak with you about any issues that may be affecting their time at work.

3.  Develop anti-bullying policies. 

Work with your team to develop expectations of how staff should conduct themselves. Set a clear definition of bullying, and also make evident the company’s stance on bullying behaviour. These policies can be communicated through posters placed around the workplace, as well as discussed during staff induction procedures. By doing this, your employees have set behavioural expectations to follow, and can be held accountable if they deviate from them.

4.  Implement reporting procedures. 

A worker is more likely to report workplace bullying if there are report writing processes in place. Develop reports that can be used to lodge a bullying complaint, and also make sure that such reports are followed as soon as they are sent in. Ensure that confidentiality and impartiality are values that are continually re-enforced.

It’s never too late to implement strategies that can prevent bullying in your workplace.

For more information on how you can address workplace bullying, visit www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au

Implementing a Health and Wellbeing Policy For the Work Place

Whether you work for a large or small company, implementing a health and wellbeing policy for the workplace is a great idea in order to get your staff feeling healthier and happier at work. In turn, this will also make them more productive, reduce the number of sick days, reduce turnover, and increase profits. It’s not always easy to devise a health and wellbeing program in your workplace but thankfully we can find many examples of these on government websites. One such example of a health and wellbeing policy template can be found here:
http://healthierworkplacewa.com.au/media/3739/generic-health-and-wellbeing-policy-template.pdf

Applying a health and wellbeing program has not received a great deal of attention, so in this article we will give you some helpful hints and tips that ensure your policy will be long lasting and successful.

Promote your program

The first step in implementing the program is to promote your program. Raise awareness of some of the health issues that are related to what you’re specifically trying to target, such as diabetes and obesity with diet or cardiovascular disease by promoting exercise. In order to have a successful program you have to start a buzz in the workplace that gets people seeing the program in a positive light – you may have heard this as creating a burning platform. The key is to get your management and some key players within your organisation on board. This can be as simple as having health posters around the office, or having a program launch with some inspiring speakers to come along and promote the health benefits.

Manage your program

Putting your plan in action is one of the most fun and exciting stages, however, to make sure it stays on a ‘can do’ basis it is important to make sure everyone is on the same page and that ongoing activities are coordinated efficiently. It is important to have ongoing contact with the staff members that are involved, this can be done by holding meetings monthly, fortnightly or whatever is most convenient. This will help you to assess any issues with the program and any modifications that could be made to make it easier for employees to be healthy.

Evaluate and make improvements

Evaluating the program is a necessity in order to help identify the things that are working well and things that weren’t received too well by employees and can be reduced or excluded in future. On top of this, it is useful to have an idea of what worked well so that you don’t make any unnecessary changes that may deteriorate the quality of the program, such as with exercise or food. A great tool for this is to have informal chats on lunch breaks or when bumping into participating staff in the office. It is important to ask yourself (and anyone else helping to evaluate) did everything go to plan? Did it make a noticeable impact? Were the outcomes as desirable as expected?

The workplace is a great environment in which to promote and improve health and wellbeing. Implementing a health and wellbeing policy in your workplace will help your staff to be happier and healthier and will also improve your organisation as a whole. That sounds like a policy worth investing in to me!

Six Management Practices That Can Boost Employee Productivity

Close your eyes and imagine a world where all your employees could work at their full performance capacity, for every minute of every day. A world where your staff don’t steal glances at the clock every minute, and where they aren't taking their 10th coffee break within the hour.

Here are six tips to help boost employee productivity:

Understand your employee

Why is it they come to work? How should you communicate with them? Do they like to receive praise publicly or privately? How do they like to be rewarded, and how do they respond best to feedback? Understanding your employees on a more personal level means that you can cater tasks, feedback and incentives to boost their morale and improve their productivity

Carefully structured incentives 

As a general rule of thumb, a manager or director of a company shouldn’t expect an employee to work for the sole success of the enterprise. Employees may come for social gratification, financial stability, and a whole host of other reasons. When a task is seen to solely benefit senior levels, it will see junior level staff becoming unmotivated to reach the same goals to the best of their abilities. Employees must see worthy and valuable benefits and rewards of completing goals. This means that management should conduct motivation tests to understand the drive behind why employees come to work every day, and reward the team equal to their contribution and according to their desires.

Constantly providing meaningful and constructive feedback

Feedback systems should be implemented, and performance evaluation tests should be regularly conducted to identify talent gaps or to identify where employees excel.

Adequate training

From conducting feedback tests, management should employ talent management tools to improve staff in required areas. Employees who receive complimentary courses or trainings will feel that management is invested in their success and talent – whilst management benefits through their improved skill set and morale.

Personalising the job

Employees all work in different ways – and giving individuals the wrong tools can often cause them to work slowly and more unproductively. Allowing employees’ flexibility in how and when they work – providing that they have a good record of meeting deadlines – can allow them to work at a pace and in a way that is beneficial to both them and the company.

Give credit where it is due

Recognition reinforces good behavior, and allows the employee to realize that their good work has not gone unnoticed. Managers should assume that employees do not realise that they’re doing a good job, and give recognition to show their appreciation for the workers’ efforts.

Performance capacity is largely dictated by management practices, and a manager’s ability to maintain a constant level of motivation through the implementation of performance management activities. So what can you do to boost your employees’ performance?

Boosting employee productivity is not as simple as throwing around some cash. It grows from monitoring and improving your workplace through to understanding the employees, and allowing them to feel the benefits of their hard work. The employees should feel as if they are a valued member of the team.

Tools such as job satisfaction surveys can help you understand your employees, as well as identify what may need changing in your workplace. For more information on job satisfaction surveys, please visit the Psych Press webpage: http://psychpress.com.au/psychometric/talent-retain.asp?job-satisfaction-survey