Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:05 am
Time: 3:05 am
Results for workplace culture
2 results foundAuthor: Brake, Deborah L. Title: Coworker Retaliation in the #MeToo Era Summary: The national firestorm sparked by hashtag MeToo has galvanized feminist legal scholars to reconsider the Title VII framework governing workplace sexual harassment and the potential for hashtag MeToo to transform workplace culture in a way that Title VII, to date, has not. In the analysis of hashtag MeToo's prospects for change, less attention has been paid to how Title VII's protection from retaliation intersects with the movement. One particular aspect of retaliation law - coworker retaliation - has thus far escaped the attention of legal scholars. Already underdeveloped as a species of retaliation law, coworker retaliation holds particular resonance for the hashtag MeToo movement for several reasons. First, the Supreme Court's decision in Vance v. Ball State University means that many employees with day-to-day supervisory responsibilities over other workers will count as coworkers and not supervisors for the purposes of employer liability for retaliatory harassment. Although Vance's holding addressed liability for sexual harassment, its reasoning likely extends to retaliatory harassment as well. After Vance, more retaliatory conduct that might otherwise have been captured as retaliation by a supervisor will now fall under the murkier standards courts apply to coworker retaliation. Second, with disclosures of sexual harassment continuing to saturate social media accounts, opportunities for negative reactions by peers at work abound. Several doctrinal uncertainties about Title VII's coverage of coworker retaliation cast doubt on the law's ability to protect sexually harassed employees from punitive coworker reactions. Finally, as the hashtag MeToo movement spawns an ascendant backlash, rising anger and hostility toward women who call out sexual harassment make retaliatory reactions from coworkers more likely. This Article, written for the University of Baltimore's Applied Feminism and hashtag MeToo symposium, explores several ways Title VII doctrine regulating coworker retaliation may affect - and potentially hinder - the transformative impact of hashtag MeToo on workplace culture. The Article also considers how lessons from the hashtag MeToo movement might be brought to bear on the development of Title VII's framework for regulating coworker retaliation. Details: PiitLaw, Faculty of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper, 2019. 60p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 19, 2019 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3398465 Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3398465 Shelf Number: 156511 Keywords: Retaliation Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment Social Media Workplace Culture |
Author: Graham, Les Title: Research into Workplace Factors, Well-Being, Attitudes and Behaviour in Policing: Summary of Evidence and Insights Summary: This report was produced with the purpose of contributing to the research evidence used to inform the Front Line Review of policing. A summary of the evidence and insights from research conducted in thirty-one Home Office police forces in England and Wales over a two-year period, ending 1st December 2018, is presented and discussed. The research findings indicate that police officers and staff perceive their work as being of high value to society and the communities they serve and that they see their work as meaningful. Public service motivation was found to be, on average, at a high level for both the 27,009 police officers and the 21,499 police staff involved in this research. This confirms that police personnel have a strong desire to serve the public, take action for the benefit of others, protect vulnerable people, and influence the well-being of society. Police officer and staff perceptions of the level of importance of their force's organisational mission were also found to be high. However, police officers' perceptions of the clarity of their force's vision were found to be, on average, only at a moderate level. Police staff perceptions were, on average, slightly more positive at a moderately high level. Prior research outside of policing suggests that when an organisation's vision is clear individuals have a better understanding of their job and performance expectations. The findings of our research confirmed that the clarity of a force's vision is positively associated with police officer and staff motivation, engagement in their work and their level of discretionary effort. Police officer perceptions of how fairly they are treated by their force (i.e. the level of perceived organisational fairness) were found to be at a moderately low average level. This was also the case for the extent to which they perceived that their force values their contributions, cares about their well-being, and will support them when they face difficult situations (i.e. the level of perceived organisational support). Police staff perceptions of these two measures were slightly more positive at a moderate average level. Perceptions of organisational fairness and organisational support were found to be important factors affecting police officer and staff well-being and their willingness to reciprocate through engaging in discretionary effort and improvement behaviour. Our findings provide empirical evidence to support the HMIC (2014) recommendation that to achieve future success police forces should strive to improve police officer and staff perceptions of fair treatment and the level of support they provide to their employees. Effective leadership in policing has been argued to be essential for the achievement of service excellence and public confidence. The College of Policing (2015) argued that an authoritarian (command) style of leadership risks disempowering people and is the greatest obstacle to forces achieving a positive culture. Consistent with prior research, we found that supportive leadership has positive effects on police officer and staff well-being, ethical behaviour, and discretionary effort and preparedness to engage in improvement activity while authoritarian leadership has detrimental effects on these outcomes. Our findings provide robust empirical evidence to support the College of Policing's assertion of the need for policing to move from a command style of leadership to a more positive style for the achievement of future success. The average levels of engagement in their work and confidence in their job skills for police officers and staff are encouraging, as is the level of discretionary effort they are prepared to make for the public. Our research findings indicate that police officers and staff would feel greater responsibility for improvement activity, and would be more likely to engage in improvement behaviour, if they had more resources available to them for these activities. Commentators in policing have argued that for long term success policing needs to move from a culture which is characterised by blame or being defensive and limits ability to achieve a learning culture where people have more freedom and ability to admit to mistakes and errors. The findings in this research supported that when police officers and staff perceive a more positive organisational learning culture in their force this is associated with lower fear of making mistakes which acts to encourage them to engage in proactive improvement behaviour. While police officers and staff were found to experience positive levels of job and life satisfaction, of particular noteworthiness is that the level of emotional energy, which is a key measure of long-term well-being, was found to be low for police officers. For police staff emotional energy was found to be slightly higher at a moderate average level. Depletion of emotional energy occurs when job demands are high and job resources are limited. The occurrence of low levels of emotional energy is indicative of individuals facing substantial strain and warrants attention. When individuals' emotional energy is low, they feel overextended and exhausted, and find it difficult to meet the daily challenges and demands of their job. Low levels of emotional energy have been found to have serious negative consequences for both individuals and organisations. The findings of this research indicate that while the amount of work, time pressures and demand (challenge stressors) act as a strain on police officers and staff and impact their well-being, they are also associated with high levels of motivation and preparedness to engage in discretionary effort. On the other hand, the findings show that the strain caused through experiencing work-related demands that police officers and staff view as constraining and hindering their performance and achievement at work (hindrance stressors) has a larger negative impact on their well-being and are also associated with reduced motivation and engagement. Due to the level of demand that policing currently faces it may prove difficult to reduce the level of challenge stressors. The research findings suggest that a reduction of the level of hindrance stressors and barriers that are perceived to exist in the workplace would be beneficial for police officer and staff well-being. Due to its occupational nature, policing is a stressful job. Police employees are frequently exposed to highly emotionally demanding situations (e.g. dealing with victims of crime, accidents and other forms of serious harm to members of the public) and have to make quick decisions that can have serious consequences for the safety of members of the public. While organisational and job factors affect individuals' well-being, a further critical mechanism is whether individuals can adequately recover, psychologically and physically, from the demands and strains they face at work. For recovery to occur, individuals need to psychologically detach or 'switch off' and not work or think about work-related problems or issues in their non-work time. Our findings confirmed that police officer and staff ability to psychologically detach in their non-work time was positively related to their well-being; a higher level of psychological detachment was associated with more positive well-being than lower levels of psychological detachment. Of note, is that the average level of psychological detachment for police officers was moderately low, and moderate for police staff. The importance of sleep for restorative daily functioning is well-recognised. Although we have only studied the impact of sleep quality in three forces to date, higher sleep quality was found to be related to higher levels of emotional energy than when sleep quality was low. Experiencing high workload and high levels of hindrance stressors were both associated with lower sleep quality. Sleep quality was found to be lower for police officers than staff, and for those who worked shifts rather than those who did not. Ensuring the well-being of employees is a fundamental ethical issue and has important consequences for individuals, organisations, and service delivery for the public. The findings of this research provide support for the HMICFRS (2018) assertion of the importance of police officer and staff physical and mental well-being and the need for police leaders to make the well-being of the people they work with a key priority. When managers are faced with significant operational pressures, they tend to adopt a short-term focus and, through them having insufficient time to achieve depth of understanding of problems and issues, the quality of their decision-making can be adversely affected. These factors can result in solutions and redesigned work practices being implemented that are misguided in that they have negative consequences for employee well-being in the longer-term. Actively seeking feedback and listening to employee views and opinions has been argued to be a key enabler of the introduction of effective policies and practices for improvement of employee well-being. Uncertainty has been argued to be detrimental to individual wellbeing. Police officer and staff levels of uncertainty at work were found to be at a high and moderately high level, respectively. The findings also demonstrated that individual well-being was adversely affected by high levels of felt uncertainty. Investigation of reasons and issues that are causing police officers and staff to feel uncertain at work, and listening and effectively communicating with them on these issues, would act to reduce levels of concern and strain. The main objective of this research project is to contribute to the evidence of the current condition of the policing workforce and to increase police leaders' knowledge and understanding of the impacts of organisational factors on the well-being, attitudes and behaviours of police officers and staff. We hope that the evidence and explanation of the underlying theory presented and discussed in this summary report will contribute to the quality of police leaders' decision making and support the development of policy changes, interventions and effective actions which will be of benefit not only to policing but also to individual police officers and staff and the communities they serve. Prior research outside of policing has supported a positive association between the use of employee attitude surveys and improved employee well-being and organisational performance. However, if employees do not feel that their views are taken seriously, they may react with frustration, cynicism and a lack of preparedness to engage in discretionary effort and improvement behaviour. We note therefore that workforce attitude surveys such as those conducted in this research are only useful, rather than unhelpful, if appropriate actions and changes are implemented. Details: Durham, United Kingdom: Durham University, 2019. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 11, 2019 at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/815764/Graham_L._et_al.__2019_._Research_into_Workplace_Factors_Well-being_Attitudes_and_Behaviour_in_Policing_-_Summary_of_Evidence_and_Insights.pdf Year: 2019 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/815764/Graham_L._et_al.__2019_._Research_into_Workplace_Factors_Well-being_Attitudes_and_Behaviour_in_Policing_-_Summary_of_Evide Shelf Number: 156959 Keywords: Law Enforcement Police Leaders Police Officers Policing Well-Being Workplace Culture |