Cabinet Office expands project to improve departments’ preparedness to tackle bullying

The Cabinet Office is funding a one-year extension of a project to help departments become ‘ready’ to tackle bullying, harassment and discrimination (BHD) in the workplace.

As part of the project, researchers from Loughborough University have created more than 300 civil service action plans to help departments prevent workplace bullying.

Dr. Chloë Gough, Dr Iain Coyne and Professor Fehmidah Munir from Loughborough Business School began working with the Cabinet Office on the project in January 2023.

Gough works in the Cabinet Office and is seconded from Loughborough University as Head of Organizational Readiness. Using a tool she developed during her PhD, she has worked with 16 government departments to improve their ‘readiness’ to prevent and tackle BHD.

“Readiness” refers to the extent to which capable and authentically motivated officials believe their departments are able to effectively address and prevent BHD.

The tool enables organizations to identify factors within the work environment that threaten the success of future interventions aimed at preventing and addressing BHD. Each assessment is tailored to the organization involved and includes recommendations to address the inefficiencies identified within each specific work context that would otherwise derail an intervention.

Gough said: ‘The best way to think of willingness to change is as a flower. When it is difficult to grow, we usually change the environment and not the flower.

“But what we see in BHD intervention practice is the repetitive process of planting flowers (interventions), watching them die, pulling them out and planting them again, without thinking about how the soil (work context) inhibits growth.

“So this work is very much focused on shifting that narrative and educating organizations on how to prepare that soil before they plant anything.”

To date, the tool has been used by 10,000 civil servants.

Jason Ghaboos, Deputy Director of Employee Experience and People Performance at the Cabinet Office’s Government People Group, said: “The civil service is committed to tackling bullying, harassment and discrimination where it occurs. The work of Dr. Gough has delivered a refreshing, innovative, insightful and impactful lens for approaching BHD in organizations by providing the ability to understand how to better prepare and plan BHD interventions.”

He added that researchers have also provided “the necessary framework to ensure that efforts are significant, successful and sustainable.”