Psychosocial safety climate as a lead indicator of workplace bullying and harassment, job resources, psychological health and employee engagement

Abstract

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is defined as shared perceptions of organizational policies, practices and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety, that stem largely from management practices. PSC theory extends the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) framework and proposes that organizational level PSC determines work conditions and subsequently, psychological health problems and work engagement. Our sample was derived from the Australian Workplace Barometer project and comprised 30 organizations, and 220 employees. As expected, hierarchical linear modeling showed that organizational PSC was negatively associated with workplace bullying and harassment (demands) and in turn psychological health problems (health impairment path). PSC was also positively associated with work rewards (resources) and in turn work engagement (motivational path). Accordingly, we found that PSC triggered both the health impairment and motivational pathways, thus justifying extending the JD-R model in a multilevel way. Further we found that PSC, as an organization-based resource, moderated the positive relationship between bullying/harassment and psychological health problems, and the negative relationship between bullying/harassment and engagement. The findings provide evidence for a multilevel model of PSC as a lead indicator of workplace psychosocial hazards (high demands, low resources), psychological health and employee engagement, and as a potential moderator of psychosocial hazard effects. PSC is therefore an efficient target for primary and secondary intervention.

Introduction

In many countries work stress is considered a preventable risk-assessable disease (Clarke and Cooper, 2000). Given the significant direct and indirect costs associated with it (Australian Safety and Compensation Council; ASCC, 2006), job stress is increasingly a national priority occupational health and safety (OHS) issue. Work stress results from prolonged exposure to workplace psychosocial hazards – aspects of the work environment, work design, and organizational management which potentially cause psychological and social harm (Cox et al., 2000). The “slow accident” effect of work stress, suggests that latent causes are readily identifiable (Clarke and Cooper, 2000). OHS legislation in countries such as Australia, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden specifies the need for employers to take action against psychosocial hazards (Ertel et al., 2008). In accord with the hierarchy of controls, the identification and management of more distal hazards and risks, so called ‘cause of the causes’, will provide a more reliable, efficient and effective control strategy (Dollard, 2011). In this paper we propose that psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is a distal upstream determinant of both hazards and job stress related outcomes.

Psychosocial safety climate is defined as “organizational policies, practices, and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety” (Dollard and Bakker, 2010, p. 580). We propose that PSC is a lead indicator of commonly identified psychosocial hazards at work. In particular we focus on the work-related hazards (or demands) – harassment and bullying – as they comprise on average 24% of all accepted mental stress claims in Australia (2007–2008) (Productivity Commission, 2010). Our theoretical analysis brings together concepts from the safety science, work stress, and organizational psychology literatures, and poses PSC as an upstream antecedent to workplace psychosocial hazards in the form of (a) social and emotional demands (i.e., bullying and harassment) and (b) low job resources (i.e., supervisor support, job rewards, and procedural justice). We also explore the ameliorative effects of PSC as a moderator of the deleterious effects of job demands. The antecedent and ameliorative roles of PSC in this model, approximate the primary prevention, and secondary prevention roles of PSC respectively. Moreover, it is important that organizational performance and production goals are not neglected in the pursuit of health improvements. Therefore, we explore the role of PSC in stimulating psychological health in combination with work motivation outcomes.

The conceptual theory of psychosocial safety climate draws upon perspectives from the work stress, psychosocial risk, and organizational climate literatures (Dollard, 2011). PSC is a facet-specific component of organizational climate relating to freedom from psychological harm at work (Dollard and Bakker, 2010). It reflects management commitment to workers’ psychological health and the priority they give to safeguarding psychological health as opposed to production demands (Dollard and Bakker, 2010). Like organizational climate, PSC is conceived as a property of the organization, consisting of the aggregated perceptions of individuals within that organization regarding management commitment to protecting their psychological health and safety (Dollard and Bakker, 2010). The PSC construct stems largely from the idea that individuals ascribe meaning to their work environments – their working conditions, management systems, pay, co-worker relationships, and treatment equity (see James et al., 2008). As such, ways in which PSC can become visible to individuals include having well developed communication systems (e.g., for reporting poor psychological health at work) and actively involving all layers of the organization in work stress prevention (Dollard and Bakker, 2010).

The theoretical basis of psychosocial safety climate is similar to that of safety climate but focuses more sharply on psychosocial factors and psychological health. In its 30-year history, safety climate research has focused on accidents, errors, and disasters resulting in physical injury, and the high direct and indirect costs to personnel and industry in conditions where safety climate is poor (Neal and Griffin, 2006). Substantial evidence has been amassed linking safety climate to safety behavior and performance (Clarke, 2006, Flin et al., 2000, Zohar, 2010), physical injury (Silva et al., 2004, Zohar, 2010), and industrial accidents and errors (Hofmann and Stetzer, 1996, Neal and Griffin, 2006). Missing in the literature until recently has been the identification of a specific safety climate for psychological health and safety that may be a lead indicator of psychosocial hazards and psychological health at work.

Consistent with the safety climate literature, we propose that climate (i.e., PSC) precedes the conditions that lead to psychological injury. Applying safety science theory in a novel way, the likelihood of physical injury – and in addition psychological injury at work – may be conceived as the joint outcome of proximal factors, unsafe conditions (social/technical hazards), unsafe acts, cumulative exposure, and chance variations (Reason, 1997, Zohar, 2010). Thinking about our study in safety literature terms, exposure to bullying and harassment at work represents a hazard or unsafe condition, as are lack of supervisor support, inadequate job rewards, and low procedural justice. In the work stress literature, unsafe hazards may be understood as high job demands and low job resources (c.f. Zohar and Luria, 2005). Merging these perspectives forms the crux of the theory for PSC.

A basic premise in our PSC theory is that PSC, stemming largely from management practices regarding worker psychological health, acts as a precursor to psychosocial hazards – the (proximal) job demands and job resources experienced by workers. To build a model for our study we first turn to the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model of work stress (Demerouti et al., 2001), which describes how job demands and resources are linked to work and health outcomes through two processes (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007, Hakanen et al., 2008b; see Fig. 1). The first is the health impairment process which explains how sustained effort to manage job demands contributes to strain through the exhaustion of energy reserves (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). Job demands are physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical, psychological, cognitive, or emotional effort (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). Demands such as bullying and harassment are particularly stressful as they directly threaten the self (Semmer et al., 2005). Studies have consistently shown that a variety of job demands (e.g., emotional demands, work pressures) activate the health impairment process, leading to increased health problems such as psychological distress (Bakker et al., 2004, Dollard et al., 2007, Hakanen et al., 2006).

The second motivational process (see Fig. 1) describes the motivational potential of job resources to stimulate outcomes such as high work engagement and increased work performance (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007) extrinsically (by aiding goal attainment and reducing job demands), and intrinsically (by stimulating personal growth and learning) (Bakker et al., 2003). We argue that PSC functions as a reference point for the presence and level of psychosocial risks by preceding these two processes, thereby augmenting the JD-R framework (see also Dollard and Bakker, 2010, Idris et al., in press).

In our current PSC study model, job demands are operationalized by workplace bullying and harassment. Here, bullying is defined by three core features: duration (the offensive behaviors occur regularly and repeatedly over a period of six months), victimization (the victim experiences difficulties defending him or herself), and a power differential (the behaviors occur between two parties of disproportionate power) (see Lindström et al., 2000). Harassment is identified as perceived sexual harassment, discriminatory treatment, and psychological humiliation (Richman et al., 1996). Given the theoretical interrelations of these forms of victimization (Aquino and Lamertz, 2004, Bowling and Beehr, 2006), we envision similar antecedents and consequences. Exposure to these forms of workplace victimization carries high risk of harm for individuals, for example depression, anxiety, irritability (Mayhew and McCarthy, 2005), poor cardiovascular health (Tuckey et al., 2010) and traumatic stress (Bond et al., 2010). Moreover, organizations suffer as a result of workplace victimization in terms of staff turnover, sickness absence, workers compensation, reduced morale and motivation, and diminished productivity (Hoel et al., 2003). Given these significant costs it is vital to understand the antecedents of bullying and harassment at work.

In organizations characterized by high levels of PSC, where worker psychological health and safety is protected, we expect that low levels of bullying and harassment will be observed. This relationship can be understood through the work environment hypothesis (Salin, 2003), whereby poor working environments create and sustain conditions that are conducive to bullying. If deviant behavior such as bullying and harassment goes unacknowledged and complaints are not acted upon (i.e., as could be expected when PSC is low), such behaviors effectively become “institutionalized” (Ashford, 1994, Liefooghe and Davey, 2001). In low PSC contexts, bullying may be perpetrated in a top-down fashion (e.g., in a pecking order of seniority in hierarchical cultures; Paice et al., 2004, Tuckey et al., 2009). By contrast, in high PSC contexts, top management assume responsibility for harassment and bullying (Heames and Harvey, 2006), through the enactment of relevant policies, practices and procedures. Therefore bullying and harassment may be deterred if top management adopts a zero-tolerance stance and, accordingly, the impetus for safeguarding employees from bullying and harassment flows primarily from senior management. Beginning with senior management priority and commitment to protect employees from psychosocial harm, organizational policies and procedures (in this case, PSC) operate in a multilevel top-down process, filtering down to lower levels where middle management and supervisors maintain and transmit these standards (Zohar and Luria, 2005). In support of the directionality of our theory, Bond et al. (2010) found that low PSC predicted workplace bullying in police officers over time, whereby high PSC was associated with lower bullying over time. Therefore, in line with the extended health erosion process of the JDR model we propose (see Fig. 1, the study model):

Hypothesis 1

Organizational PSC will be negatively related to workplace bullying and harassment.

Hypothesis 2

Organizational PSC will be negatively related to psychological health problems through its negative relationship with job demands (bullying and harassment). In other words, job demands will carry the effect of PSC onto psychological health problems in a mediated process.

As mentioned, we believe that PSC should also relate to productivity and performance goals. To achieve organizational goals, employees should be provided with appropriate physical and psychosocial resources (Hobfoll, 1986). Within our extended JD-R model, the resources of interest are procedural fairness, organizational rewards, and supervisor support. Procedural justice refers to perceived fairness of procedural decisions, such as pay selection, performance evaluation, promotion (Lind and Tyler, 1988) and employee perceptions of how organizations allocate resources (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001). Supervisor support refers to employees’ perceived social support from supervisors, including instrumental and emotional support. Organizational rewards relate to monetary, esteem, and status control (e.g., job security) (Siegrist, 1996).

The link between job resources and motivational outcomes can be explained by social exchange theory. According to this theory, workers who perceive or valuate their organization as being invested in their well-being, through adequate resource allocation, are more likely to reciprocate through motivation and engagement at work (Blau, 1964, Maslach et al., 2001, Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). Employees in effect “repay” the organization in response to resources received (Saks, 2006). Indeed, procedural justice has been linked to declines in job satisfaction (Folger and Konovsky, 1989), organizational commitment (Daly and Geyer, 1995), helpful citizenship behaviors (Moorman, 1991, Organ and Moorman, 1993), and job performance (Gilliland, 1994); supervisor support has been related to enhanced performance (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002, Viswesvaran et al., 1999); and rewards and supervisor support have been positively related to engagement (Demerouti et al., 2001).

In high PSC contexts, managers will be aware that workers require adequate resources to complete job tasks and will be cognizant that not having enough resources leads to reduced levels of positive work emotions (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). Within high PSC organizations we can expect higher procedural justice, greater supervisor support and greater rewards because the organization values the positive well-being of its workforce (i.e., levels of satisfaction, engagement) and thus creates optimum working conditions. Similarly, managers will understand that inadequate resourcing may lead to negative reactions and counterproductive consequences (Spector et al., 2006). In other words, PSC should be an indicator of adequate job resourcing within organizations, and associated individual level motivational processes that foster positive well-being outcomes. Previous research has found support for PSC activating the motivational pathway of the JD-R model; Dollard and Bakker (2010) and Idris et al. (in press) found that PSC predicted employee engagement through its relationship to a change in job resources. We therefore propose:

Hypothesis 3

Organizational PSC will be positively related to job resources (i.e., procedural justice, organizational rewards, and supervisor support).

Hypothesis 4

Organizational PSC has a positive effect on work engagement through its positive relationship with job resources; in other words, job resources will mediate the relationship between PSC and work engagement.

We also expect a safety signal effect whereby PSC provides information about possible resource options in the environment upon which employees can act to provide respite or relief from danger cues (Lohr et al., 2007). When danger cues such as workplace bullying and harassment are present, the PSC safety signal indicates action options (e.g., utilization of available emotional resources) to offset the aversive stimuli, and to avoid the development of psychological distress (see Lohr et al., 2007). In other words PSC represents a resource that can be used deal with demands. In relation to bullying and harassment, for example, when workers feel safe from harm due to a strong psychosocial safety climate, they know they will be supported to cope with any negative treatment they face and may not need to draw so heavily on their own resources to do so. Similarly, Bacharach and Bamberger (2007) found that the link between fire-fighter critical incident involvement and negative emotional states varied as a function of station/unit-level (rather than individual) job resources. Previous research showed unit-level PSC moderated the relationship between bullying/harassment and post-traumatic stress symptoms (Bond et al., 2010). This leads to the next hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5

Organizational PSC will moderate the relationship between bullying and harassment and psychological health problems. Under conditions of high PSC, the positive relationship between bullying/harassment and psychological health problems will be reduced. Conversely, in low PSC climates, reporting bullying or harassment may lead to an exacerbation of the problem, due to victim blaming and scapegoating.

Additionally, there is an abundance of evidence on the negative affective-cognitive consequences of exposure to bullying and harassment, as noted above. As a result of the social and emotional effort required and the corresponding depletion of energy reserves, but more importantly, due to the direct threat to the self-associated with being victimized by bullying and harassment (Semmer et al., 2005), employee work engagement is likely to suffer. We propose, however, that PSC should mitigate this negative impact on engagement. PSC acts as an organization-based resource (Dollard and Bakker, 2010) that, over and above personal and job resources, can be harnessed to help affected workers cope with the social and emotional demands of bullying/harassment. Engagement particularly reflects how employees experience their work. When supported by a strong PSC to manage bullying/harassment demands, workers may thus still be able to experience their work as meaningful (dedication component of engagement), interesting (absorption), and something to which they wish to devote effort (vigor). In accordance we propose:

Hypothesis 6

Organizational PSC will moderate the negative relationship between bullying/harassment and engagement. That is, under conditions of high PSC the negative relationship between bullying/harassment and engagement will be reduced.

There is considerable confusion in the literature regarding whether the safety climate construct is a property of the organizational or the individual. Despite the term ‘climate’ implying shared perceptions that may reflect organizational or group features (Neal and Griffin, 2006), most studies operationalize climate at an individual level, and refer to this as the psychological climate (James et al., 2008). A recent review of 35 studies of the relationship between safety climate and safety performance showed that only 20% of studies used group level analysis (Clarke, 2006). Similarly Clarke's (2010) meta-analysis of the relationship between psychological climate, safety climate, and individual safety outcomes revealed only 7% of the studies used group level analysis. This issue is not specific to safety climate, as demonstrated in a recent meta-analysis of organizational climate research that had to be conducted at the individual level because of a low number of group level studies (Parker et al., 2003).

Psychosocial safety climate is mainly conceived as an attribute of the organization. It is theorized to vary across organizations because it is largely influenced by senior management, as is the case with safety climate (cf. Huang et al., 2007, Zohar and Luria, 2005). Senior management are responsible for creating PSC via executive decisions such as budgets, resource allocation, policies and procedures, and corporate priorities (e.g., the competing demands of productivity and profit versus stress prevention). To date, evidence for the PSC model is derived from the seminal work by Dollard and Bakker (2010) and Bond et al. (2010), using single occupational samples, where PSC is operationalized by aggregating individual perceptions about workgroup PSC to the workgroup level. In order to provide further support for the utility and pervasiveness of the model in this study we operationalized PSC as an organizational level phenomenon, and studied it across organizations.