Workplace bullying & harassment can have a detrimental & negative affect on your Psychological health and safety at work.

A stress response is the physical, mental and emotions reactions that occur when a worker perceives the demands of their work exceed their ability or resources to cope.  Work-related stress is prolonged and/or severe can cause both psychological and physical injury.  However, stress itself does not constitute a physical or psychological injury.

As a worker, you are may be exposed to a combination of psychological hazards; some may always be present, while others only occasionally.

Common psychological hazards and factors can include:

• High job demands – long work hours, high work load with insufficient time to complete, exposure to traumatic events or work-related violence, shift work leading to higher risk of fatigue, frequently working in unpleasant or hazardous conditions.
• Low job demands – too little to do, or, highly repetitive or monotonous tasks
• Low job control – Workers have little control over aspects of the work including how or when a job is done.
• Poor support – Tasks or jobs without adequate emotional support from supervisors & co-workers, inadequate information or training to support work performance, inadequate tools, equipment & resources to do the job.
• Poor workplace relationships – workplace bullying, harassment, sexual harassment. Conflict & poor relationships between workers, management, supervisors, co-workers and clients or others.
• Low role clarity – conflicting job roles, responsibilities, or expectations, important task information not being provided, uncertainty about or frequent changes to tasks and work standards.
• Poor organisational change management – inadequate consultation and communication about change, not enough practical support during transition times.
• Low recognition and reward – lack of positive feedback, lack of opportunity for skills development, imbalance between effort and formal/informal recognition & rewards.
• Poor organisational justice – Inconsistent application of policies/procedures, unfairness or bias in decisions about allocation of work and resources, or, poor management of underperformance.
• Poor environmental conditions – exposure to poor quality or hazardous working environments.
• Remote work – Work at locations where access to resources and communications is difficult and travel times may be lengthy.
• Isolated work – no or few other people around.
• Violent or traumatic events – a workplace incident involving exposure to abuse, threat of, or actual harm that causes fear and distress, and/or physical injury/

Thinking about consistent expectations placed on you by your employer, how likely do you think that you have been exposed to the following psychological hazards and factors?

If you answered YES to any of the above; your (or a co-workers’) Psychological health and safety at work may be suffering.

What are Performance Improvement Plans?

Performance improvement Plans or PIPs are documents designed to facilitate constructive discussions between an employee and their Manager about Performance improvement and give the employee the opportunity to improve their performance.

A PIP is implemented when a Manager believes it becomes necessary to help an employee improve his or her performance.

The Manager with the input from the employee develops the PIP;

The purpose of the activities outlined is to help the employee to attain the desired level of performance.  Activities included can be;

• Additional training
• Coaching and or mentoring
• Reading policies/procedures
• Additional resources such as employee handbook

PIPs usually last 30, 60 or 90 days depending on how long it would reasonably take to improve the specific issue.

Information on what should be included in the PIP should be;

• Information on what acceptable performance levels are and how the employees current performance is deficient
• Specifics regarding the unacceptable performance should be given including dates, data and detailed explanations
• The position description should be attached and any relevant policies and procedures to further clarify expectations.
• Guidance on what Management will do or provide to assist the employee in achieving these goals, such as additional resources such as employee handbook, training or coaching
• Details on how often the Manager and employee will meet to discuss progress. This may vary depending on the circumstances
• Clearly stated consequences for not meeting the objectives of the plan. Options should be in line with the organisations disciplinary policy.

Human Resources should review the plan with a focus on removing any bias against the employee;

• Is the performance issue clearly stated and well substantiated
• Are the objectives for the time frames reasonable?
• Has the employee been provided with proper tools and training needed to improve?

The key to this step is to ensure that the plan is attainable and fair and not just a means to terminate on the employee.

The Manager should meet with the employee to discuss the plan and expectations.  The employee should be allowed to take along a Union Delegate to the meeting.

Employee feedback should be encouraged to help identify areas of confusion and to help foster ownership.  Managers should be open to changes based on the employees input.

The Manager should also convey his or her own commitment to plan and to the employee’s success.

After fully discussing the plan, the Manager may make modifications based on employee feedback.

Once Human Resources has reviewed the changes, the final plan should be signed by both the Manager and the employee and forwarded to Human Resources for approval.

The Manager should ensure all progress meetings are scheduled and occur on time.

Cancelling meetings or showing up late would convey a lack of importance and commitment on the mangers part.

Progress towards goals should be documented and discussed seeking to identify why improvements have or have not been made.  If gaps in training or required tools become apparent, the Manager needs to ensure these are given to the employee as soon as possible.  This also needs to be recorded in the PIP.

The Manager should encourage the employee to lead these meetings, to self-report on how they believe they are doing and what realisations they might have made, or what else they feel they need to succeed.

Successful progress made toward the goal should be recognised as a means of motivating the employee to continued improvement when the employee has responded positively by meeting plan objectives.

The Manager should formally close the PIP, recognise the employee’s success.  The manager must be sure the employee understands that continued good performance is expected.

If the employee is committed to improvement but falls short of the objectives within established timeline, the plan should be extended the plan to give the employee a bit more time to succeed.

Additionally, if objectives were found, in retrospect, to not be realistic or fully within the employee’s control, the plan might be ended successfully, based on improvements achieved.

If an employee is unable to improve or if their performance worsens then an evaluation needs to occur and the Manager with consultation with Human Resources may need to close the PIP and consider other available options.

The employee at any stage shall be allowed to be supported by a Union Delegate or Official.

If you have any questions or require any additional information regarding this process please contact the United Services Union and we will be only too happy to assist.

If you are not a union member and would like to join you can do so at usu.org.au/join.