Voicing concerns about unethical behaviour

Almost on a daily basis, the media alerts us to situations which highlight the unethical practices taking place in organisations.

For example, money-laundering and bribery in the banking sector. Most often in such cases, the police are involved in subsequent investigations, and they are regarded as those who should behave ethically. However, police forces too have been highlighted by the media as guilty of unethical practices, yet it is important that police officers find ways to uphold ethical standards within their organisation.

Sarah Brooks talked to us about the findings from 4 MSc dissertations exploring the factors that influence voice of concerns about unethical behaviour in one UK police force. When discussing implications, she explored the challenges of carrying out research with police officers, who also happen to be highly skilled at interviewing and answering questions!

We thoroughly enjoyed the engaging discussion - thank you Sarah!

Sarah Brooks’ Bio Sarah Brooks is a lecturer in organisational behaviour with interests in voice and silence and upward communication in organisations. I have 15 years of experience as an operations manager and a management consultant, and have worked in a number of high profile public and private sector organisations across the UK, with a brief experience of manufacturing in Australia. I gained a PhD looking at upward challenge in the police force from the University of Sheffield in 2017. My current research interests focus on the voice of concerns about unethical behaviour. My current teaching interests involve the use of reflection and reflexivity for learning, and a strong focus on how we could teach critical analysis to students at all levels.

Top-down work redesign interventions found to enhance performance, new evidence

We have long understood that redesigning work is important for employees' mental health and well-being. For example, interventions such as empowerment, self-managing teams, and job enrichment have been found to reduce distress, enhance engagement, and promote positive well-being.

But what about performance?

Work redesign is theorized to enhance performance yet the evidence for this assumption has not been synthesised in recent times. Our review of 49 top-down work redesign interventions showed that 71% reported a positive effect on performance, 25% reported mixed effects, and 4% showed negative effects.

Relational interventions were particularly effective, and involved developing the significance and meaning of jobs through, for example, contact with beneficiaries and developing supportive work relationships.

Participative and non-participative job enrichment and enlargement interventions also offered consistent evidence, showing how improving the quality of jobs by offering autonomy and stimulating work which plays to individuals’ strengths and interests, is important for performance. Importantly, changes in work design drove performance through improving work motivation, efficiency, and learning, and these mechanisms were impacted by intervention implementation and context, as well as person factors such as prosocial values and conscientiousness.

We integrated our findings into a multilevel framework which can be used by researchers and practitioners to plan and implement work redesigns.

To find out more about this project, please contact Caroline Knight.

Updates on the Thrive@Work initiative

Associate Professor Karina Jorritsma is leading a major initiative for the Centre’s Industry Collaboratory, called Thrive@Work.

With foundational funding from the WA Mental Health Commission and input from world leading experts on work design and employee well-being, we are developing evidence-based resources and supports that will assist organisations to design, implement and sustain healthy, high-performing work environments – or put simply, to have the knowledge and resources to become thriving organisations.

To ensure that the Thrive@Work initiative is impactful and addresses actual business needs, we are consulting with organisations of all sizes and across industries as well as linking closely with other key mental health and workplace initiatives within the State, nationally and internationally.

So far, this has led to the development of a number of resources, including:

- The development and refinement of a simple yet integrative framework of thriving that provides organisations with a structure by which to navigate the workplace well-being space and organise their evaluation and planning process.

- An audit tool that provides organisations with a practical and simple tool to assist them in evaluating their current state and their progress towards creating a thriving workplace.

- Case studies - to unpack how organisations have utilised the Thrive resources to date and detailed examples of how workplaces have undertaken successful work design interventions to improve the well-being of their employees.

-Other measurement tools and training

We are currently in the process of building a website to house all of these resources as well as other useful curated on-line resources.

We will also engage in capacity building through a network of people to help as well as up-skilling.

We look forward to launching this initiative, including the website next year.

We would like thank the 50+ organisations that have contributed to date.

In the meantime, you can connect to further updates or become part of Thrive@Work.

#ThriveWork