Professional Experience Placement

The research undertaken by Johnson (2015) was initiated because workplace bullying is experienced by nurses globally.  This issue creates negative outcomes such as quality of care and retention of nurses, in organisations .  There is a lack of research into what organisations are doing to prevent bullying. The aim of the study was to analyse through qualitative study the discourses of workplace bullying prevention within organisations. Unit level managers were recruited via email and 15 were interviewed from seven different hospital systems in the USA.

Three main themes emerged from the data.  These were presence; normalisaing behaviours and control.  There was also one sub-theme, presence in absentia.

This study found that physical presence of unit managers was an active deterrent to bullying. The ‘open door’ policy worked two ways.  It enabled the unit manager to observe the staff and enabled them to drop in and share information. Presence in absentia was when authority for prevention of bullying was delegated as the managers could not be present 24/7. Documents within organisations indicated that there was an expectation that unit managers would be present and were responsible for upholding a culture without bullying.  There was acknowledgement by managers that covert bullying that was difficult to observe did occur and they tried to minimise it by randomly being present.

Prevention of bullying could be established by leading normalisating behaviours, which was leadership with expectations to have high standards of behaviour, written codes of conduct and discussions about inappropriate behaviour to enable internalisation of positive behaviour in all interactions that prevented reversion to negative behaviours. The third element, control was used to prevent bullying. Early intervention through informal discussion was a preferred method that kept the majority of bullying in check. Documentation on this concept indicated that bullying prevention was everyones responsibility and included language and behaviour. Johnson (2015) found that the themes addressed bullying at an individual level, however, organisations as a whole did not address bullying at an organisation or systems level.  The author recommended that organisations need to examine how their documentation frames bullying as an individual issue, which impedes effective prevention.

Clinical supervisors are well-placed to model appropriate behaviour and enable discussion with student nurses regarding bullying issues. Previous blogs have mentioned incivility that occurs in the workplace and this form of bullying needs to be curtailed.  I have also recently blogged about professional identity formation that is enhanced when students experience a welcoming environment, feelings of belongingness etc as described by Walker (2014). These issues are inter-related and experienced by students when undertaking WIL.  Clinical supervisors need to be vigilant in enabling their students have a high quality learning experience by keeping abreast of the dynamics within the team.

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