Professor Michelle Tuckey: Beyond risk mitigation: transforming relationships to prevent workplace bullying

Abstract

Workplace bullying is a serious psychosocial hazard that sets off a compounding loss spiral, eroding targets' resources leading to a range of negative effects. Dominant responses –  policies backed by awareness training, reporting systems, and investigations  –  treat bullying as a problem of "bad apples," missing its true origins in the organisation and management of work.

Drawing on research from two decades, this talk presents a systemic, evidence-based framework for preventing workplace bullying by redesigning the organisational conditions in which it takes root. Analysis of 342 formal bullying complaints identified a set of recurring risk contexts spanning the coordination of working hours, management of work performance, and shaping of the work environment and relationships – everyday practices that, when poorly enacted, create the conditions for harmful behaviour to emerge and escalate.

Findings from a series of participatory organisational interventions, including a cluster-randomised controlled trial across 60 supermarket stores, demonstrate that engaging workers and managers in collaborative diagnosis and redesign of these risk contexts produces significant reductions in bullying exposure. Critically, the mechanism of change is not simply the reduction of job demands; social cohesion mediates intervention effects on both bullying and workplace respect, pointing to the protective power of the social fabric itself.

Grounded theory analysis across multiple intervention studies reveals that this process drives relational transformation – a structural and enduring shift in how people interact, collaborate, and support one another. These insights reframe prevention: moving beyond risk reduction to reveal that strengthening the social fabric of work is itself a protective mechanism, and one that can be deliberately cultivated through participatory intervention.

Bio

Michelle’s research advances knowledge to prevent harmful interpersonal behaviour in the workplace. Despite evidence that workplace mistreatment is systemic, practical strategies tend to focus on changing awareness and responses at an individual level rather than addressing root causes. Collaborating with diverse organisations across multiple industry sectors, Michelle’s innovations have uncovered the underlying risk contexts, enabling workplaces to ‘design out’ bullying and informing an award-winning prevention program. Michelle collaborates with industry partners to drive impact alongside contributions to the international scholarly literature, with over 120 significant research outputs to date. Her work has influenced national policy, advising agencies such as Safe Work Australia, the Australian and Queensland Human Rights Commissions, and the Australian Medical Association, and she regularly engages with the media to shift perspectives on workplace bullying and harassment. Currently, Michelle is an Associate Editor of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology and serves on the Editorial Boards for Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and Journal of Organizational Behavior.