(in German)

Background: Bullying in the workplace is considered a significant risk factor for the health of affected employees. The Occupational Health and Safety Act obliges employers to take measures to prevent psychosocial hazards. An essential part of this is carrying out a workplace risk assessment. This article examines the proportion of companies in Germany that have implemented procedures to deal with possible cases of bullying and the extent to which the implementation of workplace risk assessments is predictive for this.

Data and methods: The analyses are based on data from the German sample of the 2019 European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER‑3, n = 1234 companies with at least 20 employees). In addition to descriptive analyses, logistic regression analyses are carried out to investigate the relationships of interest.

Results: Procedures for dealing with bullying or harassment are in place in 38% of the included German companies; less frequently in small companies (31%) and more frequently than average in large companies (69%) as well as in the health and social care sector (54%). In fact, procedures for dealing with bullying are more common in companies where risk assessments are available than in companies where this is not the case; however, further multivariable analysis adjusting for company size and economic sector did not yield statistically significant results for this respective relationship. In contrast, the chances of having procedures in place to deal with bullying are significantly higher in companies having a works council (odds ratio, OR = 2.04, CI: 1.53-2.71) or engaging a psychologist (OR = 3.38, CI: 2.47-4.63).

Conclusion: In many companies measures to prevent workplace bullying hazards are still missing and do not yet appear to be systematically taken into account in workplace risk assessments. Further efforts are needed to ensure a systematic consideration of bullying in occupational health and safety.

This article is published in the Journal "Zentralblatt für Arbeitsmedizin, Arbeitsschutz und Ergonomie" (2024).

Please download the article "Prevalence and conditions of workplace measures to deal with bullying in Germany" (in German only).