Integrity and dignity: respect, boundaries and protection against harassment

What the law says

The law defines harassment as acts, omissions or statements whose purpose or effect is to be offensive, frightening, hostile, degrading or humiliating. The effect counts, not only the intent. The regulation on the performance of work also has its own rules on surveying and acting against harassment in chapter 2A.

What Orgpuls asks

The factor «Integrity and dignity» is measured with three statements, answered on a five-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree:

• «I am met with respect regardless of who I am»
• «I may use professional judgement when I think something should be done differently»
• «My boundaries for privacy are respected at work»

Read the number right

• Respect, judgement or boundaries? The three statements each point to a different kind of problem.
• Small groups? Low figures in a small group may come from one serious situation. Look at the figures with the safety representative before drawing conclusions.
• The screening – Orgpuls also asks about offensive behaviour outside the index, shown only as counts for the whole organisation.

Common causes

Typical causes:

• belittling comments or exclusion that nobody steps in to stop
• conflicts allowed to grow because nobody acts early
• unclear how to report, and what happens next
• management that overrides professional judgement without explanation

Three measures that work

The research behind it: the bullying research group at the University of Bergen (Einarsen et al.). Early intervention by the leader and clear routines stop conflicts from developing into bullying.

Measure whether it helped

Run a short pulse on the factor a couple of months after the measure is in place. If the number does not move, the measure missed the cause, and you need to go back to the group and ask again. Read more about getting from results to measures and going through the results with your employees.