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Resources & Tools

Resources and Tools

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The Home Care and Community Health Support Pocketbook was created to bring awareness to several health and safety issues faced in home and community care.
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In long-term care it is increasingly apparent that who is on shift is just as important as how many staff are on shift. Quality care is difficult to achieve when we do not routinely engage with one another in a positive, or civil, manner.
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Programs & Services

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Leading from the Inside Out
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Leading from the Inside Out provides a safe space for leaders in continuing care to share their challenges and learn self-care practices.
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The Provincial Violence Prevention Curriculum is recognized as best-practice in violence prevention training for health care workers.
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Guidelines & Regulations

Guidelines and Regulations

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WorkSafeBC’s healthcare and social services planned inspection initiative focuses on high-risk activities in the workplace that lead to serious injuries and time-loss claims.
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WorkSafeBC is releasing a discussion paper with proposed amendments to the Current Rehabilitation Services and Claims Manual that guide wage rate decisions related to short-term and long-term disability compensation. Recommended amendments include: These changes may affect your claims costs. Click here to view the proposed changes and offer feedback to WorkSafeBC – The deadline is 4:30 p.m. on Friday, […]
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Workplace Incivility

The Nature and Impact of Workplace Incivility

Workplace incivility and bullying disrupt the respectful, collaborative, and effective working relationships essential to health care aides’ safety and quality care provision.
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What is Incivility?

  • Also known as micro-aggressions, anti-social behaviour, horizontal hostility.
  • Is a low-intensity, deviant act that violates workplace norms or respectful interactions with an ambiguous intent to harm.
  • Is one of the most pervasive forms of antisocial behaviour, but its subtlety makes it difficult to detect.
  • Can lead others to adopt similar behaviours over time, creating a downward spiral that can result in a toxic workplace.
  • Is more likely to be passive, indirect, and verbal in nature.
  • Doesn’t rise to the same level as bullying or harassment which is prohibited in the workplace by law.

What is Bullying?

  • Is characterized by an escalating, hostile relationship
  • Is frequent (e.g., occurs 1-2 times per week) and persistent (e.g., occurs over a minimum 6-month period)
  • Is openly hostile and negative
  • Is more likely to be active, direct, and physical in nature

Excessive workloads

Being short-staffed

Limited resources

Low social support

High job demands

Having little control or say over one’s work

Power and power disparities, reflective of an organization’s power structure or differing knowledge/experience among co-workers, are central to workplace incivility. Individuals engage in incivility as a means of asserting power and maintaining power differentials.


Individuals who find themselves powerless at work or feel devalued, may engage in submissive, passive aggressive behaviours. They may direct aggression inwards, towards each other, rather than at individuals who hold the power.

Consequences of Workplace Incivility

The consequences of workplace incivility are far-reaching, impacting both the individual and the organization.

They include:

  • Decreased job satisfaction
  • Decreased organizational commitment and engagement
  • Decreased co-worker support and collaboration
  • Decreased engagement with work
  • Increased burnout
  • Increased illness-related absence and intent to leave (the organization and the health care sector)
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References

  • Andersson LM, Pearson CM. (1999). Tit for tat? the spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace. Academy of Management Review, 24(3):452-471.
  • Agervold, M, Mikkelsen EG. (2004). Relationships between bullying, psychosocial work environment and individual stress reactions. Work & Stress, 18(4):336-351.
  • Cortina LM, Kabat-Farr D, Magley VJ, Nelson K. (2017). Researching rudeness: The past, present, and future of the science of incivility. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3):299.
  • Daly T, Banerjee A, Armstrong P, Armstrong H, Szebehely M. (2011). Lifting the ‘violence veil’: Examining working conditions in long-term care facilities using iterative mixed methods. Canadian Journal on Aging, 30(2):271-284.
  • Ekici D, Beder A. (2014). The effects of workplace bullying on physicians and nurses. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 31(4):24.
  • Evans D. (2017). Categorizing the magnitude and frequency of exposure to uncivil behaviors: A new approach for more meaningful interventions. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 49(2):214-222.
  • Lim S, Lee A. (2011). Work and nonwork outcomes of workplace incivility: Does family support help? Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16(1):95.
  • Rush KL, Adamack M, Gordon J, Janke R. (2014). New graduate nurse transition programs: Relationships with bullying and access to support. Contemporary Nurse, 48(2):219-228.
  • Ortega A, Christensen KB, Hogh A, Rugulies R, Borg V. (2011). One‐year prospective study on the effect of workplace bullying on long‐term sickness absence. Journal of Nursing Management, 19(6):752-759.
  • Torkelson E, Holm K, Bäckström M, Schad E. (2016). Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: The importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others. Work & Stress, 30(2):115-131.
  • Trépanier S, Fernet C, Austin S. (2013). Workplace bullying and psychological health at work: The mediating role of satisfaction of needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Work & Stress, 27(2):123-140.
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We strive to empower those working in the continuing care sector to create safer, healthier workplaces by fostering a culture of safety through evidence-based education, leadership, and collaboration.
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