Last week an email was sent to all staff
requesting that you take part in a short survey.  This is the
first but important step in the Trust’s efforts to tackle the issue
of bullying and harassment in the organisation.

The confidential survey is being administered and
managed by Professor Duncan Lewis who we have asked to help us in this key area for the
Trust. 

Prof Lewis, right, is a specialist researcher of
workplace bullying and harassment. He works part-time at the
Graduate School of Management at Plymouth University and is a
director of Longbow Associates Ltd, a contract research company
from the University of Plymouth.

Here are a few words from Duncan about his work
and what he intends to do. 

I have designed the research to capture your
experiences of workplace ill-treatment. Firstly, I intend to obtain
some information through an on-line independent survey.

The survey has been designed to take
approximately 15 minutes to complete. Those of you who have
experienced more ill-treatment than others may take slightly longer
to complete the survey as you will have more questions to respond
to.

The only people to access your
responses are the researchers for this project and no individual
will be identified because of taking part in this survey or in the
reports that follow.
 

All answers are stored securely on computer
servers in the USA and at Plymouth University.

After the survey has ended, in approximately
six weeks, we will analyse the data for patterns and then look to
undertake several focus groups with staff from the different
employment groups in SECAmb. You may be invited to take part in one
of these groups. If invited to do so, you should allow between 2-3
hours of time to attend. The senior management of SECAmb have given
permission for you to take part in this research.

The focus groups will be held in different
county locations of SECAmb premises to enable a range of employees
to attend. We will select people at random and make sure that
managers and their direct report employees are not in the same
focus groups. If selected to take part, I want to reassure you that
any comments or information you share will not be attributed to you
and we will not identify to SECAmb senior managers who attended the
groups. There will be no means of identifying anyone who chooses to
take part in this research.

Along with the focus groups, I am also
inviting anyone who wants to write to me privately about any
concerns they might have regarding ill-treatment at SECAmb to do
so. My email address is at the end of this message.  As with
focus group participants, no one will be identified and all
correspondences are strictly confidential. I may contact people for
follow up interviews by telephone, face-to-face or via other
technology means, such as Skype.

After the research has ended, I will be making
a presentation to the Director of Human Resources and his senior
colleagues. I will also compose an executive summary of our
findings available for all SECAmb employees and representative
groups such as trades unions & professional bodies.

My contact details are: mailto:duncan.lewis@plymouth.ac.uk

You can access the survey here
https://plymouthbusiness.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_aXhYyXoAbv5O97f

Thank you for taking the time to read this
message. Please help SECAmb to improve by taking this
survey

Duncan Lewis, Professor
of Management

Graduate School of Management, Plymouth
University

 

Full information on the Trust’s progress on
addressing the bullying and harassment issue can be found in this
week’s
Bulletin
.

It is really important that if we are going to fix
these issues, we need the support of staff and so I would urge
everyone to take just a few minutes to complete the online
survey. 

Geraint Davies, Acting Chief
Executive