Keywords: leadership, organisational change, workplace relationships, workplace bullying, mobbing behaviour, violence, prevention, sensitisation, gender equality, inclusion This project addresses a ground-breaking field that although has been a hidden issue for many years now, came to the surface only recently under the term “mobbing”. Workplace bullying/ mobbing are secretive, targeted, and widespread forms of abuse in the workplace (European Foundation, 2002). This behaviour is ’designed to ostracise, isolate, undermine, and eliminate the person(s) being targeted’. For reasons as yet unknown, this behaviour appears to occur more frequently in the social service, health, social, care and educational sectors, where women are over-represented: the EU average is revealing in this regard (European Institute for Gender Equality). A global estimation of the Bureau of Nations Affairs even claims that the lost productivity due to mobbing equals an amount of five to six billion dollar a year. The organisation concerned also have to bear the costs caused by victims who are solely absent from work because they are afraid of mobbing. According to a study 60 % of the employees even leave the company due to bullying at the workplace.(Report/002/73/EC). As for the partner countries, the phenomenon of harassment or mobbing in the workplace have not been scientifically studied, therefore PROTECT aims at delivering an international desk-top and field research on the topic. The partners aim at bringing non- violent practises and solutions to the labour market through equipping VET professionals, women workers and employers with important skills and tools through capacity building programs, that are crucial for personal and professional life and help establish new work-based routines. Therefore, organisations, peoples' groups and families are expected to become more resilient, connected and all these result in more peaceful and inclusive communities and workplaces, as a whole. All the above lead to the creation of an international European professional network that connects education providers, local businesses, individuals and families, plus all target groups with the labour market. While crafting the recovery and resilience strategies as a respond to mitigate the post -pandemic inequalities in the EU and addressing the above, PROTECT’ s main objectives are to empower its target groups women workers, employers/ managers and VET professionals and: • prevent mobbing and harassment through comprehensive codes of conduct in the workplace, • train VET professionals on preventing and managing work-related violence • educate employers/ managers and companies regarding the adaptation of anti-mobbing and anti-harassment policy, • raise the awareness of female workers about their rights and support options in case of mobbing and harassment, including reporting,. The project is to support the above target groups, however it also welcomes and benefits professionals from the arena of HR, law and mediation internationally.
The project, 'PROTECT: PROmoting The prevention and Elimination of workplaCe mobbing and harrasmenT' is a 2-year project involving eight (8) partners form Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Belgium and Romania. The protection of rights, safety, wellbeing of women workers is a priority of the EU Institutions. Gender related issues are of high importance for the EU in terms of legitimacy and equality: - women represent more than the half of Europe' s citizenry. In 2018, women's gross hourly earnings were on average 14.4 % below those of men in the European Union (EU-27) and 15.3% in the euro area (EA-19) (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Gender_statistics#Labour_market), - women were also hit more by the Covid -19 pandemic, as they are again, over-represented in the first line of duty against it, thus more exposed to infection, resulting in long term unpaid care work, while the restriction measures put also more domestic work on them, - while researches have showed that women were over-represented as victims of mobbing and harassment at work. (https://www.frontiersin.org/Zapf, 2020 and Salin and Notelaers 2018). The consequences of being bullied have been studied with 140,000 participants and showed robust evidence for negative consequences of workplace bullying and harassment, such as affecting mental health. Mobbing and harassment is usually directed towards young women and is the most extreme, yet persistent, form of gender-based discrimination; whereas some 90 % of victims are of sexual harassment, up to 55% of women have been sexually harassed in the EU; The EU is in need of a strong Social European Pillar to address gender inequalities. Its basic principle is equality of men and women, including participation in the labour market, conditions of employment and career progression, with a special focus on marginalised and vulnerable groups, such as women with migrant background, members of minorities and single parents. This reality urge for new discussion, researches and strategies involving women and education of training professionals. PROTECT partnership is keen on addressing the above problems and discrimination between men and women: tackling effectively the gaps in employment. By focusing on the workplace sector, the PROTECT action will set ambitious, but tangible targets so as to contribute to a more inclusive, attractive and ultimately equal labour market across Europe via sequential steps that will deal with the construction of national and in turn transnational VET systems that promote equal opportunities on the basis of inclusive and accessible programs. PROTECT aims at increasing the flexibility of opportunities in VET for both company leaders and the educational staff in efforts to educate them and raise awareness about the different forms that mobbing and harassment can take within the local, national and transnational labour markets, its consequences and the effective ways to prevent and combat it, whilst inform and protect female workers from mobbing, increase reporting of such incidents and raise awareness about violence and intimidation in the workplace. Addressing digital transformation: while learning materials and digital media devices are continuing to grow, there is no parallel upskilling for VET providers to be able to benefit from these new technology-based opportunities. With this in mind, one of the main project priorities is to build the skills of (1) VET professionals and (2) women workers and employers to ensure that they have the confidence and digital readiness for establishing and using effectively anti-bullying prevention and reporting tools in online environments. The partnership also needs relevant online training material and methodologies both for their learners and clients and staff members in order to be able to compete other organisations in terms of innovation but also to adopt a anti-mobbing and harassment policy for a more equality.