As a leader in your library, you have a unique role to play in addressing, preventing, and mitigating bullying and incivility. From department heads all the way up to the dean/director of the library, leaders have a responsibility to the people they lead to ensure that the workplace is a safe and supportive place for all workers. These modules are designed to be a starting point for your library employees to better understand, identify, and stop uncivil and bullying behaviors, and for you as a leader to develop the same shared understandings, but with the more critical role of providing reinforcement through policy, through consequences, and through further and more intense training as needed by your employees and for yourself. It is imperative that all leaders understand that this is only a single step in a very long process, and it will take continuous work to help your library evolve into a positive and supportive workplace for all employees.
If you are taking this as an individual, please remember that your direct reports would also benefit from these modules. While you might not be able to require your direct reports to complete the modules, you can encourage them to do so. If you don’t have the social capital with your direct reports to request this, you might want to consider working with any of the direct reports that you have a good relationship with to determine how best to get other library employee buy in and how to best grow a culture of consideration and responsibility in your library.
If you are taking this as an individual, please remember that your direct reports would also benefit from these modules. While you might not be able to require your direct reports to complete the modules, you can encourage them to do so. If you don’t have the social capital with your direct reports to request this, you might want to consider working with any of the direct reports that you have a good relationship with to determine how best to get other library employee buy in and how to best grow a culture of consideration and responsibility in your library.
Please use our modules in your library.
Here is the recommended outline for the use of the modules in a whole library, whole department, or whole group setting.
- Library agrees to the intervention.
- Modules are prepped, pre-assessment is agreed to.
- The modules and cognitive rehearsal should be structured based on the specific culture and needs of your library. As a leader, you should take note of which modules your group would find most helpful and provide support for whatever would be most effective for your situation.
- If you plan to publish anything that is a result of utilizing our materials, make sure you get IRB approval beforehand AND cite us.
- Structure any publications to ensure reproducibility, meaning following standard reporting for academic papers and doing things such as recording your n (population, or participants in what you are writing about), clearly describe the methods used, and report the results. Make sure you follow Human Subject Research best practices.
- Library employees and library leadership complete the modules and commit to the work needed to ensure that the concepts and tools provided in the modules are applied. Library employees using these modules should develop a shared understanding of civility and bullying, but library leadership must also develop that shared understanding for this to be an effective intervention. It is highly recommended that ALL library leaders complete the modules and model good behavior for all employees.
- All Library workers (as many as possible) complete the modules.
- All Library workers complete at least one cognitive rehearsal in real life.
- Cognitive rehearsal, simulation, and distribution of practice resources. Some materials are provided with the course; however, it might be better for your library to design additional materials based on the needs and specific requirements for your library.
- All Library workers practice and use the provided materials to assist with active cognitive rehearsal once modules are complete - leadership should schedule work time for this to occur and work with the groups and individuals who might be interested in leading and organizing rehearsals. Employees and leadership should all practice this, and the group make-up should be based on the needs of your specific institution.
- Employees can share personal experiences (this must be done with an experienced moderator) to help build understanding before or after practicing how to handle bullying in the workplace. Be aware, doing so might be difficult for employees, and leadership should make sure, if possible, that BIPOC employees have a safe space to discuss their experiences with only other BIPOC employees.
- Critical analysis of employees' experiences with the modules and with the work environment.
- Employees should be allowed to share their experiences with the intervention, anonymously. This might not be fun to read, but it should provide you with a better understanding of where people in the library are in regard to bullying and civility in your institution.
- Collect these and analyze the employees' responses. De-identify the information and make it available to the employees. It is important to provide honest and transparent access to the materials AFTER any identifying information has been removed. It might be helpful to ask for outside help in de-identifying the information, such as through your university’s research support department. If you, or other leadership members, feel the need to respond to anything revealed, only do so when providing access to the full data.
- If possible, publish research to help interventions at others libraries.
- Encourage employees to continue to practice their skills to prevent bullying. Allow employees who are interested to improve their skills and to continue to grow. Provide support and work time for both library leadership and employees to practice the skills learned in the modules and to continue to bring awareness of the issues.
- Consider how and what policies can be put into place to continue to develop a culture of civility and to prevent bullying. Work with employees from different levels to create inclusive policies and to consider the ways to enforce the policies.
- Consider if you want to create an opportunity for people in your department to report instances of bullying and incivility. If you choose to do this, buy-in and input from employees is critical. This should not be seen as a way for employees to harass each other, but rather as an opportunity for everyone to learn. It might be helpful to see what your campus is already doing, and align with that. If your campus is not taking steps to address bullying and negative acts at work, then you should look for high quality examples of programs in other academic institutions that have been successful.
- As a leader, it is critical that you are honest and hold yourself accountable. If you are unable to treat someone fairly, then you should find out what tools are available at your institution to ensure that every library employee is treated fairly and that their concerns and actions are addressed. Establishing a universal policy is only effective if everyone, including yourself, is held to the policy and face the consequences for negative actions.
- Provide time, support, and encourage participation in all current and future options for addressing negative workplace behaviors. These modules will be helpful, but they are only the beginning. To truly create a culture that is supportive and positive for all employees takes commitment from both employees and from the leadership. Leadership is critical for the success of any systematic approach to change a negative workplace culture.