Success factors for effective workplace bullying interventions: a scoping review

Attention to workplace bullying has grown apace globally as regulators, employers, practitioners and researchers grapple with how best to prevent and manage the problem. Workplace bullying has long challenged organisations and researchers as being a particularly prevalent and harmful problem of the workplace, while at the same time being stubbornly resistant to attempts at management and prevention (Murray et al., 2020).

Although there are many academic definitions, it is generally agreed that workplace bullying consists of repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker over a prolonged time period, where the targeted person becomes unable to defend themselves against the mistreatment (Einarsen et al., 2003). Specifically, workplace bullying is distinct from other forms of negative workplace behaviours due to its sustained duration, recurring nature and presence of power imbalances (Hershcovis, 2011), which are not limited to job positions, but rather include a range of factors such as job tenure, gender and age (Einarsen, 2000).

Workplace bullying is recognised as a global workplace issue (Sun et al., 2025) with a severe negative impact on individuals and organisations. According to global data estimates, 15% of workers worldwide experience some form of bullying in their workplace (Nielsen et al., 2010). For example, research shows that 39.1% of employees in Hong Kong and 58.9% employees in China experience bullying annually (Ng and Chan, 2021). A national survey in the United Kingdom reported that 10.6% of employees had encountered workplace bullying or harassment within the previous year (Bunce et al., 2024). Additionally, a study conducted in South Africa showed 31.1% workplace bullying prevalence experienced by employees (Cunniff and Mostert, 2012). In Australia, 27.5% of serious mental stress claims in 2021–2022 were attributed to work-related harassment and/or workplace bullying (Safe Work Australia, 2022).

Estimates of prevalence vary considerably depending on the measurement methods used, as well as by industry sector and country, with international prevalence rates persistently ranging from 7.4 to 51% (León-Pérez et al., 2021). As such, the issue of how to prevent workplace bullying becomes a priority for organisations, with significant consequences for victims and witnesses alike, including heightened stress, anxiety and depression, and lower job satisfaction, engagement and commitment (Hogh et al., 2011). This in turn costs organisations considerably in terms of lost productivity and work errors, absenteeism and turnover, the costs of displaced time in managing complaints, and image and reputation in being able to recruit key talents (Hoel et al., 2020).

Human resource management (HRM) plays a critical role in the prevention and management of workplace bullying through the design and implementation of systems, practices and cultures that foster respectful and psychologically safe work environments. Rather than relying solely on complaint-driven processes, contemporary research advocates for a proactive and integrated approach that includes primary, secondary and tertiary interventions (Zapf and Vartia, 2020). HR professionals are uniquely positioned to influence all stages of this continuum. At the primary level, HR can reduce the risk of bullying by embedding psychosocial safety into job design, leadership development and performance management systems, and by promoting organisational values that prioritise dignity and inclusion. Secondary strategies include providing training to build awareness and confidence in addressing inappropriate behaviours, establishing safe and confidential reporting channels, and ensuring early and impartial intervention when issues arise. Tertiary interventions – such as employee assistance programs, restorative practices or role changes – support recovery and help retain valuable talent. Studies consistently show that organisations with strong HR-led prevention strategies not only reduce the incidence of bullying but also see improvements in employee engagement, retention and overall performance (Hoel et al., 2020). As stewards of culture, HR professionals are therefore not only responsible for managing the aftermath of bullying, but for creating the conditions that prevent it from taking root.

Moreover, human resource management (HRM), due to encompassing various important tasks related to managing and preventing workplace bullying, is considered as a “strategic partner”, “administrative expert”, “employee champion” and “change agent” (Ulrich, 1997). The important role of human resource professionals (HRPs) in terms of designing effective interventions was further supported and highlighted in a study by Djurkovic et al. (2021). Particularly, strong leadership and developing a positive organisational culture are responsibilities of HRP that contribute to the effectiveness of workplace bullying interventions.

However, workplace bullying is a complex issue to manage, particularly when it is embedded and normalised in organisational culture (Hutchinson, 2012). Although the majority of organisations have in place policies, reporting systems and awareness training for staff as part of their effort to manage workplace bullying, organisations still struggle with high bullying prevalence, with many falling short of effectively combating this pervasive and often very destructive workplace problem (Zapf and Vartia, 2020). Therefore, it is important that a multi-level and multi-dimensional strategy is applied to the prevention of workplace bullying (Gupta et al., 2020).

Research suggests that interventions should be considered at all levels of the organisation, as well as at the societal level (Zapf and Vartia, 2020). While regulation, policy and resources can be provided by policymakers, advisory and industry bodies, and others, the effective management of bullying also requires organisations to take a strong stance on workplace bullying and have in place a comprehensive program to prevent and manage the issue internally (Douglas et al., 2022).

A range of interventions have been suggested for workplace bullying, targeting different levels of the organisation. A recent report by The International Centre for Allied Health Evidence (2022) recommends that interventions at the organisational level can include, for example, the development and implementation of policy, coupled with monitoring and review and the development of conflict management procedures, all with the aim of fostering an organisational culture of zero-tolerance towards bullying. At the group level, leadership selection and training are recommended, alongside inclusion practices, bullying awareness and conflict management training, and work redesign to minimise psychosocial risks that can contribute to bullying. At the individual level, awareness and assertiveness training is also recommended, alongside counselling and coaching as secondary and tertiary level interventions.

Despite an abundance of research offering recommendations for bullying prevention and management, comparatively few workplace bullying interventions have been robustly evaluated. Of those that have, few offer conclusive evidence of their effectiveness, which is often the case for randomised control trial studies for stress and wellbeing interventions. To our knowledge, three systematic reviews of workplace bullying interventions have previously been conducted. Two of these (Escartin, 2016; Hodgins et al., 2014) offered a helpful overview of the available evaluated interventions at the time but stopped short of any comparative analysis of the causes of intervention success. A much more recent review by Rodríguez-Muñoz et al. (2024) captured the more diverse range of evaluations conducted in the past 10 years and provided a helpful update. Although the focus is on describing the intervention, the robustness of the evaluation, and making an assessment on those grounds as to which “type” of intervention is most likely to be effective, process evaluation is largely overlooked.

In the past 10–15 years, researchers have come to realise the importance of process evaluation in understanding the efficacy of workplace interventions, particularly for stress and wellbeing interventions. This strain of research argues that randomised control trials are insufficient when it comes to understanding organisational interventions and that, in order to fully understand the impacts of wellbeing interventions, researchers must also analyse factors associated with the process through which an intervention is carried out. This is particularly important considering the growing recognition that such interventions need to be participative, and therefore flexible and dynamic, rather than rigid and “controlled” (Nielsen et al., 2024; Nielsen and Randall, 2013).

Increasingly, researchers are beginning to report on process factors influencing intervention studies (Kuntz and Searle, 2023; Li et al., 2023). While many still do not design process evaluation into their studies, there are still learnings that can be drawn from the authors' reflections around the intervention's success. While existing reviews shed some light on which interventions might be effective, analysing these studies for their process-related insights allows a deeper understanding of why the interventions were effective or not and, thus, what intervention conditions are required for success. This is likely to be particularly important considering that there remains minimal evidence for specific workplace bullying interventions with large and consistent effect sizes (Rodríguez-Muñoz et al., 2024). Murray et al. (2020) in their Delphi study sought subject matter insights into the success factors required for common workplace bullying interventions to be successful. The current study builds on this work by deeply analysing evaluated interventions to identify common themes that affected the effectiveness of the interventions.

Drawing on published intervention studies across the past 2 decades, the current research seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the existing evaluated interventions developed for workplace bullying?

2. What is the relative effectiveness of the identified workplace bullying evaluated interventions according to each study's criteria?

3. What are the common factors related to the design and implementation of effective workplace bullying interventions?

This scoping review will provide further insights into workplace bullying interventions and the key factors that influence intervention effectiveness, in turn providing organisations with evidence-based guidance on how workplace bullying interventions should be designed and implemented for the greatest impact, moving beyond established approaches that have failed to yield real changes to bullying prevalence. It will also provide practical implications for HRP and broader organisations by recommending success factors for designing effective workplace bullying interventions.

We used a scoping review approach to address the research questions. Scoping reviews, as highlighted by Bradbury-Jones et al. (2022), are positioned in the centre of the review methods continuum as they provide opportunities to map, describe and analyse a wider range of literature than other types of reviews, such as systematic reviews, yet they follow a more rigorous method than the traditional literature review. Through the scoping review, this study examines the evidence in the literature regarding evaluated workplace bullying interventions, summarises findings (for academic and non-academic audiences), identifies gaps in the literature and offers success factors for designing effective workplace bullying interventions.

We applied the highly cited framework for scoping review by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and followed five out of six stages of the framework, as the last stage (i.e. consult with stakeholders regarding findings) is optional. In stage 1, we identified research questions as presented earlier in the introduction section. In stage 2, we identified studies that were relevant to the aim and objectives of the study, both in academic and non-academic literature. In stage 3, we selected and shortlisted the studies through justifiable inclusion and exclusion criteria. In stage 4, we extracted and mapped the data on workplace bullying evaluated interventions. In stage 5, we collated, summarised and reported the results using a thematic narrative of the findings. We also applied the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) (Tricco et al., 2018) to identify the articles that discussed and reported workplace bullying evaluated interventions.

The primary purpose of the review was to identify evaluated interventions for the prevention and management of workplace bullying. Scopus was used as the primary database for the search based on its depth of coverage (Singh et al., 2021). The search focused on evaluated workplace bullying interventions with the keywords of (work*) AND (bullying OR cyber*bullying OR cyber*abuse) AND (intervention OR evaluat* OR prevention OR assess* OR implement* OR program*).

We used PRISMA-ScR diagram as our search strategy in choosing the articles. The study's inclusion criteria included journal articles, reviews, book chapters, conference papers and books, English language, and publications from 2011 to 2023. The initial search produced 2,333 results (August 2023). Abstract screening was then used to identify sources in which the primary focus was to evaluate effective workplace bullying interventions. This screening stage and removal of duplicates resulted in shortlisting 311 sources from Scopus for full paper screening.

A further 10 intervention studies published pre-2011 were sourced from existing systematic reviews, where the reviews were published during the search period, 2011–2023 (Escartín, 2016). To be included in the review, the source had to report an evaluation (by any means) of an intervention focused on reducing the prevalence or supporting the effective management of workplace bullying. Articles were only included if addressing bullying was the primary purpose of the intervention and the content focused on the workplace.

To identify relevant grey literature and other sources, Google Scholar was also searched in August 2023 using the search term “workplace bullying evaluated intervention” and included the filter of post-2010. As recommended by Haddaway et al. (2015), Google Scholar is a powerful and supplementary tool to search for grey literature due to its broad coverage and accessibility. The first 150 abstracts were screened for relevance and added to the selection of papers if they had not already been captured by the Scopus search. This aligns with recommendations by Haddaway et al. (2015), who recommend moving beyond screening the first 50 results (which is common practice in systematic literature review) for accessing grey literature. We decided to screen 150 results because after the first 150 results, no new relevant papers emerged and the researchers stopped the search. Upon screening the 150 results and removing any duplicates also identified in the Scopus search, we added further 33 sources for full paper screening. Overall, full paper screening was conducted on a total of 354 sources. The screening process is illustrated in Figure 1.

A table was created to extract relevant data from the 31 shortlisted articles reviewed in the study. Following the PRISMA framework, we developed a data-charting form to determine which specific information to extract. The two reviewers independently charted the data, discussed the results and continuously updated the data-charting form in an iterative process (Lenzen et al., 2017). To ensure the quality of the knowledge and in line with guidelines from AMSTAR (a tool to assess methodological quality) (Shea et al., 2017), we assessed the methodological quality of the studies by focusing on the following criteria:

1. Robustness and clear explanation of the intervention in terms of design, implementation and evaluation.

2. Type of the intervention study, whether it is a planned or prospective intervention study or whether it relied on retrospective methods.

3. Quality of the evaluated interventions, whether they included either or both effectiveness and process evaluation.

4. Detailed and rigorous reporting of the intervention and evaluation, such that we could extract the necessary information.

We used a colour coding system to evaluate the short-listed articles for quality. Information for quality assessment was incorporated into the data extraction table. The extraction table included data on the content of the intervention, types of the intervention (employee training, policy implementation, etc), whether the intervention was tailored, intervention timeframe, sample, design of the intervention, sector, whether it was case-controlled, measures, whether there was a process evaluation, outcomes of the study, whether the intervention was effective, recommendations and limitations. The table helped the research team to extract relevant information on the evaluated workplace bullying interventions for further analysis, mapping, synthesis and reporting.

The screening process resulted in 31 sources reporting evaluated interventions for workplace bullying, of which 29 were unique studies (2 published articles were found for 2 of the intervention studies).  Appendix 1 provides summary details of each source included in the review.

The evaluated interventions were analysed in several ways. Firstly, intervention effectiveness, where impact on prevalence was not measured, was determined based on the source authors' assessment of whether the intervention achieved its aims with respect to bullying (Escartín, 2016). Next, the key features of the interventions were extracted and tabulated to allow for a basic descriptive analysis of the features of the intervention against intervention effectiveness. Following this, further in-depth examination of each source was undertaken to extract any features of the interventions that the authors highlighted as impacting the intervention's effectiveness. This analysis revealed several common success factors for workplace bullying interventions. The final step in the analysis was to extract and tabulate the intervention success factors (see  Appendix 2) to enable the strengths of these patterns to be assessed.

Many of the intervention studies were of low quality, while the research design was generally of higher quality (i.e. case-controlled) in the more highly ranked journals. Figure 2 shows the number of studies published each year and whether they were case-controlled.

Although Figure 2 presents 31 sources (each published in different years), these represent 29 independent studies. To avoid double-counting characteristics and evaluation details, the findings discussed in this paper refer to the 29 unique studies. Where multiple sources reported on the same study, relevant data from each were included in the analysis.

This section reports findings from the analysis of the 29 workplace bullying intervention studies. Figure 3 shows the industry sectors in which the interventions were implemented and evaluated. Most studies pertained to the healthcare profession (n = 18). The remaining studies reviewed were situated in a range of industry sectors, including public service, education, logistics, manufacturing, meat processing, grocery retail and disability work centres.

Of the 29 evaluation studies, 18 reported the prevalence of bullying or perceptions of prevalence as the evaluation outcome. A range of related outcomes were reported in the other 11 workplace bullying intervention studies, including the intervention's impact on awareness and acceptance of bullying, levels of reporting, trust in management that reports will be taken seriously, colleague support, confidence to respond to inappropriate behaviours, staff turnover and recollection of training material.

While there was a wide range of workplace bullying interventions (Figure 4), more than one-half included workplace bullying awareness training (n = 17), while victim assertiveness and coping training (n = 8) and training for managers (n = 9) were the next most common intervention approaches. The development or revision of anti-bullying policy featured in eight of the interventions, while four included establishing and training confidential advisors or champions, three involved developing and communicating resources on bullying.

Multi-component interventions were most common amongst the sources reviewed, with less than half (n = 13) consisting of single interventions, all of which were training sessions. The 16 multi-component interventions consisted of a variety of approaches, with many framed as zero-tolerance, anti-bullying or healthy work programs. Some multi-component interventions were composed entirely of different types of training, while others consisted of a mix of primary and secondary initiatives. These mixed, multi-component interventions were implemented at multiple levels, including organisation-wide initiatives, such as policy development or revision, group level initiatives such as middle manager training and the collaborative development of tailored strategies at the team level, along with individual level strategies such as training and support for victims of bullying.

Fifteen of the studies featured interventions focused solely at the individual level, one featured only organisational-level initiatives, while the remaining 13 featured a combination of initiatives targeting multiple levels within the organisation. Fifteen interventions reported were focused on secondary intervention, aiming to reduce the impact or address the negative outcomes of bullying, and thirteen involved a combination of strategies targeting both the prevention and management of bullying. Just one study focused on organisational-level primary prevention initiatives (Li et al., 2023).

In this analysis, we determined “effectiveness” based on whether the authors reported that the intervention met its aims. Of the 29 workplace bullying interventions, 12 were reported as effective, eight were assessed as partially effective, and nine were ineffective according to the criteria for effectiveness employed for each study.

Intervention effectiveness in reducing bullying prevalence or meeting the intervention's aims is mapped against intervention type (Figure 5). None of the intervention types shown in Figure 5 were assessed as fully effective or ineffective in all evaluations, except for those accounting for only one or two studies.

The workplace bullying literature indicates that, to be effective, workplace bullying interventions must be multi-pronged and multi-level (Barratt-Pugh and Krestelica, 2019; Doran et al., 2020; Douglas et al., 2022). Figure 6 examines these features within the evaluation studies reviewed. The top 2 bars show the number of single interventions that were assessed as effective or partially effective versus the number of multi-pronged interventions that were effective. The middle 2 bars show the number of individual-level interventions (i.e. those focusing on the problems or needs of individual workers) that were effective or partially effective compared to the number of organisation-level (i.e. those that address the needs of all workers in a uniform way, such as policy) or multi-level interventions. Lastly, the bottom 2 bars show the number of primary-level interventions (i.e. those targeting the prevention of bullying) versus secondary and tertiary level interventions (i.e. those aiming to reduce the impact of bullying) that were effective or partially effective. In all respects, these findings support the argument that multi-pronged and multi-level interventions that target both the prevention and management of workplace bullying are more likely to be effective than single individual-level interventions.

Previous research has pointed to the importance of ongoing exposure to workplace bullying interventions, as training is required to allow for transfer of learning to take place and encourage intervention outcomes to become embedded in organisational norms (Gardner and Cooper-Thomas, 2021). The length of participant exposure to each of the workplace bullying intervention studies (Figure 7) suggests that how long interventions lasted was an important factor in their perceived success. Indeed, interventions reported in the reviewed studies that lasted only hours were less likely to be effective, and generally consisted of one-off training sessions, while those that lasted months or years were more often deemed effective and involved comprehensive anti-bullying programs with multiple components.

Each of the sources was examined with a focus on the factors that the authors attributed to the outcomes of the interventions. A number of common characteristics of effective interventions were identified. Specifically, effective interventions often took the form of a multi-level and multi-pronged anti-bullying or healthy workplace program targeting the different risk areas in the organisation and ensuring maximum participant exposure. Moreover, interventions that focused on one target group within the social context, or that featured low participation, were generally less effective than interventions that involved most of the work group or organisation, indicating that if interventions are immersive, they would likely be more effective.

Another key aspect of an effective workplace bullying intervention is the strong advocacy and support from senior management. Senior management support is not only required to ensure sufficient time and resources are allocated to the intervention, but importantly, it demonstrates to workers the organisation's genuine commitment and support of the initiative. Relatedly, organisational ownership of the intervention, including internal drivers such as a steering committee and champions, was found to be an essential component, enabling the intervention to be tailored to the needs of the workforce, embedded in organisational systems and processes, and thus increasing the intervention's sustainability beyond the study period.

The review found that tailoring to the work unit or organisations being targeted is a further success factor, arising as a result of the diverse nature of bullying in organisations, and their unique structures and cultures. The last success factor identified in the study involves engaging employees and workers in the process and taking a participatory approach to the design and implementation of interventions. Engaging workers throughout the organisation ensures awareness and helps to foster positive perceptions of the intervention and ensure the intervention process and outcomes are well aligned with organisational issues. These success factors, key to workplace bullying intervention effectiveness, identified from the review, are shown in Table 1. Success factors for workplace bullying intervention are considered in greater detail in the Discussion, along with supporting evidence for each success factor from the extant literature.

This scoping review of evaluated workplace bullying interventions has provided evidence for what works in the effective prevention and management of this insidious workplace problem. The study has found that no one specific intervention type consistently produced the desired outcome for sources reviewed, confirming that there is no silver bullet, as workplace bullying is a complex phenomenon (Barratt-Pugh and Krestelica, 2019; Tye-Williams et al., 2020). In response to our primary research aim, however, we have found that interventions that are multifaceted, multi-level, focused at the organisational level, and of a longer duration are more likely to be effective according to the sources reviewed. Conversely, the evidence from this relatively small body of evaluated studies is that single, individual-level, short-term interventions are likely to be less effective. This responds to the call by Rodríguez-Muñoz et al. (2024), who highlighted the need for further understanding of organisational-level interventions.

Our findings support earlier studies' findings regarding what tends to work in the prevention of workplace bullying, including multi-level interventions, leadership engagement, and sustained implementation efforts (Escartín, 2016). However, the present paper goes beyond previous reviews in several important ways:

1. Identification of Critical Success Factors: Unlike prior reviews that primarily categorised intervention types and outcomes, our analysis systematically identifies critical success factors that are more often present in effective bullying interventions. These include elements such as organisational ownership, senior leadership engagement, multi-level approach, participatory design, integration with broader organisational strategies and ongoing evaluation mechanisms.

2. Integration with Broader Organisational Intervention Literature: We explicitly relate these success factors to established principles from the wider organisational intervention literature (Nielsen, 2013; Nielsen and Randall, 2013), and situate bullying interventions within a broader theoretical and practical framework. Thus, our findings provide a more holistic understanding of bullying intervention effectiveness.

3. Focus on Process Factors: One of the key advancements of this scoping review is its emphasis on process factors, including organisational ownership and immersion readiness, stakeholder participation and senior management engagement, largely overlooked in previous reviews, which focus predominantly on intervention type. Our analysis provides strong evidence that process is an essential ingredient for intervention success and provides deeper insight into why certain interventions succeed.

4. Implications for Theory and Practice: Our study offers unique and actionable implications for both theory and practice. Theoretically, it contributes to the development of a more integrated model of workplace bullying intervention and offers a framework for the process evaluation of future workplace bullying evaluation studies. Practically, it provides guidance for practitioners and policymakers on designing and implementing interventions that are more likely to succeed.

An important contribution of the present study is to highlight the common success factors (Table 1) present in the majority of effective workplace bullying intervention studies. Indeed, some of the same success factors (work participation, senior management engagement and organisational fit) have been associated with best practice for organisational intervention programs more generally (Nielsen and Noblet, 2018), offering both support for the findings of the present review and contributing to the wider evidence for what works in organisational intervention for enhancing employee wellbeing. Others (e.g. multi-dimensional approach) are recommended regarding the prevention and management of bullying specifically (Murray et al., 2020; Tye-Williams et al., 2020).

Our findings suggest that multi-pronged and multi-level interventions that target both the prevention and management of workplace bullying are more likely to be effective than single, individual-level interventions. These findings are consistent with the general literature on best practice in the management of workplace bullying that recommends that, to be effective, interventions should be part of a multi-level and multi-pronged anti-bullying or healthy workplace program (Barratt-Pugh and Krestelica, 2019; Doran et al., 2020). Multi-level interventions should go beyond individual-focused initiatives, such as awareness training, to also include team and organisational-level initiatives, including initiatives that address the wider risk factors that contribute to bullying. Moreover, interventions should be multi-pronged or multi-dimensional, incorporating various initiatives which target the different risk areas in the organisation and ensure maximum participant exposure. For example, two of the effective intervention studies reviewed, Sarik et al. (2020) and Kuntz and Searle (2023), concluded that workplace bullying training alone is insufficient and that organisations must develop and embed robust policies and systems that reflect the fact that workplace bullying is an organisational problem.

Interpreting our findings through the lens of broader organisational intervention theory (Nielsen and Randall, 2013), a multi-level and multi-pronged intervention informs organisational and HR practice. This moves the conversation beyond bullying-specific literature and situates effective interventions within a wider system-change perspective, informing HR professionals to determine the root causes of bullying in organisational structures and climates, not necessarily at the individual level. By demonstrating that organisational and multifaceted approaches are most effective, our study encourages HR to elevate bullying prevention efforts to the systems level, where they can have the greatest impact.

A particular limitation of individually targeted interventions is their failure to address factors in the work environment that encourage or allow bullying. Indeed, the often cited “work-environment hypothesis” posits that the work environment has significantly more impact on the prevalence of bullying than individual differences such as personality or demographic characteristics (Bowling and Beehr, 2006). Moreover, strategies targeting individual coping are unlikely to be sustainable long-term (Fahie and Devine, 2014). For example, Kang et al. (2017) attributed the insignificant results in their study to the intervention being restricted to individual-level factors and not controlling for the influence of organisational factors on workplace bullying. León-Pérez et al. (2013) concluded similarly, recommending that individual strategies be paired with organisational strategies. Furthermore, the long-term impact of individual-level interventions has been questioned (Fahie and Devine, 2014), notably for training, which is likely to require ongoing or repeated exposure (Kuntz and Searle, 2023).

Relatedly, the review found that interventions that focused on one target group within the social context, or that featured low participation, were less effective than interventions that involved most people in the work group, department or organisation. Kang et al. (2017), for example, reported that their intervention conducted across a working unit may have contributed to a positive shift in the work atmosphere as nurses in each unit could discuss scenarios and provide support for one another. On the other hand, Sheridan et al. (2022) reported that limited immersion was likely to have affected the efficacy of their intervention. Indeed, workplace bullying occurs within a social context (Kang and Jeong, 2019), and there needs to be shared understanding and shared language about bullying across an organisation to drive a collective change in work culture (Vartia and Tehrani, 2013). Similarly, Hoel and Beale (2006) reported that their intervention was impacted by failure to achieve critical mass, with too few people being trained to have a significant impact on behaviour.

Strong advocacy and support from senior management is a necessary requirement for an effective workplace bullying intervention (Mikkelsen et al., 2011). Such support ensures sufficient resources are allocated to the intervention and demonstrates to workers the organisation's genuine commitment and support of the initiative. Many of the interventions considered effective included in this review were initiated by senior management. Indeed, they often took an active role in the intervention process, developing and chairing task forces or steering groups to drive the initiatives (Keller et al., 2016). Senior management also frequently led the design and implementation of interventions (Meloni and Austin, 2011; Sarik et al., 2020). On the other hand, lack of senior management engagement had a negative impact on the success of the intervention (Kuntz and Searle, 2023; Vartia and Tehrani, 2013). The studies reviewed showed that visible and supportive management created awareness of the intervention and why it was necessary, fostering a sense of urgency and engagement across the organisation.

Our findings also point to the importance of internal representatives as drivers of the workplace bullying initiative. The interventions featuring internal drivers benefited from an “organic” intervention that could adapt to emerging needs with regard to bullying and be sustained beyond the study period (Parker et al., 2016). This is important considering that intervention initiatives can fade over time and may need to be updated and revised in line with organisational change and emerging risks in the work environment (Sarik et al., 2020).

Many of the interventions deemed effective in our review featured an internal mechanism, commonly a steering committee or similar group, for driving the intervention that had the potential to be sustained beyond the life of the study. A steering group can serve various functions, including the provision of input on behalf of their colleagues, being champions for the intervention and encouraging positive perceptions within their teams or departments, communicating with their teams about intervention progress, as well as potentially playing a role in the implementation and evaluation of the intervention. Indeed, such an internal group was considered essential in 10 of the 11 bullying interventions reviewed in a Delphi study by Murray et al. (2020). Having staff from across the organisation and representation from senior and middle management within steering groups appears to be critical (Mikkelsen et al., 2011) in influencing the success of the intervention, along with an intervention champion (Hopkinson et al., 2020). Furthermore, external expertise to guide the process may also be important where such expertise is not available internally (Mikkelsen et al., 2011; Murray et al., 2020).

No one intervention is likely to be effective across all organisational settings. Indeed, tailoring interventions to the work unit, department or organisation was a strong theme in the intervention studies reviewed and is recommended in the wider organisational intervention literature (Nielsen and Randall, 2013; Nielsen et al., 2010). Many of the effective interventions included an initial risk assessment (mostly via a staff survey) to better understand the nature and extent of bullying. Findings from such an assessment were used as a basis to design initiatives that targeted the key areas of concern for the organisation (Li et al., 2023; Sarik et al., 2020). Again, this approach is strongly advocated in the wider organisational intervention literature (Nielsen et al., 2010). Several of the interventions also achieved success by empowering middle managers to design and implement tailored initiatives in their own departments (Parker et al., 2016; Sarik et al., 2020).

A participatory approach to the design and implementation of organisational interventions is widely recommended (Nielsen et al., 2010), and this holds true for workplace bullying interventions. Mikkelsen et al. (2011) reported a participatory approach as a key factor in the outcome of their intervention study, with this study empowering employees to be local change agents. The importance of engagement and participation was also recognised by Meloni and Austin (2011) as essential from the outset of the change process.

Worker participation was reflected in representation on the steering groups and participation in the intervention initiatives within several of the studies reviewed, while a staff perception survey regarding bullying was also a common form of participation. However, effective interventions went beyond these basic participatory measures with workers engaged throughout the organisation in different ways, encouraging commitment. Parker et al. (2016), for example, initiated their intervention with an educational day for leadership and employee champions, fostered accountability at the department level in addressing bullying and purposefully created a shared commitment to addressing bullying. The authors noted that “for staff to feel empowered and culture change to occur, staff need to be involved in establishing the implementation of [bullying] awareness and interventions for their work environment” (p. 60).

Overall, findings of the current study complement the study by Rodríguez-Muñoz et al. (2024) on identifying effective workplace bullying interventions and expand our understanding beyond what has been identified as effective intervention strategies (i.e. cognitive rehearsal, educational programs, and supervisor support training), by offering six key success factors. The identified key success factors offer a framework for designing effective workplace bullying interventions in the future.

The above discussion holds a number of important implications for the design and implementation of workplace bullying interventions, whether as a research exercise or within organisational practice. The evidence of this review indicates that workplace bullying intervention and prevention efforts should ensure initiatives go beyond training to develop and embed robust systems and policies. Moreover, organisations should consider work design or environmental risks that contribute to workplace bullying in intervention design.

Interventions should, therefore, be designed to foster a shared understanding and shared language about bullying, which requires engaging and involving workers throughout the organisation. This engagement should include middle managers, and broad and public communication about the interventions across the work system. A further recommendation of this review is that senior management must be committed and proactively involved throughout the intervention to foster a sense of urgency and to energise and engage employees throughout the organisation. Senior managers should send a strong message of their commitment to employees, and, where possible, be involved in the intervention design and be visible during its implementation. Moreover, organisations should establish a Steering Committee or group, chaired by a passionate champion, to drive the intervention. The Steering Committee should be representative of the views of the wider organisation and include senior and middle management representation. Interventions must be tailored to address the concerns specific to the organisation; therefore, an assessment of the organisation to identify the nature and causes of bullying in the organisation is a further implication of this research.

Additionally, worker engagement and participation in the workplace bullying intervention is necessary at all levels of the organisation. Participation should typically involve worker representation on the steering committee and input from workers should be sought via staff surveys and risk assessments involving staff participation. The meaningful engagement from all workers is optimal to intervention success and can be fostered through encouraging commitment to a shared purpose, involving all workers in intervention design and encouraging workers to be local change agents.

In doing so and putting all the recommendations into practice, HRPs have a significant role to play because they can help develop an organisational culture, where bullying is not tolerated (Djurkovic et al., 2021). Specifically, HRPs help bridge the gap between policy and practice, shape the work environment and are fundamental to preventing and managing workplace bullying (Catley et al., 2017).

This review paper has contributed to the growing body of literature on workplace bullying intervention by reporting on the evidence from published intervention evaluations. The relative effectiveness of evaluated interventions and common factors related to their design and implementation that contribute to intervention effectiveness have been examined and implications for the design of intervention initiatives have been distilled from a review of previous evaluation studies. As such, this paper makes an important contribution to knowledge and organisational practice, providing insights that enhance the potential to positively impact this persistent and damaging problem.

Our findings indicate that many of the success factors for workplace bullying intervention effectiveness are consistent with the broader implementation science literature (Murray et al., 2020) as well as literature regarding organisational interventions (Nielsen and Randall, 2013). Our findings support the argument that multi-pronged and multi-level interventions that target both the prevention and management of workplace bullying are more likely to be effective than single individual-level interventions, while senior management commitment, an internal driver, contextualisation, and worker participation are fundamental to intervention success.

In sum, while our review confirms some well-established findings, its unique contribution lies in the synthesis of success factors across studies and the bridging of bullying-specific interventions with broader organisational intervention theory. This approach not only enriches the academic discourse but also enhances the practical utility of the findings for real-world applications.

Meaningful assessment regarding the effectiveness of the intervention is problematic. Many of the studies reviewed had different aims and evaluation criteria and gathered and interpreted evaluation data in different ways. Evaluations often had very small sample sizes and measures of effectiveness were taken at different times, with some having relatively brief activation periods. Consistent with other organisational interventions, workplace bullying interventions typically take an extended period of time and consistent effort in order to have an impact, with the long-term sustained impact of the intervention difficult to ascertain (Chipps and McRury, 2012; Fehr and Seibel, 2022). While these limitations restrict our ability to identify any one approach as best suited to tackling workplace bullying through intervention, our approach of identifying common success factors from interventions deemed effective does provide helpful insights from which further research and development efforts can build. We, therefore, recommend that future research seek to incorporate the success factors identified in this review paper within well-designed and controlled intervention evaluation studies. Indeed, these authors have designed and are evaluating such an approach in government-funded studies within both public and private sectors in Australia, involving the elevation of workplace bullying prevention capability throughout the work system.

Workplace bullying is an organisational challenge that is both damaging and highly resistant to prevention through traditional approaches such as policy, reporting systems and awareness training. Shining a light on innovative approaches to workplace bullying prevention that have the greatest chance of being effective remains a key priority for researchers in the field.