Resolving bullying in terms of workload management in the public education sector after COVID-19 remote working experience

A common bullying problem being faced in public sector organizations is that some direct managers focus on a limited group of achieving employees while leaving other employees without responsibilities and this issue exists both in-office and remote working environments. Such problem causes stress and demoralization and unhealthy work environment. As what has been practiced nowadays during the COVID-19 pandemic, the educational sector in Bahrain shifted to online teaching where up to 70% of its employees have been directed to work from home. The purpose of this research is to investigate the problem of workplace bullying on the educational sector in Bahrain during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research aims to provide a solution to overcome bullying in terms of workload inequality in educational institutions and improve healthy work environments after the COVID-19 remote working experience. Through adopting combination of behavioral approach, human-centered design, and design thinking, the methodology of this study was developed. Some case studies of bullying experiences were reviewed. A mixed-method approach including quantitative and qualitative tools are used to collect data. A survey was designed to find out how employees are affected by bullying. Interviews were conducted with some managers in a Higher Educational Institutes who worked remotely. In the ideation phase, the Lotus Blossom tool was used for brainstorming and collecting ideas. The proposed solution and actions were evaluated using the three hats technique to check the viability, desirability, and feasibility of the ideas and to Identify the strong and weak points and re-ideate for the final set of solutions. The proposed solution is a model that composes of four parts related to business, technology, and social (i.e. people behavior) realistic constraints. Also, a course has been developed in Leader Actions to help maintain equal workloads across their teams.