Workplace Wellbeing Among Justice Department Staff

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the factors that affect the wellbeing at work of a particular group within the Victorian public sector: those who are directly responsible for the delivery of justice to offenders, namely corrections officers. Corrections staff, as front-line workers in the corrections system, have an important role in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders. The study is based on data from The People Matter Survey 2005 that sought to measure Victorian public sector employees' perceptions of how well the public sector values and employment principles were applied within their organisations. In this study we used data from 230 employees from Corrections Victoria who participated in the survey and used multilinear regression to analyse the factors affecting the level of workplace wellbeing. This study found that the most important factors affecting workplace wellbeing of the workers are Fair and Reasonable Treatment (FRT), Accountability (AC), and Senior Management (SM). Other findings included that the levels of workplace wellbeing of bullied or harassed staff was less than non-bullied or harassed staff.