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Employees with disabilities are twice as likely to be attacked at work and experience much higher rates of insults, ridicule and intimidation, a new study has found. Research from the universities of Plymouth and Cardiff found people with physical or psychological disabilities or long-term illness reported higher rates of 21 types of ill-treatment than did other workers.

The death of a founding entrepreneur wipes out on average 60 per cent of a firm's sales and cuts jobs by around 17 per cent, according to a new study. The research, by Sascha O. Becker at the University of Warwick and Hans K. Hvide at the University of Bergen, sheds light on exactly how much a founder-entrepreneur 'matters' in terms of influencing the performance of privately-owned businesses.

A new study has found strong evidence for a link between cleaning jobs and risk of developing asthma. Researchers at Imperial College London tracked the occurrence of asthma in a group of 9,488 people born in Britain in 1958. Not including those who had asthma as children, nine per cent developed asthma by age 42.

Cyberbullying through e-mail, text and web posts is as common in the workplace as conventional bullying but even more difficult to uncover, research by experts from the University of Sheffield has revealed. Occupational psychologists Christine Sprigg, Carolyn Axtell and Sam Farley of the University of Sheffield, together with Iain Coyne of the University of Nottingham, turned the focus of their investigation onto cyberbullying of adult workers, instead of younger people in schools, for which more research has taken place.

Cyber bullying - using modern such as e-mails, texts or web-postings - is as common in the workplace as 'conventional' bullying. Yet, the way cyber bullying influences both the victim and witnesses is more hidden in the workplace. These are the findings of 'Punched from the Screen' - new research into workplace bullying carried out by occupational psychologists at The University of Nottingham and the University of Sheffield.

Smokers are costing the UK economy £1.4 billion by taking an average of two or three days more sick leave per year than their non-smoking colleagues, a new study has revealed. Current smokers are 33 per cent more likely to miss work than non-smokers and were absent an average of 2.7 extra days per year, according to research conducted by Jo Leonardi-Bee and Stephen Weng in the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies based at The University of Nottingham.