<< Background >>The project, 'PROTECT: PROmoting The prevention and Elimination of workplaCe mobbing and harrasmenT' is a 2-year project involving eight (8) partners form Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Belgium and Romania.The protection of rights, safety, wellbeing of women workers is a priority of the EU Institutions. Gender related issues are of high importance for the EU in terms of legitimacy and equality: -women represent more than the half of Europe' s citizenry. In 2018, women's gross hourly earnings were on average 14.4 % below those of men in the European Union (EU-27) and 15.3% in the euro area (EA-19) (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Gender_statistics#Labour_market), - women were also hit more by the Covid -19 pandemic, as they are again, over-represented in the first line of duty against it, thus more exposed to infection, resulting in long term unpaid care work, while the restriction measures put also more domestic work on them,-while researches have showed that women were over-represented as victims of mobbing and harassment at work. (https://www.frontiersin.org/Zapf, 2020 and Salin and Notelaers 2018). The consequences of being bullied have been studied with 140,000 participants and showed robust evidence for negative consequences of workplace bullying and harassment, such as affecting mental health. Mobbing and harassment is usually directed towards young women and is the most extreme, yet persistent, form of gender-based discrimination; whereas some 90 % of victims are of sexual harassment, up to 55% of women have been sexually harassed in the EU; The EU is in need of a strong Social European Pillar to address gender inequalities. Its basic principle is equality of men and women, including participation in the labour market, conditions of employment and career progression, with a special focus on marginalised and vulnerable groups, such as women with migrant background, members of minorities and single parents. This reality urge for new discussion, researches and strategies involving women and education of training professionals. PROTECT partnership is keen on addressing the above problems and discrimination between men and women: tackling effectively the gaps in employment.By focusing on the workplace sector, the PROTECT action will set ambitious, but tangible targets so as to contribute to a more inclusive, attractive and ultimately equal labour market across Europe via sequential steps that will deal with the construction of national and in turn transnational VET systems that promote equal opportunities on the basis of inclusive and accessible programs. PROTECT aims at increasing the flexibility of opportunities in VET for both company leaders and the educational staff in efforts to educate them and raise awareness about the different forms that mobbing and harassment can take within the local, national and transnational labour markets, its consequences and the effective ways to prevent and combat it, whilst inform and protect female workers from mobbing, increase reporting of such incidents and raise awareness about violence and intimidation in the workplace.Addressing digital transformation: while learning materials and digital media devices are continuing to grow, there is no parallel upskilling for VET providers to be able to benefit from these new technology-based opportunities. With this in mind, one of the main project priorities is to build the skills of (1) VET professionals and (2) women workers and employers to ensure that they have the confidence and digital readiness for establishing and using effectively anti-bullying prevention and reporting tools in online environments.The partnership also needs relevant online training material and methodologies both for their learners and clients and staff members in order to be able to compete other organisations in terms of innovation but also to adopt a anti-mobbing and harassment policy for a more equality.<< Objectives >>Keywords: leadership, organisational change, workplace relationships, workplace bullying, mobbing behaviour, violence, prevention, sensitisation, gender equality, inclusionThis project addresses a ground-breaking field that although has been a hidden issue for many years now, came to the surface only recently under the term “mobbing”. Workplace bullying/ mobbing are secretive, targeted, and widespread forms of abuse in the workplace (European Foundation, 2002). This behaviour is ’designed to ostracise, isolate, undermine, and eliminate the person(s) being targeted’. For reasons as yet unknown, this behaviour appears to occur more frequently in the social service, health, social, care and educational sectors, where women are over-represented: the EU average is revealing in this regard (European Institute for Gender Equality).A global estimation of the Bureau of Nations Affairs even claims that the lost productivity due to mobbing equals an amount of five to six billion dollar a year. The organisation concerned also have to bear the costs caused by victims who are solely absent from work because they are afraid of mobbing. According to a study 60 % of the employees even leave the company due to bullying at the workplace.(Report/002/73/EC). As for the partner countries, the phenomenon of harassment or mobbing in the workplace have not been scientifically studied, therefore PROTECT aims at delivering an international desk-top and field research on the topic. The partners aim at bringing non- violent practises and solutions to the labour market through equipping VET professionals, women workers and employers with important skills and tools through capacity building programs, that are crucial for personal and professional life and help establish new work-based routines. Therefore, organisations, peoples' groups and families are expected to become more resilient, connected and all these result in more peaceful and inclusive communities and workplaces, as a whole. All the above lead to the creation of an international European professional network that connects education providers, local businesses, individuals and families, plus all target groups with the labour market.While crafting the recovery and resilience strategies as a respond to mitigate the post -pandemic inequalities in the EU and addressing the above, PROTECT’ s main objectives are to empower its target groups women workers, employers/ managers and VET professionals and:•prevent mobbing and harassment through comprehensive codes of conduct in the workplace,•train VET professionals on preventing and managing work-related violence•educate employers/ managers and companies regarding the adaptation of anti-mobbing and anti-harassment policy,•raise the awareness of female workers about their rights and support options in case of mobbing and harassment, including reporting,.The project is to support the above target groups, however it also welcomes and benefits professionals from the arena of HR, law and mediation internationally.<< Implementation >>During the project life-cycle PROTECT partners are going to implement different activities, focusing on its target groups and the partnership's need. There are activities related directly to the project' s five (5) Results: desk-top and field research, training and reporting material development, training design and capacity building program delivery, workshops, plus three (3) transnational meetings for more effective cooperation and six (6) multiplier events with 270 participants to ensure better dissemination of the project results an outcomes. Specifically, the linkage between objectives/results and activities follows a sequential approach, as presented below:Result 01 involves the development of the Anti-mobbing and Anti-Harassment Code of Conduct and all necessary preparatory activities for identifying the exact needs of both target groups. Once those needs are identified, they will feed the implementation of the next results, which involve the design of the solution (reporting tool, handbook, trainings, workshops).Result O2 involves the design and development of the Reporting Tool for women workers and information on digital usage. This will be accomplished by capitalising on the findings of the previous result while it will be an important part of project outputs (training content, capacity building program, digital information & sensitisation material, online platform).Result 03 involves the content development for the training of VET professionals, and will be the foundation (together with R01, R02) of the next two results.Result O4 involves the pilot application of the results of R01, RO2, R03, (i.e. pilot capacity building program for VET educators) and will lad to the implementation of the next result, where the trained VET professionals will hold workshops for company leaders. This result involves the capitalisation of all project outputs in a way that will facilitate their promotion and dissemination. In this way, together with the foreseen supporting multiplier events (info days, final conference) will lead to the promotion of all project results to various stakeholders.Consequently, all results are interconnected, with each of them feeding the next one, while the achievement of all foreseen project results is feasible and can be broken down to different results.<< Results >>Main results, as expected:R01 Anti-Mobbing and Anti-Harassment Code of Conduct (MWHCC) for local businesses R02 Reporting Tool for Female Worker about Mobbing and Harassment R03: E-Handbook for Mobbing and Harassment Prevention Training for VET professionalsR04: Training of VET professionalsR05 Local capacity building workshops for managers/ employersplus, activities and tools to be developed during the creation and implementation of the above:-An open source, barrier-free, tailor made, web-based e-learning platform.-A collection of practises and tools at national, EU and global level regarding the the combatting of mobbing and harassment.-A multinational and multilingual bibliography to be explored, and best practises to be gathered from all partner countries of the partnership.-Discussion with female workers to investigate their knowledge and attitude towards mobbing/ workplace harassment.-Capacity building material for the learning process of employers and representatives of local companies.-Online learning resources and tools for use by interested stakeholders, professionals and labour market representatives.-A collection of statistics relevant to the PROTECT’s topic and target groups.-Group meetings for informing relevant stakeholders and companies/ employers about the products.-A sensitisation social media campaign targeted to female workers about mobbing and harassment.-Dissemination Strategy and tools about the possibility of reporting mobbing and ways to prevent victimisation.-Advanced English language practise and knowledge for all participants, as the main working language of the project is English.A wide scale of results, related to the management, dissemination and exploitation, and quality assurance processes, are expected, too. These will ensure that the project and its objectives are clear and of high quality, they are disseminated and reach the targeted people in all countries.Project virtual meetingsTransnational meetings: three meetings in Spain, Greece and Italy.Training sessionsMultiplier dissemination events in six organisations with 40 participants and a closing event in Spain with 70 participants.Project Tasks PlanReports for interim and final evaluationPartner agreementsNewslettersStakeholders database Dissemination and Sustainability Plan Quality Assurance PlanSocial Media PlatformsPlus, a complex project website gathering all the outputs, serving as a main channel for both the partners and other stakeholders during the project life cycle and beyond will be built. It will have details about the participating partners, a description about the project' s objectives and aims, details about the transnational meetings, the multiplier event, the conditions of participating in the piloting/ training and the research - scientific background. It will be established for communication, dissemination and exploitation of the results. It will contain also the links to the project's training platform and to other open-resource deliverables of the project.- Improved policies and internal organisational strategies against mobbing. - Increased capacity among local companies and employers regarding effective ways to precent and combat mobbing. - Improved reporting methods and tools for mobbing incidents in the partner countries and at EU level. - Increased awareness among female workers about the possibility of becoming a victim of mobbing/ harassment, the reporting and support optionsA multi-disciplinary research leading to a Code of Conduct on workplace violence will be delivered, as a scientific foundation of the capacity building program. The document will focus on the theory framing the definitions of workplace violence, harassment and mobbing and the management of bullying at work. The document, having as a basis the theory mention above and the shared experiences of the participants, will give the direction and idea of the standards for a reporting system.