Chief operating officer Vivian Blake said staff had become more aware of their rights since the workplace-culture development group released a document outlining them earlier this year.
The board set up the group after reports of workplace bullying were raised through the Otago Daily Times in 2007.
Mrs Blake and diagnostic and support services group manager Sonja Dillon, who co-led the group, emphasised that any staff concerned about bullying should speak with their manager, professional director, clinical leader, human resources adviser or union delegate.
Concerns could not be dealt with otherwise.
They were responding to allegations of bullying raised with the ODT recently by a woman who has now left the health board.
They suggested she could still raise her concerns if she wished.
New Zealand Nurses Organisation organiser Lorraine Lobb agreed that staff who had complaints needed to raise them, and said people sometimes overlooked raising issues with their union.
She noted she had not received complaints about bullying since the launch of the staff rights document. There was more work to be done on processes to ensure staff rights were upheld, but such work could take a while.
Mrs Blake said people could raise issues confidentially in several forums, including her fortnightly listening clinic on Wednesday afternoons.
It had been well used, and staff talked about "all sorts of different things", not just matters of conflict.
Mrs Blake said she would only raise an issue elsewhere with the permission of the staff member concerned. In some instances, where matters had been raised with a person deemed to have been behaving badly, it came as a surprise to the person involved.
"Just raising the issue can have a positive effect on some people."
Ms Dillon said further training and guidelines for staff who might have to deal with conflict were being planned.
Some staff were more experienced than others at dealing with conflict.
"Managing some conflicts can be quite complex, and it is not something they are doing every day."
Managers had different levels of self-confidence about dealing with conflict, and it was a matter of giving them the tools to be able to work through issues with staff.
Ideally, conflicts should be dealt with early, before they became a "major drama", she said.
Mrs Blake said further consideration would also have to be given to how the workplace-culture work might be affected by moves towards regional services across Otago and Southland.
Improving workplace culture was a long-term initiative, requiring "organisational commitment demonstrated through all facets of how we do business", she said.
