Charities are among the toughest places to work in Britain, according to research from Cardiff University and the University of Glamorgan into workplace practices.

Professor Duncan Lewis of Glamorgan's Business School said: "Third sector respondents reported being 2.5 times more likely to experience intimidating behaviour from people at work and were four times more likely to report being humiliated or ridiculed in connection with their work.

"It could be anything from having your views and your opinions ignored to having somebody constantly checking up on your work, or being given unmanageable workloads."

The research analysed nearly 4,000 interviews with UK employees.

Lewis added: "It's possible that, working in that sector, they expect to be treated in a particular way. They are doing good work but they find themselves in an environment being run just like a business."

The study showed that respondents working in the third sector were more likely to report extreme forms of negative behaviour associated with violence, threats and injury but such behaviour is often perpetrated by clients or users of those services.

Victoria Winckler, director of the left-wing think tank Bevan Foundation, which is to hold a conference exploring the research later this month, said: "Different groups face very similar problems. For example, equal pay is not just about the gap between women's pay compared with men's, there is also a pay gap between disabled and non-disabled people."

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