Some eight percent of the
European workforces suffer from bullying and mobbing in the workplace. This
causes European business to lose profit through absenteeism, staff turnover and
on a personal level, leads to some three suicides per week in Belgium alone. In
Ireland a survey carried out by SIPTU reported that 87 percent of those questioned
indicated that they were aware of bullying behaviour taking place in their
workplace. Almost 40 percent said that bullying was a regular occurrence in
their workplace and young and inexperienced workers were the most vulnerable
people to work place bullying.
The introduction of the
Equality Acts expands the definition regarding Harassment, Bullying and
Sexual Harassment and is forcing employers to take action to stop harassment in
the workplace or face the consequences of possible litigation in the future and
severe penalties.
The equality laws
introduced over the last number of years place employers under obligations to
ensure a safe and positive work environment for all employees. What was up to
now considered by many as normal behaviour in the workplace should now
seriously be re-examined.
All the equality
legislation is coming from European Union Directives and has to be implemented
into Irish law. The scope of these directives is to stop discrimination on
grounds of gender, marital status, sexual orientation, religion, age,
disability and specifically in Ireland membership of the travelling community.
Harassment is seen as a
form of discrimination and Sexual Harassment is seen as a form of gender
discrimination. The employer is responsible if the harassment takes place
within the scope of the employment. This could mean the following: the harassed
person is an employee; the harasser is an employee, the employer, client,
customer or business contact. The employer is responsible for taking reasonable
action to prevent the harassment from happening when the harassment took place
where the employee is employed or it is related to the workplace.
The effects of harassment
should be studied as well. If employees are treated differently than is the
norm by other employees, for instance nobody talks to them, all avoid this
person, then this could amount to discrimination and seen as harassment. Once an employer has been notified regarding
this behaviour then the employer should take action to solve the problem.
Taking no action exposes the employer to serious risks of employee litigation.
The defence for employers
against all these developments is to take harassment and bullying seriously and
develop a positive culture in your workplace. The following actions should be
taken: -
Ø Develop
policies stopping discrimination and harassment in the workplace
Ø Develop
a company code of practice regarding discrimination and harassment
Ø Train
key staff in handling discrimination and spotting harassment
Ø Take
reasonable steps when harassment occurs to stop it happening again
The most important thing
an employer should do is to take harassment seriously and prevent it from
happening.
There are also huge
benefits for a company from this legislation. Companies can gain through more
contented workforce, a better work climate, lower absenteeism and lower staff
turnover. All these will contribute to the bottom line of a company.
