THERE IS AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM – MANY SERIOUS MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS ORIGINATE FROM UNABATED WORKPLACE HARASSMENT

 

Organizations spend an enormous amount of money on employees’ mental health – treatment, decreased productivity, presenteeism, absenteeism, short and long-term disability, and losing, then replacing what were excellent employees who have dropped out. 50% of workplace harassed employees experience mental-health-related problems according to research conducted in 2015 by the Canadian Mental Health Commission of Canada.  A survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute came up with similar results a year earlier. 

Harassment causes a variety of mental health disorders in employees including shame; serious stress; panic attacks; unbearable anxiety; severe and debilitating depression; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); and can trigger the onset of serious physical illnesses as well.  The employees suffer, they are afraid to go to work, and the organization ends up stuck in the mud and spinning wheels.

It behooves each and every organization to address the elephant in the room and spend their monies and put into place effective resources on harassment prevention so that many mental health problems among employees are avoided and the end costs of treatment and all the subsequent effects and costs to an organization of unaddressed harassment are prevented.  Further, with tort law now active in some provinces, it is easier for employees to sue their employer for damages resulting from harassment.  So, there are real and immediate dollar costs to organizations plus the prospects of damaged reputation.

Workplace harassment is serious business. In the Boucher v. Wal-Mart Canada Corp., the court found that Boucher, the employee “was continuously and unrelentingly, often in front of co-workers, for nearly six months, belittled, humiliated and demeaned” by Boucher’s supervisor.  The judge awarded Boucher a six-figure amount, because, in the judge’s determination, this constituted flagrant and outrageous conduct.

Donna Marshall, a Co-founder of Work Right/BizLife Solutions, a consulting company consulting on Harassment Prevention wrote about the Merrifield v The Attorney General, 2017 case “where an RCMP officer sued his employer for wide ranging acts of harassment perpetuated over an extended period of time.” In the judge’s determination, the tort of harassment does exist and “that it is recognized as a cause of action in Ontario.  The court awarded Mr. Merrifield general damages against his employer for harassment and intentional infliction of mental suffering in the amount of $100,000.”

In another more recent case, a Calgary woman was awarded a much greater amount - $800,000 in a sexual harassment claim.

The umbrella of workplace harassment covers three major areas of employee vexation: human rights, intimidation or bullying, and physical contact and/or asking for sexual favors.  Unfortunately, many managers have been promoted into managerial positions based on their technical talents and successes and not because of actual managerial and people skills that should include effective communication, emotional intelligence, empathy, and leadership.    Empathy is especially important in understanding and preventing workplace harassment behavior because today’s legal interpretation is based on the employee’s perception of being harassed rather than on the person doing the harassment.  Think about it – mental issues are experienced by the recipient and not by the giver.

Therefore, most, if not all, managers need to be educated in knowing and recognizing workplace harassment with many specific examples so that they can’t claim ignorance or dismiss a comment or behavior as “it was a joke” or “I meant it as a joke.” 

Further, managers need to be educated on harassment prevention.  Managers need to truly understand that when they come to the workplace or are in a extended workplace setting such as a conference or an office party, how they may choose to behave in their personal life is quite different from a workplace setting and they must successfully filter their words, demeanor, and behavior to reflect workplace harassment prevention.

There are three major potential workplace harassing areas.

(1) For example, in the area of human rights, treating someone differently, displaying insensitive or condemning pictures, using demeaning or inappropriate terms or labels, or making remarks or even jokes about race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, family status, age, and any kind of disability are completely unacceptable. These kinds of comments and behaviors make employees feel inferior and repeated attacks lead to serious mental anguish and problems.

 (2) The second area falls into work intimidation or bullying tactics. It involves threatening, humiliating, sabotaging, work interference, piling on loads of work, setting unreasonable deadlines, and keeping information from an employee that the she/he needs to do the job successfully.  Being repeatedly bullied at work most closely resembles the experience of being a battered spouse.  The “when and where” whims of the abuser keeps the harassed person off balance. Such selective but repeated workplace harassment, whether it is boss to subordinate or co-worker to co-worker, leads to stress, anxiety, and mental health issues in the employee being harassed.

Sexual workplace harassment is one of the most painful and lethal forms of harassment.  Examples abound and include unwanted touching; unwanted flirtatious comments, compliments, or gestures; communications of a sexual nature whether it is verbal, written, or electronic; whistles and catcalls: inquiries to an employee or an employee’s co-worker about social life, sexual life, or sexual orientation; staring or ogling particularly at a sexual body part or staring a person up and down; discussing or asking about sexual activities; showing graphic pictures of a person or people in stages of undress or engaged in sexual activities and seductive behaviour such as giving sexy gifts, offering or giving a neck massage, and sending seductive signals such as winking, throwing kisses, and licking lips.

 Of course, the most offensive forms of sexual harassment are in rooted in quid pro quo which is Latin for “something for something” where a workplace employee such as a supervisor, manager, school teacher, or doctor uses their position of superiority to pressure an employee into exchanging sexual favors for the promise of an easier workload, being favored, a promotion, or even rapid advancement.  The Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) is Ontario’s cornerstone legislation for workplace health and safety and clearly defines workplace sexual harassment as “making a sexual solicitation or advance where the person making it is in a position to confer, grant or deny a benefit or advancement to the worker and the person knows or ought reasonably to know the solicitation or advance is unwelcome.” It can start innocently with working late, then a dinner, then a visit to a hotel room at a conference; the slippery slope becomes a very unwanted and fearful experience for the employee being sexually harassed.  The employee begins to develop a conflict between wanting to escape the sexual abuse and workplace yet feeling the necessity to work and put food on the table.  It becomes a losing situation feeling stuck between two rocks and spirals into serious mental health problems.

As the founder and pioneer in Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) we treated hundreds of employees for the symptoms, sometimes severe, of workplace harassment. It chips away at the sense of well-being of employees.  The impact of harassment on the employee’s mental health is very real.  Let’s be honest and direct in calling harassment an assault on the employee’s identity and if it continues unabated it gnaws away at the employee’s resilience until the employee is brutally psychologically impacted and has no choice but to give in to serious stress, panic attacks, unbearable anxiety, severe and debilitating depression, and PSTD – an unfortunate human devastation and a huge cost to the organization.

Mangers and co-workers need to look at and see each other as thinking persons with thoughts, ideas, and input on work-related activities and projects.  Civility must be paramount in the workplace. There is no excuse for any communications not directly related to work.  That is why you are in a workplace in the first place – to work and achieve results.

 In the past, and still today, you hear people in positions of control, management, and authority say organizations and the professionals that consult with them “are being too politically correct, that we are going too far, that our views are too protective of employees and too extreme.”  I think that these people simply want to continue their “set in stone” ways and styles and are reluctant to change for a variety of reasons – outdated values that they want to dearly hang onto, laziness, fear of losing power and control, being outright mean and wanting to hurt others, enjoy and relish negativity, and so on.

Words matter! Words leading to incivility, disrespect, difficult people, personality conflict, and negative conduct have to stop and not be allowed in the workplace. Employees deserve better and need to be communicated to with respect, they need to be treated with civility, and they need to be included in the team to work together to achieve the goals of the organization. No employee should be ever afraid to go to work.

Those in control, in power, and in management need to be given a chance to change through thorough education so they can see and understand their issues, but if they don’t change, they should be rooted out.  The elephant in the room must be no more. It sounds harsh, but that is the one of the few ways that an organization can prevent workplace harassment, prevent mental harm, and foster a culture of respect and psychological safety.

Legislation across all provinces and states is being written and implemented to ensure a harassment-free workplace, and in most provinces and states, there are laws that require workplaces to have harassment prevention written policies in place, including investigation and prompt resolution to harassment complaints, and evidence of training made available to all employees concerning these procedures. Your internal lawyer or external law firm can help you cover the legal requirements, but you definitely need more than being simply compliant.

An external consulting group specializing exclusively in Harassment Prevention and Training such as Work Right/BizLife Solutions can help you make significant inroads in making your organization truly harassment free.  Their consultants can review your existing written policies and provide input to make sure they are compliant with your provincial legislation, they can consult with you to set up a “safe” person or team (other than the immediate supervisor and which most harassment prevention legislation requires) and create an easy and uncomplicated procedure to investigate and navigate all harassment incidents with prompt resolution. 

The employees reporting a harassment incident or series of incidents must feel “safe” to come forward and to talk openly and freely about how they are being harassed.  There is no value to have a harassment prevention program in place (other than to meet legal requirements) if employees don’t feel safe.  Employees must feel free from victimization, free from recrimination, and they must know and feel that their job is secure.  Therefore, messaging these points need to be repeatedly shared and highlighted with all employees.