Aug 05, 2015

I think most employees are only too familiar with the terms “harassment” and “bullying”. These may well be legitimate accusations in the workplace and should be dealt with swiftly by the manager. However, as a result of many employees becoming more aware of their rights, there has also been an over-enthusiasm to cry “harassment” without fully understanding what it means. Just to refresh the memory, let’s remind ourselves of the legal view on Harassment. According to the Law Society of NSW, bullying is defined as:

Unreasonable and inappropriate workplace behaviour including bullying, which comprises behaviour which intimidates, offends, degrades, insults or humiliates an employee, possibly in front of co-workers, clients or customers and which includes physical or psychological behaviour. Essentially bullying is repeated inappropriate behaviour directed against a person by one or a number of other employees in the course of employment which could reasonably be regarded as undermining an individual’s right to dignity at work.

However, it is not harassment when:

• Your employer gives you feedback about your performance. You may feel humiliated, or defensive, but if due process has been followed and the feedback was factual and reasonable, then you were not harassed.
• Your employer transfers, demotes, disciplines, counsels, retrenches or dismisses you (as long as your employer is acting reasonably and adhering to fair procedural and substantive guidelines).
• Others are promoted and you are unsuccessful, as long as you are given a clear explanation. Obviously it would be harassment if the promotion decision was based on gender, age, sex, ethnicity and so on.
• Incidents are a one-off. At this stage the law states that harassment must be a repeated action.
• There seems to be an implication too, that someone who shouts, or loses their temper and/or swears, provided it is not specifically aimed at you, is generally not considered harassment.

A last point, regarding performance management: The idea is not to avoid managing your staff to avoid claims of harassment or bullying, but rather to utilise a system that is fair, transparent and used properly by the organisation. For example, nothing in the review process should come as a surprise. Meetings to talk about achieving objectives should be frequent throughout the year, and should stick to the objectives determined at the beginning of the year, or cycle. If we are able to act in a respectful manner towards others in the workplace, and have self-respect, it is less likely that accusations of ‘Harassment” and “Bullying” will come our way. For more information, have a look at New Horizons' Professional Development portfolio.