Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Pink Shirt Day: Stop Bullying Everywhere



Kudos to CKNW who has really promoted PinkShirtDay Anti-Bullying movement in BC. There are a number of anti-bullying stories on their page, check it out.

If you haven't seen the Anti-bullying Flashmob Youtube video by youth who assembled at Oakridge Mall, it's gone viral. Check it out here.
It Gets Better Project: Initiated by Dan Savage in response to the bullying and suicides of gay youth.  

Many LGBT youth can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can't imagine a future for themselves. So let's show them what our lives are like, let's show them what the future may hold in store for them. Watch videos here.

We can all be part of the solution to stopping bullying in BC and beyond.  

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Workplace Bullying is Rampant Everywhere

Believe It, Harassment Happens in Your Workplace
Colleen Coates / Talent Matters, Winnipeg Free Times, 02/19/2011.

Harassment is not only hurtful behaviour, it is against the law. But before you dismiss the rest of this article because you believe it is not happening in your workplace, think again.
Both employers and employees need to understand that bullying on the job is a global epidemic. Studies have shown that nearly 40 per cent of today's workforce has been subjected to harassment or bullying, defined as repeated, malicious and health-endangering mistreatment intended to intimidate another.

Although it wears a number of disguises, bullying is generally recognized as unwanted behaviour meant to abuse, threaten or humiliate, or interference that prohibits productivity and prevents work from getting done. It takes on many forms and can include:
  • Verbal abuse (offensive comments, teasing, blaming).
  • Humiliation (personal and professional denigration).
  • Threats to career or financial status.
  • Manipulation of job specifications (unrealistic workload or excessive monitoring).
  • Personal exclusion and social isolation.
  • Aggressive verbal, written or online communication.
  • Retaliation against whistle blowing.
  • Physical assault.
According to a March 2008 report by researchers at the University of Manitoba, the emotional toll of workplace bullying is even more detrimental than that of sexual harassment.

Fortunately, new amendments to Manitoba's Workplace Safety and Health Regulations ensure that workers are better protected from all forms of psychological harassment, including bullying.

Although employees have always been somewhat protected by human rights legislation, these most recent changes build on the policies in place by placing greater responsibility on employers to tighten their existing policies and step up as the protectors of a healthy and respectful work environment.

Employers are now required to put measures in place to prevent harassment and address it if it occurs. Furthermore, they must educate all their employees about their harassment prevention policy through training events and orientation sessions. No longer does it suffice for companies to post their anti-harassment policy on a bulletin board or print copies to insert in staff manuals.

The employer needs to train and support employees to respect one another by clearly explaining what a respectful workplace looks like. Educational initiatives should outline expectations, facilitate discussions on what kinds of behaviour are acceptable and unacceptable as well as give people the tools to interact with one another effectively.

This includes teaching employees how to recognize and safely stop harassment if they see it. We each have a responsibility to ensure a respectful workplace culture where ideas can be expressed, opinions can be exchanged and conflict can be resolved without fear of ridicule or retribution.

In addition to ensuring that boundaries are clearly communicated, thoroughly understood and followed by employees, employers must also provide appropriate training for their supervisors and managers.

Aside from being able to model respectful workplace behaviour, supervisors need to know how to respond appropriately and address issues of harassment.

Supervisors and managers should understand what a respectful workplace looks like, the values (such as mutual respect) that drive the organization and their responsibility and course of action should an employee come forward with concerns regarding objectionable conduct such as being bullied, intimidated or humiliated.

Employers must realize that workplace harassment not only takes a severe toll on the psychological and physical well-being of employees, but if it is not prevented, it creates a serious threat to productivity and profitability.

Bullying leaves an indelible mark not only in health-care costs, but in an organization's absenteeism and turnover rates. One recent U.K. study showed that workplace bullying causes one-third to one-half of all stress-related illness, causing as many as 40 million working days to be lost annually.  

On top of this, internal complaints, mediation and legal proceedings eat away at valuable time and resources -- and that doesn't even factor in the intangible price of combating low morale and a tainted public reputation.

This is just another reason why it is so important for employers to acknowledge the epidemic that has directly affected more than one in three workers and doing whatever is within their power to turn the tide.

Companies wishing to learn more about the new legislation amendments and employers' responsibility in preventing harassment and promoting respect in the workplace can visit www.safemanitoba.com.

-- With reporting by Barbara Chabai

Colleen Coates, CHRP, CCP, is a practice leader with People First HR Services Ltd. She can be contacted at ccoates@peoplefirsthr.com

RESEARCH:

http://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/labmgt/emp_standards/submissions/lee.pdf
http://www.workplacebullying.org/press/thomasindust062408.html
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Workplace-harassment-legislation-upated--105452403.html

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 19, 2011, I2.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Canadian Labour Ministers Talking about Workplace Safety & Health

Federal, Provincial & Territorial Ministers of Labour underscore commitment to well-being of workers and employers
Canada News Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, January 17, 2011. 
See here.
 

Today, federal, provincial and territorial labour ministers met to discuss a wide range of current and emerging issues and took steps to protect the well-being of workers and employers and ensure safe workplaces.

The annual meeting, which began on January 16 and concluded today, was co-hosted by the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Canada's Labour Minister, and the Honourable Jennifer Howard, Minister of Labour and Immigration for Manitoba.

"Our Government's number one priority is the economy and we understand that safe and healthy workplaces boost productivity and innovation," said Minister Raitt. "As the well-being of workers and employers are key to the success and performance of Canada's economy, meetings like this one help all governments work together to ensure Canada's workforce remains the best in the world."

"Safe and healthy working environments do not just happen, they require a commitment by governments and everyone at the workplace," said Minister Howard. "Manitoba has long enjoyed a reputation as a leader in workplace health and safety issues and we want to continue to build on our successes."

Over the course of the meeting, the ministers discussed Canada's international labour activities, endorsed a renewed strategy for Canada's work in the International Labour Organization, and agreed to work together to enhance occupational health and safety of young workers using social media and other tools.

The ministers also participated in panel presentations and roundtable discussions regarding the evolving world of work and future labour policy. Specific topics included critical and emerging issues in the areas of employment standards and labour relations, as well as mental health in the workplace.

The labour ministers' meeting is an annual event which provides a forum for discussion of key public policies and exploration of opportunities for cooperation on joint projects and initiatives. Throughout the year, ongoing work continues through the Canadian Association of Administrators of Labour Legislation (CAALL). Established in 1938, CAALL is an association of federal-provincial-territorial departments of labour and heads of occupational health and safety agencies.

Manitoba Anti-bullying Occupational Health & Safety Regulations

Manitoba joins Canadian progress against bullying
Workplace Bullying Institute, January 21st, 2011.

While we slog through state houses countering disingenuous business lobby arguments as to why there should be no anti-bullying law, our Canadian friends continue to expand their OHS (workplace health and safety) regulations to deal with bullying. Effective Feb. 1, 2011, Manitoba will require (not just encourage) employers to create policies to prevent and correct harassment considered a health hazard.

The new regulation (announced in Bulletin 275 in October, 2010) prohibits two kinds of harassment:
 
(1) “objectionable conduct” that poses a health risk and is based on grounds like all discrimination law (in Manitoba the categories include race, creed, religion, colour, sex, sexual orientation, gender-determined characteristics, marital status, family status, source of income, political belief, political association, political activity, disability, physical size or weight, age, nationality, ancestry or place of origin), and  

(2) “severe conduct” that adversely affects a worker’s psychological or physical well-being.

Bullying is the second type of prohibited conduct if it could reasonably cause a worker to be humiliated or intimidated and is repeated, or in the case of a single occurrence, has a lasting, harmful effect on a worker.

Employers have to write the policy in collaboration with its health and safety committee (that necessarily includes union representatives) or workers if no committee exists.

Furthermore, a complainant reserves the right to file another complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

Read about the new regulations and download information from the official government site here.

Bullies in Academia - University of Manitoba

Richard Sigurdson - Dean of Arts Blog, February 11, 2008

I was very glad to see CAUT President Greg Allain tackle the issue of workplace bullying in his column in the January issue of the CAUT Bulletin, which also includes an article featuring the work of Angelo Soares, a sociologist at the University of Quebec in Montreal who teaches courses on organizational behaviour. Indeed, so important is this subject, that Allain intends to write about it again in February and to follow up with a column in March on workplace mental health issues related to stress, much of which is caused by the bullying behaviour of faculty members towards their own colleagues.

The image of the bully that first comes to mind is of the big kid in the schoolyard who harasses, intimidates, teases or threatens the other kids. But of course, adults can be bullies too. Basically, people who exhibit openly hostile behaviour, who threaten or intimidate others to make themselves feel powerful, or who build themselves up by tearing others down are bullies. “Whatever their approaches,” as one expert says, “bullies are people who are willing to cross the boundaries of civilized behavior that inhibit others. They value the rewards brought by aggression and generally lack guilt, believing their victims provoked the attacks and deserve the consequences.”

The Canadian Safety Council offers this profile of a workplace bully:

Adult bullies, like their schoolyard counterparts, tend to be insecure people with poor or non-existent social skills and little empathy. They turn this insecurity outwards, finding satisfaction in their ability to attack and diminish the capable people around them.

A workplace bully subjects the target to unjustified criticism and trivial fault-finding. In addition, he or she humiliates the target, especially in front of others, and ignores, overrules, isolates and excludes the target.

A CAUT workplace survey discovered that significant numbers of respondents among Canadian faculty members (as high as 45 percent) reported being on the receiving end of just these sorts of bullying behaviours, ranging from verbal abuse (“being sworn at, yelled at, subjected to negative comments or false accusations”), to rude and disrespectful treatment, to demeaning remarks about competence and having one’s opinions dismissed.

What is most troubling, as Allain makes clear, is that such behaviour is being directed at our faculty members primarily by co-workers, rather than by students or administrators. To be sure, students can bully their professors, and Heads or Deans or other administrators can bully their academic colleagues. But it can work the other way, too - students can feel bullied and oppressed by certain faculty members, and even administrators can find themselves on the wrong end of bullying behaviour from faculty (though administrators may tend to get little sympathy when this occurs, since facing abusive faculty members is regarded by many as simply “part of the job”).

In any event, bullying by co-workers appears to be a pervasive, and some would say a growing, source of trouble on university campuses. And this pattern is consistent with findings in the workforce generally. For instance, a Canadian survey on workplace violence found that subtle yet aggressive behaviours, such as harassment and bullying, are an escalating problem in the workplace. It was also noted that “physical violence” is most often reported from outside sources, such as customers, students and patients; “psychological violence” on the other hand is more often reported from co-workers within the organization.

Indisputably, then, workplace bullying is a problem of signal importance. And universities are certainly not immune to this scourge. On the contrary, academic workplaces are rife with bullies. Hence, I am glad to see CAUT take such a strong interest in this matter. I know that it is a topic with which faculty unions have much difficulty, since they are most adept at dealing with complaints faculty members have with actions by administrators or with defending faculty members who face complaints lodged against them by students. When it is the faculty members who are the bullies, and in cases of faculty versus faculty disputes more generally, faculty associations often have a difficult time confronting such unpleasantness. Indeed, Soares quotes one participant in a CAUT workshop for grievance officers as saying simply: “It’s a nightmare for unions.”

That bullying is so common in the academic workplace can be attributed to a number of factors. For one thing, bullies thrive in conditions where there is little direct supervision, or where the organizational structure is highly decentralized. Moreover, the culture of universities lends itself to a misplaced tolerance of bad behaviour. Part of this stems from a mistaken belief that "academic freedom" allows for any sort of strong talk in defence of one's point of view. However, experts such as Soares deny that any definition of academic freedom can include or justify bullying. “The right to academic freedom doesn’t imply a right to lack of respect or lack of social skills. We have the freedom to study, teach and publish,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean I can mistreat my students. I don’t have the right to slap anyone because I have academic freedom. Nor do I have the right to humiliate, or talk in a way that is inappropriate in terms of respect or politeness.”

Nevertheless, as Allain points out, there continue to be a number of myths surrounding academic workplace bullying. He discusses two of them:

One contends that it’s all simply part of our intellectual debates. Although our jobs as academics require us to analyze and criticize, we’re not talking here about rational discourse or professional differences of opinion over theories and arguments. Some bullies will target just about everybody but many will single out a particular employee, or group of employees, and constantly, systematically belittle them, berate them, make fun of them, dismiss their opinions or their work, and attempt to isolate and exclude them by circulating malicious rumours and falsehoods about them....

Another myth dismisses the problem as a question of personality: the “bullyer” is simply a strong-minded person who is direct and wants to get things done. The “bullyee” happens to be a weak individual who is incapable of being assertive and who can’t take a joke or criticism. Workplace bullying, on the contrary, is not about personality clashes, but about a power relationship whereby the “bullyer” is intent on controlling and harming a particular person. It’s not about personal conflict but about organizational deficiency.

These are important points to keep in mind when discussing academic bullies. And again, I am heartened to see the leader of our national association of university teachers confront this matter head-on. It is a welcome initiative, and one that we should all take seriously.

Following his lead, I intend to focus some attention on this issue. My next three blog entries will look at the prevalence of bullying and other manifestations of incivility in academia. First, I want to write about a particular type of bully that is especially common among academics - the so-called “victim bully”. Second, I will introduce you to the term made popular by one of the best-selling management books of 2007 - The No Asshole Rule, written by Stanford business prof Robert Sutton. Finally, I will try to set out some ideas about what might be done about the inexplicably rude and uncollegial behaviour which plagues our academic community.

Bullying More Harmful Than Sexual Harassment On The Job, Say Researchers

ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2008) — Workplace bullying, such as belittling comments, persistent criticism of work and withholding resources, appears to inflict more harm on employees than sexual harassment, say researchers who presented their findings at a recent conference.

"As sexual harassment becomes less acceptable in society, organizations may be more attuned to helping victims, who may therefore find it easier to cope," said lead author M. Sandy Hershcovis, PhD, of the University of Manitoba. "In contrast, non-violent forms of workplace aggression such as incivility and bullying are not illegal, leaving victims to fend for themselves."

Hershcovis and co-author Julian Barling, PhD, of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, reviewed 110 studies conducted over 21 years that compared the consequences of employees' experience of sexual harassment and workplace aggression. Specifically, the authors looked at the effect on job, co-worker and supervisor satisfaction, workers' stress, anger and anxiety levels as well as workers' mental and physical health. Job turnover and emotional ties to the job were also compared.

The authors distinguished among different forms of workplace aggression. Incivility included rudeness and discourteous verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Bullying included persistently criticizing employees' work; yelling; repeatedly reminding employees of mistakes; spreading gossip or lies; ignoring or excluding workers; and insulting employees' habits, attitudes or private life. Interpersonal conflict included behaviors that involved hostility, verbal aggression and angry exchanges.

Both bullying and sexual harassment can create negative work environments and unhealthy consequences for employees, but the researchers found that workplace aggression has more severe consequences. Employees who experienced bullying, incivility or interpersonal conflict were more likely to quit their jobs, have lower well-being, be less satisfied with their jobs and have less satisfying relations with their bosses than employees who were sexually harassed, the researchers found.

Furthermore, bullied employees reported more job stress, less job commitment and higher levels of anger and anxiety. No differences were found between employees experiencing either type of mistreatment on how satisfied they were with their co-workers or with their work.

"Bullying is often more subtle, and may include behaviors that do not appear obvious to others," said Hershcovis. "For instance, how does an employee report to their boss that they have been excluded from lunch? Or that they are being ignored by a coworker? The insidious nature of these behaviors makes them difficult to deal with and sanction."

From a total of 128 samples that were used, 46 included subjects who experienced sexual harassment, 86 experienced workplace aggression and six experienced both. Sample sizes ranged from 1,491 to 53,470 people. Participants ranged from 18 to 65 years old. The work aggression samples included both men and women. The sexual harassment samples examined primarily women because, Hershcovis said, past research has shown that men interpret and respond differently to the behaviors that women perceive as sexual harassment.

This finding was presented at the Seventh International Conference on Work, Stress and Health, co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and the Society for Occupational Health Psychology.

Presentation: Comparing the Outcomes of Sexual Harassment and Workplace Aggression: A Meta-Analysis, M. Sandy Hershcovis, PhD, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba and Julian Barling, Queen's University, Ontario, Canada.

Government of Manitoba gets tough on workplace bullying


Manitoba seems to be a hot bed of bullying and anti-bullying work right now. 
********************

Government of Manitoba gets tough on workplace bullying

By Jamie Fischer

The Government of Manitoba is cracking down on workplace harassment. As of Feb. 1, there are new regulations in place that protect workers against psychological harassment.
The definition of harassment is broken down into two types, the first of which is inappropriate behavior to a person based on their race, sex, age, etc. The second, is basically work place bullying. In a brochure available at safemanitoba.com, examples of this type of harassment are described as either "severe, repeated conduct that adversely affects a worker's psychological or physical well being" or "a single occurrence, if shown to have a lasting, harmful effect on a person."

The Minister of Labour and Immigration, Jennifer Howard, said the new regulations have been in the works for a while. "It's something the advisory council on workplace safety and health has been working on," Howard said. The council includes representatives from employers, labour groups, and professional and trade groups as well.

The government heard from many individuals who suffered from work place harassment and learned the toll it took on their mental health. Mental health issues are the number one reason in Canada for disabilities claimed for health leaves. Because of this, the new regulations are aimed to help both health and productivity.

The new legislation helps prevent harassment by putting obligations on employers. "It gives employers the obligation to have policies to prevent harassment," Howard said.
Manitoba General Employees Union's safety and health specialist, Blaine Duncan is on the advisory council on workplace safety and health. For him, the legislation is the end of a long road.

"For the last few years we've been pushing for advancements," he said. The council put forward their recommendation to update the law unanimously. In the older legislation a lot of types of harassment were left out, and this new regulation should fill in many of the old gaps.

"For us, a lot of the issues we deal with start off with disrespect," Duncan said. With the new legislation, workers will be able to act on this sort of bullying early, rather than waiting for problems to escalate.

"Now it's all about education and getting the information out there," he said.

A lot of information is already available for those curious about the new laws. A brochure on the new laws specific to harassment is available at safemanitoba.com. The brochure includes detailed examples of types of inappropriate behavior and also has scenarios to further illustrate the new boundaries. The website also features a sample harassment prevention policy for any employers who need to revamp their own policies.

jfischer@cpheraldleader.com