Workplace harassment comes in many forms. HR leaders must diligently understand the signs to help employees report any physical or psychological mistreatment at work. With better understanding of harassment, it’s possible to create a work environment that is free from any misconduct.
So, what can you do to make sure your office is harassment free?
The following 4 ways will help you to secure your office from harassment among employees:
1. Dealing with discriminatory harassment
Any unlawful harassment is naturally discriminatory. However, a discriminatory harassment still differs from physical or verbal harassment as it is characterized by intentions rather than how it is executed.
Under discriminatory harassment, there are different forms to be aware of, such as racial harassment, gender harassment, religious harassment, and disability-based harassment to name a few. Knowing these can help address harassment in a more specific way while calling out people who discriminate others by age, race, and other factors.
2. Preventing personal harassment.
This is another type of workplace harassment that is common among offices. It’s the basic form of harassment, but bullying a victim can be extremely damaging. Some examples are critical remarks, personal humiliation, inappropriate comments, intimidation tactics, and offensive jokes.
This kind of harassment must never be tolerated in any workplace as it can impede productivity and creativity at work. There has to be a clear policy that disciplines workers regarding their manners and behavior in the office.
3. Avoiding physical harassment.
Workplace violence or physical harassment involves physical threats and attacks. If it becomes a serious case, it can lead to assault. This type of harassment in the workplace must be addressed in the policies and code of conduct.
Physical harassment includes destroying properties just to intimidate, threatening behavior, physical attacks, and direct threats to impose harm. These are serious offenses and should be immediately reported to prevent further damage to the victim.
4. Addressing psychological harassment.
It’s difficult to spot psychological harassment in the workplace since this is internal. That is why it’s important that employees know their rights and directly report instances where they are psychologically abused by co-workers.
Victims of this kind of harassment can make an impact on their psychological, physical, social, and work life. Samples include challenging or opposing anything the victim expresses, trivializing the thoughts of the victim, discrediting gossips, and isolating the presence of the victim.
Building a Safe Workplace
Unfortunately, harassment has become a common issue in the workplace. The main reason why an employee decides to stay silent despite being harassed is because of the fear of losing his job. It’s a must to make your employees feel that the process will be fair and square when investigating about a harassment complaint, most especially if the harasser is in a higher position.
There are different ways in building a safe workplace, but one of the most effective ways is enrolling your employees and supervisors in a workplace harassment training. A workplace harassment training will help them understand and recognize harassment and how to appropriately respond if they see instances of harassment happening.
Through this they will be able to be aware of the penalties and violations once an incident of harassment was reported. An on-going training about harassment awareness also reassures safety in the workplace.
Implementing, updating, and revising harassment policies is also essential to address any misconduct in your organization.
Takeaways
To secure that your workplace is harassment free, teamwork must take place. Those who are in a higher position such as managers and team leaders must show eagerness in preventing harassment in the workplace and that such act will never be tolerated.
Once your employees feel that their safety and welfare are also your priority, it will be a motivation for them to do their work efficiently. It’s time to break the norms of workplace harassment and the use of power to harass an employee and start building a safe, harmonious, and positive workplace.