3 Types of Harassment in the Workplace
Costs and damages to company reputation aside, workplace harassment poses severe threats to the mental health and safety of customers and employees. As a business owner, the responsibility of prevention automatically falls on your shoulder.
Of course, you cannot possibly address harassment in its totality without knowing the nature of these behaviours and the different shapes they come in, which is why we thought you would find this list of harassment types helpful.
Read on.
Discriminatory Harassment
Discriminatory harassment is a type of aggression that is rooted in an individual’s race, ethnicity, gender, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, and other naturally occurring characteristics that are outside the person’s control. These advances are aimed at intimidating the victim such that they would feel inferior and embarrassed. Examples of discriminatory harassment are intolerant language, class-based insults, and degrading comments passed up as jokes.
It is the employer’s imperative to go on an information campaign about diversity and inclusion. Invite a field expert to conduct training for your employees, print out guides detailing the different protected classes, and encourage managers to echo work health and safety laws against discrimination as frequently as they could.
Physical Harassment
This is the most violent form of harassment because it involves the violation of others’ space. It’s also done out in the open, so it’s perceived as more threatening and destructive by victims. Physical harassment can come in many forms, including shoving, forceful gripping, kicking, throwing of things, and assault. To prevent this in your establishment, set out a response protocol where if a customer or employee starts a heated argument, managers would engage in de-escalation tactics while members of the security team rush to the scene to assist the aggressive individual out.
Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is defined by Health Direct as an unconsented and offensive advance that is carried out in the context of sex. There is a range of behaviour that falls under this type of harassment, but a common one is inappropriate physical contact such as touching and kissing. Sexual jokes, gestures, and comments also count as sexual harassment, especially if it causes the victim to feel discomfort. In worst-case scenarios, a harasser is a person of authority who uses sex as a bargain for employment opportunities, leaving the victim with no choice but to grant his/her favours.
The best you can do to protect employees from sexual harassment is to create a guide on documenting, investigating, responding and filing harassment complaints. Ensure to handle these complaints with the utmost care and ensure that an anti-harassment procedure is in place at the human resources department.
You cannot control every aspect of your place of work, but you can control the culture it maintains. If it is a culture of safety and respect that you want to persist, make the right move of educating your workforce today.
We are offering Workplace Bullying and Harassment training in different training formats, with two different learning outcomes.
Our Training Programs
Workplace Bullying and Harassment for Employees, where we train employees to understand how the law defines bullying and harassment in the workplace, inform about the employee and employer’s legal and ethical responsibilities, workplace behaviours should be avoided, responding and reporting bullying and harassment that is occurring within the workplace.
Workplace Bullying and Harassment for Managers and Supervisors, we focus on managers and supervisors’ legal responsibilities, and how to effectively respond, investigate, and resolve reports of workplace bullying and harassment.
Training Platforms:
Onsite training, where we can come to your workplace and train your staff, managers and supervisors.
Our Online Bullying and Harassment Training (Video conference) is the perfect avenue to begin this mission. It is a four-hour training facilitated by our in-house industry expert where you will gain a deeper understanding of the different types of workplace violence. After the course, you will be set to develop and implement anti-harassment policies and drive your organisation towards compliance with Work Health and Safety laws.
Online E-Learning, self-paced provides which the participants are able to control the amount of material they consume and the duration of time they need to learn the new information.
Start your training today. Call 07 5499 2406 or visit our Online Courses to learn more.
