What Good Outcomes to Expect from Employee Bullying and Harassment Training?
When you’ve worked in an organisation for a while and have grown accustomed to the way your colleagues or boss interact with you, it may be difficult to tell bullying and harassment apart from harmless teasing and criticisms. You might think: “maybe I’m too sensitive” “maybe they don’t mean harm” or “they’re just being friendly” and altogether brush off the attacks even though they’ve become deeply hurtful.
Bullying and harassment can come in many forms that some of them aren’t immediately recognisable to the untrained eye. You could be bullied and feel uneasy about and still doubt your feelings. Perhaps this is a chief reason why employees and managers alike should undergo a Workplace Health and Safety Training, specifically, one that focuses on harassment and bullying. A collective understanding of these topics is necessary as it is the building block of a culture of safety, mental wellness, and respect. We’ve already discussed how managers and supervisors have a crucial role in harassment- and bullying-free environments, this time, let’s focus on the positive outcomes when employees themselves act according to the best WHS practices.
Here are four things you could expect from an Employee Bullying and Harassment Training:
Employees actively avoiding acts of bullying and harassment. With full knowledge of the health and legal consequences of bullying and harassment, employees would be more proactive in identifying poor behaviors within themselves or even others. Mindful members of the organization can be trusted to look after each other and come to each others’ aid when an incident occurs.
Compliance and cooperation. If you have anti-bullying and anti-harassment measures in place, you can expect informed employees to participate and help the organization achieve zero tolerance on all forms of violence.
Employees with basic know-how on bullying and harassment incident management. Like in many organizations, incidents like bullying and harassment follow due process. After the training, employees would be able to address allegations competently. This includes data gathering, report writing, documentation, etc. Employees would be encouraged to approach incidents with the utmost objectivity and impartiality.
Technical knowledge of conflict mediation and post-incident processing. There are bullying and harassment incidents that are not severe and resolved at the early stages of intervention (with the use of appropriate procedures and punishment, of course). An employee trained on Workplace Bullying and Harassment would have the right skills to mediate the conversation between the two involved parties. More importantly, they’d be able to help the victim air out their grievances and ensure assistance while victims deal with the aftermath of the incident.
Anyone in the organisation is capable of overstepping others’ rights. That’s why all stakeholders must get educated in this area of Work Health and Safety. Not only would workers be able to identify the warning signs of bullying and harassment, but they’d also never have to doubt the steps they need to undertake to address the issue.
Did you enjoy this article? If you did, we’re guessing you’re interested to know where this Bullying and Harassment Training would lead you. Let’s answer some of your questions. Call us on 07 5499 2406 or visit our website for more details and our elearning courses.
