Mean Business
A turning point for psychological hazards
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Just as the prosecution of business owners and co-workers in the Brodie Panlock case was a turning point in the awareness and treatment of workplace bullying, a recent investigation into actions at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) represents a watershed in dealing with workplace bullying.
Worksafe ACT’s (Australian Capital Territory for our international readers!) report on their investigation into CIT was made available on April 12, on their website, and is important reading for anyone interested in workplace bullying and related problems.
Several reports of bullying behaviours were received by Worksafe ACT, after complaints were directed to CIT, and several worker’s compensation claims were lodged. Some of the staff in question are still receiving compensation.
The report on the investigation by Worksafe ACT is impressive. It makes sound recommendations related to the most important and tricky issues in workplace bullying (though I don’t agree with defining bullying as a form of harassment, but that’s another story). I plan to write more on these issues in a series of posts in the coming days, including on what the report recommends about complaints procedures and policies, as well as issues in investigation.
But the big issue underscoring the whole report is the treatment of workplace bullying as a risk, and how the acts or omissions of the employer were consistent (or not) with this approach.
For some time, safety regulators have been struggling with increased reports of psychological hazards (mainly bullying), which are different from what they are used to dealing with (such as asbestos, chemicals, and manual handling, to name a few). The inspectorate usually come from a background best suited to dealing with what we refer to as “physical hazards”, and have been reported to find bullying claims to be difficult, messy, and undesirable. Anecdotally, there is a reluctance for some inspectors to tackle psychological hazards, for many reasons, including a lack of training, the perceived complexity of the issues, and that they may not see mediating between parties, or solving “interpersonal conflicts” as part of their role. This is by no means an attack on the inspectorate, nor on safety regulators: many jurisdictions are moving to implement more extensive training on psychological hazards for inspectors and other staff, and to re-think the ways in which they respond to these hazards at all stages of the claims process.
What the Worksafe ACT report does is demonstrate that mediating between individuals is not what regulators usually do. Worksafe ACT essentially put the details of the alleged bullying behaviours to one side. It did not investigate whether or not bullying occurred per se. Rather, it investigated whether the employer had fulfilled its duty to provide a safe workplace. This meant examining the responses of the employer to accident/incident reports, and the wider complaints and policy framework that existed. Needless to say, it was found to have not fully met these duties, and was issued an improvement notice. Arguably, the public availability of this report, and the implications it has for all employers, is a more serious and effective set of consequences.
Bullying was reported to have occurred in accident/incident reports, and in compensation claims that were supported by medical evidence. The allegations were of a serious nature and involved senior staff. It was clear that CIT knew about this. Accordingly,
…WorkSafe ACT did not investigate the actual claims of bullying themselves.
The WorkSafe ACT investigation focused, instead, on determining whether the CIT, as the principal duty holder under the Work Safety Act 2008, had properly responded to the complaints from its workers so that it could ensure, if bullying and harassment had occurred as claimed, that it had taken the appropriate reasonably practicable steps to stop any further bullying and to prevent any future bullying from occurring.
WorkSafe ACT had regard, amongst other things, to the requirement under the Work Safety Act 2008 for the CIT to take all reasonably practicable steps to manage risks to the health and safety of its workers.
The potential for psychological hazards exists everywhere that humans work. When there is a set of serious allegations, then they constitute a serious red flag. All employers can learn from this report about how they can make their policy and procedures more robust, and more likely to help them discharge their health and safety obligations.
There are some absolute gems in this report – we’ll discuss them more in the coming days.
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Tags: bullying behaviours, complaints, investigations, Panlock, policy, regulator, risk, worksafe
National safety strategy: Available for comment
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The draft national strategy for workplace safety was made available today for public comment by Safe Work Australia.
You can find the relevant documents here. Comments close on May 21.
I’ve not had a chance to read it yet obviously, but will post some thoughts very soon. It will be interesting to see how it deals with psychological hazards, and how it relates to the strategic plans of other agencies, one of which in part aims to
create a centre of excellence in psychosocial factors to prevent and better manage psychological injury and to contribute to improved individual and organisational resilience (Comcare Strategic Plan, 2010-2015 p. 10).
I look forward to delving into it…
Sexual harassment: awareness, cases, and claims
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Lots has been happening with respect to sexual harassment at work over the past few days.
A new campaign, See Hear Speak, focused on educating young women about what sexual harassment is, and what to do about it, will be launched this week by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick. A range of postcards will be distributed in cafes to help promote the campaign. An article in this weekend’s SMH covered the notion that sexual harassment is still a common experience for young women, and recent high profile cases in Defence, the gaming industry, and in the retail industry seem to support this.
I really hope this campaign can make significant inroads into this problem. At the same time, I think it’s worth remembering that sexual harassment can happen to men too. The obvious retort to this suggestion is that the number of female targets far outweigh the number of male targets. That’s probably true. But it’s also probably true that the smaller number of men who are targeted are even less likely to report it (cue the masculine gender roles).
Sexual harassment can happen to anyone, of any gender, and be perpetrated by anyone of any gender. It doesn’t have to cross gender lines, and it doesn’t necessarily depend on sexuality. What I mean here is that, for example, a heterosexual male can sexually harass another heterosexual male. The reason I mention it is that we often think of sexual harassment as involving an unwanted/offensive sexual proposition. By contrast, regardless of the genders involved, it can include taunting of a sexual nature, displaying genitals or publically masturbating, or making offensive comments of a sexual nature, all of which may not display an overt desire to engage in sex with the target. (It’s even yuk to write about). If we’re really about raising awareness, then we need to think about all the ways in which sexual harassment can manifest.
A case that was reported today highlights that men can also be the target of sexual harassment. A train guard was sacked for harassing behaviours towards other workers (racial, religious and sexual) – read the article in today’s SMH. Granted the sexual harassment arguably did involve a sexual proposition or act, but the point for our purposes is that it’s not exclusively about men harassing women.
A further case, reported on Friday 16 March, involved claims of sexual harassment at CommSec (Dye Vs Commonwealth Securities Ltd [2012] FCA 242), which was dismissed from the Federal Court. The judgement is very long, and admittedly I have not had a chance to digest it. It appears that the claims were found to be without evidence. To quote from J Buchanan’s Reasons for Judgement, Introduction:
2. In mid April 2008, in an incandescent blaze of salacious publicity, daily newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane published on their pages and/or on the internet allegations by Ms Dye that she had been sexually harassed by two senior bank officers, Mr Michael Blomfield and Mr Angus Patterson. Almost immediately the bank responded publicly that such allegations as had been raised with it by Ms Dye had been fully investigated, that the bank was satisfied that the allegations were unfounded and they had only been made by her when her work performance had been declared unsatisfactory. After a long and unnecessary case in which Ms Dye made the same (and worse) allegations, I have concluded that Ms Dye’s allegations which were published in the media in 2008 and those which were made in the proceedings in this Court were in substance false.
Perhaps a cautionary tale about going to the media? This case also highlights how such claims can really affect those who are accused (falsely or otherwise). All the more reason for greater awareness and good guidance on what to claim, when, and how.
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The costs of (poor) workplace safety
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Today the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, The Hon Bill Shorten, made a speech to parliament outlining new statistics on workplace fatalities in Australia in 2009-10. Though the number of work related deaths has fallen slightly compared to previous years, this is not thought to be a downward trend. You can access the full report at the Safe Work Australia Website.
Each year, on average, up to 300 Australians are killed at work and it is estimated conservatively that more than 2000 will die from industrial diseases caused by exposures at work.
In a recent survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics over 640,000 people reported suffering a work-related injury or illness in the previous 12 months.
The Minister’s speech is an important and timely one, and it reflects how as a community we don’t really pay attention to the costs of workplace incidents, compared to, for example, how we seem to notice (and express outrage or shock) at the road toll. To quote from Minister Shorten’s speech again:
Each holiday season we warn ourselves about the road toll. And so we should.
Each approaching Easter brings warnings about safe driving. And so we should be vigilant this Easter.
But when Australians return to work from their holidays this Easter, there is another toll – one that doesn’t get the same attention, even though it is just as important – the toll of work-related deaths, injuries and disease.
Already in 2012, in just 75 days, I believe that at least 25 Australian workers have been killed at work and another 20 have died as a result of someone else’s work.
The Minister went on to suggest how he believes that despite the statistics released this week, we underestimate the real costs of workplace injury and disease, such as the motivational, reputation, and goodwill costs. He also called for broader measures of injury and work-related health effects.
I have to say that it is refreshing to have someone in parliament talking about health and safety issues in an informed manner. The Minister appears to be committed to ensuring that such statistics are not forgotten, or just treated as abstract figures. The challenge then becomes what actions to take. Talking about it (in parliament or wherever else) is the first step: if workplace injury and disease were to become an issue of major community concern, similar to the road toll, we may start seeing more meaningful, consistent, transparent, and accountable actions taking place both at the safety regulator level, and at an employer level. Strangely, legislation, the threat of possible prosecution, increased insurance premiums, shut-downs, fines and/or imprisonment, and even death, disease and injury, don’t appear to be enough.
Update: same old safety story
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A little while ago we discussed how it often takes a major incident to occur before an appropriate safety intervention is considered, installed, used, or maintained. This is sometimes the case when there are warning signs, where other industries or sectors are investing in safety systems, or despite major incidents having occurred in related sectors.
You can read about this in my original post about the 2011 Nursing home fire in Sydney, where there were no sprinkler systems installed. It’s a bit naff to quote oneself, but:
Nursing homes in New South Wales do not have to include fire sprinkler systems. Nursing homes in the state of Victoria now must retro fit sprinklers following a fire in a health care institution in 2002. In Queensland, all new nursing home buildings must include sprinklers.
It is almost a no-brainer that NSW will now move to mandate the inclusion of sprinklers in nursing homes, given the inability of residents to escape fire due to limited mobility. The question is why it did not happen sooner. And that’s the pattern referred to in the title of this post: incident, outrage, remedy. Meanbusinessblogger.wordpress.com, Nov 22, 2011.
Anyway, guess what was in today’s news? Sprinkler systems are to be installed in all nursing homes owned or operated by the company. “Nursing home fits sprinklers after blaze“, SMH Feb 16, 2012. And less than 1 in 3 of NSW’s nursing homes have sprinkler systems.
Um, prevention, guys.
Implications of bullying in NSW health?
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A story that surfaced late today reports that the NSW Health minister may have implied that there was bullying in NSW Health, leading to the removal of senior staff.
You can read the Sydney Morning Herald article here. It may be a little early to comment too much further on this issue, given its potential sensitivity and the lack of available information. I’m sure there will be more about this in the news over the next few days. So watch this space.
What’s interesting about it is the Minister’s reference to (and interesting use of) the 2008 Garling report into NSW Health. The Garling report was a wide-ranging report into the state of the healthcare system, which included a chapter on bullying. It was and is an important document, that could be referred to by all organisations, and employees, regarding the degree of bullying in the health sector. But alas, the Garling report appears to have disappeared from the web. There are lots of commentaries on it and responses on it that can be found with a basic web search, but not the original. I’m chasing it down, and will follow up…
Post script! A further article about this issue appeared in today’s SMH (16 Feb). A summary of the Garling report reccomendations on bullying is now available in comments to this post – Thanks John Mc
Comments on workplace bullying code
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Attached are my comments on the g.Draft Code of Practice: Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying. My comments were sent to Safe Work Australia, who are compiling the codes, and they will be made available later on the the SWA website.
I thought it might be useful though to publish them here, as they may stimulate debate and conversation. Overall, it is good that we’re going to have a code. Though not part of legislation, codes are important documents particularly in court proceedings, and organisations look to codes to help them decide on what actions they should take and what strategies should be in place. They can also be important documents for employees, to know what organisations should be doing.
All the more reason that it has to be good: leading the way to prevention, consistently, and with useable and practical strategies.
Your comments and feedback would be welcomed. I’ll post updates on the code as they become available into 2012. I might also use some of the themes of my comments in later posts and expand on them a little.
Caponecchia_responseCOPbullyingA
Carlo
