Harassment prevention requirements for employers
Harassment can be a serious problem for employers. Organizations that allow harassment to exist have greater turnover and reduced worker productivity. There are two reasons why a business would want to have a harassment prevention policy and training program in place.
The first reason is for the good of the business. You want your employees to be confident, and make good decisions. But when employees are afraid, or there is conflict among the employees because of incidents of harassment employee confidence is undermined. The benefits of a multi person team approach can be lost when harassment is a problem within the organization.
The second reason is a requirement to comply with health and safety requirements. Many jurisdictions including provincial and state require that employers have a formal harassment prevention policy in place. These requirements typically include a definition of what constitutes harassment as well as specific actions the employer must take to be in compliance with harassment prevention regulations.
Prevent harassment at work is a tool to help your organization create an effective harassment policy based on both the organizations interests in preventing harassment as well as meeting harassment prevention regulations. There are specific references made to the provincial requirements for companies that operate within Canada. For US companies there may be state or federal requirements to be met to comply with harassment prevention in your jurisdiction.
In general employers must define what is meant by harassment. There must be a clear policy on the company’s position on tolerating incidents of harassment, reporting incidents of harassment, and resolving incidents of harassment. This creates a generic framework of a harassment prevention program as a starting point for your organization.
We can help you with the creation of a harassment prevention policy, and the implementation of an employee education and training program to meet both levels of compliance internal and external.
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