Harassment in the Workplace
Given the David Jones case involving Mark McInnes and Fraser-Kirk, the headlines today and following recent discussions with a couple of reporters, I decided to write a couple of blogs to assist Front-Line Managers, Executives and Business Owners to avoid having their business and brand splashed across all the major media!
This case is interesting because it is actually being bought under the TPA instead of anti-discrimination laws (the traditional approach). If this case succeeds, it will put an end to companies having policies as lip service or not enforcing them effectively (which is often the case). Often managers and business owners lull themselves into thinking that because they have a policy they are ok, and this case clearly shows that it is not!
Can any employer be sued for $37m for this type of behaviour? You betcha! And of course, DJ's could be up for more as more people get on the claims list.
The bigger your perceived pockets the bigger the suit. Whilst it is a large amount, most business would struggle in the current economic environment to deal with a $1m case. AND that’s just the pay-out claim! Not to mention the fees for lawyers, investigators and Barristers. And that’s before we add the months of management/board time dealing with the issue, business and brand damage and the list goes on! Before long a SME size company could be damaged irreparably. SME’s are the most at risk with these situations as they often do not have access to highly quality, competent and experienced HR Professionals.
How can you prevent this from happening to your business?
Delighted you asked! Over the next three blogs I will help you understand what is required to implement a successful strategy. The key elements are:-
• Developing a clear policy that outlines appropriate behaviour in the workplace, that meets legal requirements and what is acceptable at your organisation
• Communication and Training is critical – Specifically understanding the law, responsibilities, rights and complaints procedures. Managers, including Senior Managers need to know what their obligations are, the organisations expectations and how to deal with complaints appropriately. More importantly Managers at all levels must understand their responsibilities in creating the right culture
• Implementing a clear process and a highly proactive, fast methodology for executing the process
• Monitoring and Evaluation the policy and organisational behaviour
• Ongoing effective Performance Management and Leadership
So let’s start with the key definitions and practical examples. Please be aware that each state has its own laws. However, in this blog I am giving examples of a top line approach to cover a business with operations around Australia. The content here is an overview and is not intended to form a full and appropriate policy. Please ensure you seek professional advice if you would like to implement an appropriate strategy.
What is Discrimination? There are two types of discrimination: -
Direct Discrimination: is any action that specifically excludes a person(s) from a benefit or opportunity (e.g. employment, promotion, training), or significantly reduces their chances of obtaining it, because of a characteristic, that is irrelevant in the circumstances and protected by law (e.g. race, colour, sex, pregnancy, disability). A practical example of this is not offering a role to a 55 year old because you have a young business. All recruitment decisions must be justified!
Indirect Discrimination: is where an unreasonable requirement or condition is placed on a role that is not obviously discriminatory, but if applied, has the affect of discriminating against a person or group of people, protected by law. A practical example here is a requirement to travel extensively. If the requirement is justifiable and occurs as part of the role, then there is no discrimination. However, if the employer purports this and it is not true, they may be held to be indirectly discriminating against women (as women are less likely to be able to meet the requirements).
What is held to be protected by law?
This is state based, but most have the following:- Age, Gender, Physical features, Disability (physical or intellectual), Marital status, Race, Religious or Political beliefs, Pregnancy, Parental or Carer status, Union membership or non-union membership and Sexual orientation.
What is Harassment?
Again there are various definitions, but this is the best - Harassment is any unwanted, unwelcome or uninvited behaviour that has the effect of making a person feel humiliated, intimidated or offended (this includes race, sex and disability). The significant thing to remember about harassment, is that it is not the intention of the perpetrator but how the behaviour affected the other person.
Some examples of harassment include, but are not limited to: abuse of one’s authority, uninvited physical contact, inappropriate jokes or comments, teasing or abuse, persistent questions or insinuations about a person’s private life, displays of offensive or graphic material.
What is Bullying?
Bullying is any behaviour that makes a person feel humiliated, intimidated or offended and could put that person, or someone else’s health, safety or welfare at risk.
Examples of bullying include, but are not limited to: Aggressive or threatening behaviour; Shouting or swearing at someone; Threatening to make, or actively making, someone’s work life difficult; Putting someone down in a nasty or derogatory way in front of others; Baiting or teasing; Nasty practical jokes; Sniggering or gossiping about someone behind their back, in a way that is obvious to them or will get back to them; inappropriate micromanagement, Ignoring or isolating someone.
What is incorporated in an effective policy?
• Clear and realistic statements about how the policy applies to all employees and fits with the corporate culture and nature of the business (ensure you appoint a custodian of the policy)
• Clear definitions of unacceptable behaviour
• Clear explanations of what is unlawful behaviour
• Clear examples of when the policy applies (e.g. at off-sites)
• Clearly explain employee's responsibilities under the law and any code of
conducts that are relevant (be specific to each level of employee)
• Clearly explain potential consequences of breaches of the policy
• Clearly explain employee rights
• Clearly explain expectations of managers and their responsibilities
• Clearly explain the complaints procedure – which should have an informal and
formal procedure. Make sure that each procedure is clearly explained and how
each work. Ensure there is a process for complaints against senior executive
(i.e. a board member or is responsible for investigations)
• Clearly explain the possible consequences of breach of the poicy
Until next time...
MY PERFORMANCE COACH - HR SERVICE
My Performance Coach specialises in assisting small to medium enterprises with their Human Resource and HR issues We ensure you have effective protection whilst ensuring we use pragmatic and straightforward processes. My Performance Coach provides strategic Human Resource service enabling businesses to build a strong, integrated HR strategy giving you a clear competitive advantage over their competitors. We also offer Coaching and training service for Executives/Managers to ensure your business is able to easily and proactively manage their human resources effectively!
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/six-more-harassment-claims-made-against-david-jones-ceo-mark-mcinnes/story-e6freuy9-1225911798590
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/former-david-jones-boss-mark-mcinnes-returns-to-fight-sexual-harassment-allegations/story-e6frg8zx-1225905425330
This article is intended to provide commentary and general information. It should not be relied upon as comprehensive or legal advice. Formal legal advice may be necessary in particular transactions or on matters of interest arising from this article. My Performance Coach is not responsible for the results of any actions taken on the basis of information in this article, nor for any error or omission in this article.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Employee Engagement and Labour Turnover
A recent Hays Survey found that 33% of the Aussie workforce is looking to move jobs and 25% have every intention of doing so in the next quarter! It also appears from recent research that there are a growing number of people who are moving jobs to get a pay increase!
This is way above European and USA workers. This indicates that the Australian general public seems to be under a misguided view that the rest of the world’s problems is not going to impact us here. Given that most of the governments in Europe are near bankruptcy and most of the rest of the world governments are in huge deficits and struggling to figure out how to pay their debts, Australians would be wise to be very wary of the good times spin and pay close attention to reality.
Of course Corporations are heeding more notice and with this type of economic environment, most companies are wisely managing their finances tightly. This includes not paying bonuses and/or pay increases.
This is now however a catch 22, because whilst there is a cost involved in paying bonuses and increases, people are choosing to move if they aren't getting them. This causes additional significant costs to a business in increased labour turnover and lower engagement levels. For some businesses, this could outweigh the costs of paying out (see calculations later).
If the survey is somewhat indicative of the general public, you should assume that labour turnover will increase soon. Turnover over the last 6-12 months has been lower whilst people have been concerned about the affects of the economy.
But it seems we no longer care too much! Of more concern, I have heard a number of companies assume their low turnover of recent times has something to do with their management (even though they haven’t done anything in particular or different)!
As a HR Expert I have had over 22 years of observing and understanding employee mindset and behaviour in organisations. If there is one certainty that I can rely on in 90% of cases, is that management’s view of how things are and their general workforces view will differ (sometimes a little, more often than not quite substantially).
So what can you do? The best any organisation can do is work very hard at truly engaging their people at all levels of the business!
That is why an Engagement Survey is a hugely powerful tool and can assist management be highly proactive in managing their workforce.
Our Engagement Survey is highly cost effective and customised to your needs, which enables management to take key proactive action to improve the engagement of their people and ultimately positively affect their bottom line though motivated employees who are planning to stick around. The link between employee engagement and customer satisfaction and bottom line profits is proven beyond doubt now.
That is why all the most successful, top performing companies in the world invest hundreds of thousands on this stuff a year! They truly understand the power of high employee engagement – it is the driving force of their performance outcomes. They treat engagement as a key strategic cornerstone of their business.
Did you know that the minimum cost of replacing a $40,000 per annum worker is estimated to be at least $20,000? Depending on the skills/competency of the role, the average cost to replace is 50-75% of annual salary.
Roles that have a rare skill requirement can now cost up to 150% to fill!
So if you have 100 employees earning an average of $50,000 per annum, turnover of 10% costs your business’ bottom line at least 250,000, 20% 500,000 and 30% 750,000 minimum! That there is a fair amount of dosh! Given that the average benchmark for turnover is 25%, then this is a substantial hit to any businesses bottom line!
That’s before we even discuss DISENGAGED EMPLOYEES! The world class organisations achieve less than 10% disengagement. We have worked with businesses that have 80% of their workforce that are somewhat to strongly disengaged! These businesses are struggling to keep their head above water and it’s no surprise why! Actively disengaged employees seriously erode a business’ profitability. Not to mention the virus they create amongst the troops (these are the people who are deeply negative, yet stay anyway)! I’m sure you can recognise these folks. USA estimates the cost of disengaged employees to be costing in excess of $300 billion in lost productivity alone!! So any more than a 10% actively disengaged workforce is costing you serious money and you don’t even know it!
Imagine if you could take proactive action to improve your business’ performance! Increasing your employee engagement levels directly correlate with a positive impact on your bottom line and key business metrics, even if you could reduce your labour turnover by 5%! That would equate to substantial ROI on your bottom line! The Employee Engagement process is highly cost effective and will identify key issues for your management team to address, to both reduce your turnover and improve your profitability, not to mention improve your customer satisfaction score.
You may be wondering what employee engagement is all about? Well a number of differing views on what it means! Please do yourself a favour and ignore those companies(and there are many these days) that have jumped on the bandwagon and simply renamed their opinion surveys, employee engagement surveys! Make sure you deal with a company that has had substantial HR experience or you may find the ROI won’t be delivered for you!
Employee Engagement is essentially, a quantifiable hard measure that relates your employee’s engagement level with the profitability of your business. Therefore, it is more than a simple employee opinion survey. It is all very nice to know what opinions your employees have, but that is a small part of engagement and individual opinions do not help you improve your business substantially!
What is really critical is an understanding of the hard core motivators, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Understanding how engaged your employees are (i.e. how engaged their minds and hearts) are with the business. I.e., how positive your employees are (and what they say and do) when talking about your business, what their intentions are (whether they intend to leave or stick around) and how prepared they are to exert their discretionary effort to the betterment of the business.
Our Employee Engagement Survey provides you with a quantitative score as well as powerful qualitative information to enable proactive corrective action.
My Performance Coach works with all types of organisations up to 300 employees to assist them in establishing powerful world class people management practices in a highly pragmatic way. We customise our approaches to each business to ensure maximum value add. We work with you from inception, through to communication, strategy design and even change management implementation if you require it. We are experts in driving performance and customer experience and therefore your bottom line.
We have helped one company achieve a phenomenal Net Promoter score of 71%! We have helped other organisations reduce their employee turnover by 8-15% in six months, whilst improving overall organisational performance and engagement amongst the workforce.
Contact us for a no obligation discussion about your business and how we can help you create better results!
This is way above European and USA workers. This indicates that the Australian general public seems to be under a misguided view that the rest of the world’s problems is not going to impact us here. Given that most of the governments in Europe are near bankruptcy and most of the rest of the world governments are in huge deficits and struggling to figure out how to pay their debts, Australians would be wise to be very wary of the good times spin and pay close attention to reality.
Of course Corporations are heeding more notice and with this type of economic environment, most companies are wisely managing their finances tightly. This includes not paying bonuses and/or pay increases.
This is now however a catch 22, because whilst there is a cost involved in paying bonuses and increases, people are choosing to move if they aren't getting them. This causes additional significant costs to a business in increased labour turnover and lower engagement levels. For some businesses, this could outweigh the costs of paying out (see calculations later).
If the survey is somewhat indicative of the general public, you should assume that labour turnover will increase soon. Turnover over the last 6-12 months has been lower whilst people have been concerned about the affects of the economy.
But it seems we no longer care too much! Of more concern, I have heard a number of companies assume their low turnover of recent times has something to do with their management (even though they haven’t done anything in particular or different)!
As a HR Expert I have had over 22 years of observing and understanding employee mindset and behaviour in organisations. If there is one certainty that I can rely on in 90% of cases, is that management’s view of how things are and their general workforces view will differ (sometimes a little, more often than not quite substantially).
So what can you do? The best any organisation can do is work very hard at truly engaging their people at all levels of the business!
That is why an Engagement Survey is a hugely powerful tool and can assist management be highly proactive in managing their workforce.
Our Engagement Survey is highly cost effective and customised to your needs, which enables management to take key proactive action to improve the engagement of their people and ultimately positively affect their bottom line though motivated employees who are planning to stick around. The link between employee engagement and customer satisfaction and bottom line profits is proven beyond doubt now.
That is why all the most successful, top performing companies in the world invest hundreds of thousands on this stuff a year! They truly understand the power of high employee engagement – it is the driving force of their performance outcomes. They treat engagement as a key strategic cornerstone of their business.
Did you know that the minimum cost of replacing a $40,000 per annum worker is estimated to be at least $20,000? Depending on the skills/competency of the role, the average cost to replace is 50-75% of annual salary.
Roles that have a rare skill requirement can now cost up to 150% to fill!
So if you have 100 employees earning an average of $50,000 per annum, turnover of 10% costs your business’ bottom line at least 250,000, 20% 500,000 and 30% 750,000 minimum! That there is a fair amount of dosh! Given that the average benchmark for turnover is 25%, then this is a substantial hit to any businesses bottom line!
That’s before we even discuss DISENGAGED EMPLOYEES! The world class organisations achieve less than 10% disengagement. We have worked with businesses that have 80% of their workforce that are somewhat to strongly disengaged! These businesses are struggling to keep their head above water and it’s no surprise why! Actively disengaged employees seriously erode a business’ profitability. Not to mention the virus they create amongst the troops (these are the people who are deeply negative, yet stay anyway)! I’m sure you can recognise these folks. USA estimates the cost of disengaged employees to be costing in excess of $300 billion in lost productivity alone!! So any more than a 10% actively disengaged workforce is costing you serious money and you don’t even know it!
Imagine if you could take proactive action to improve your business’ performance! Increasing your employee engagement levels directly correlate with a positive impact on your bottom line and key business metrics, even if you could reduce your labour turnover by 5%! That would equate to substantial ROI on your bottom line! The Employee Engagement process is highly cost effective and will identify key issues for your management team to address, to both reduce your turnover and improve your profitability, not to mention improve your customer satisfaction score.
You may be wondering what employee engagement is all about? Well a number of differing views on what it means! Please do yourself a favour and ignore those companies(and there are many these days) that have jumped on the bandwagon and simply renamed their opinion surveys, employee engagement surveys! Make sure you deal with a company that has had substantial HR experience or you may find the ROI won’t be delivered for you!
Employee Engagement is essentially, a quantifiable hard measure that relates your employee’s engagement level with the profitability of your business. Therefore, it is more than a simple employee opinion survey. It is all very nice to know what opinions your employees have, but that is a small part of engagement and individual opinions do not help you improve your business substantially!
What is really critical is an understanding of the hard core motivators, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Understanding how engaged your employees are (i.e. how engaged their minds and hearts) are with the business. I.e., how positive your employees are (and what they say and do) when talking about your business, what their intentions are (whether they intend to leave or stick around) and how prepared they are to exert their discretionary effort to the betterment of the business.
Our Employee Engagement Survey provides you with a quantitative score as well as powerful qualitative information to enable proactive corrective action.
My Performance Coach works with all types of organisations up to 300 employees to assist them in establishing powerful world class people management practices in a highly pragmatic way. We customise our approaches to each business to ensure maximum value add. We work with you from inception, through to communication, strategy design and even change management implementation if you require it. We are experts in driving performance and customer experience and therefore your bottom line.
We have helped one company achieve a phenomenal Net Promoter score of 71%! We have helped other organisations reduce their employee turnover by 8-15% in six months, whilst improving overall organisational performance and engagement amongst the workforce.
Contact us for a no obligation discussion about your business and how we can help you create better results!
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