The danger of complacency: why regular harassment prevention training should be a no-brainer

Published on May 19, 2009 by Donna Seale

After letting my blog take a back seat to the flurry of investigation and training work that's been requested of me since mid-April, I'm finally ready to get back to writing! Truly thankful for the work but boy has it been busy!

For today's post I'm actually reflecting back on my recent investigations to discuss why it is so important for employers and their managers and supervisors to refrain from getting too comfortable with the way things appear to be going in their workplaces.

I was recently called into a medium-sized workplace to investigate complaints of harassment that had been filed against an employee. This workplace had in place a Respectful Workplace Policy that prohibited discrimination, human rights-based harassment and personal harassment. One of the questions I always ask when I interview employees and management involved either directly or indirectly in allegations of workplace harassment is whether they were aware of their company's policy and, if so, whether they had received training on the policy. If I'm speaking with someone who has supervisory responsibilities, I will also ask whether they had ever received training on the very specific responsibilities of management to prevent and appropriately react to complaints of harassment. And so, I asked these same questions in this most recent investigation. Here are the responses I received:

some of the employees had a vague idea that their workplace had a Respectful Workplace Policy but they had no idea what it said and had never received any training on the Policy. Moreover, they had no idea how to go about filing a complaint under the Policy or otherwise having any concerns they might have about harassment addressed by their workplace;
most of the managers knew about the Policy but the line managers had never received any training on the Policy. Most of the managers did not have a clear idea as to the process mandated by their company for raising and addressing complaints of harassment.
the key line manager (the one who had direct authority over the employee accused of harassment) only had a vague understanding of his legal responsibilities as a supervisor to respond to and effectively address concerns about potentially harassing behavior in the workplace. In response to the question of whether he had ever received any training specific to his legal responsibilities as a member of management, he indicated that training opportunities had been offered, on a voluntary basis, but he had never signed up to attend. He had never been required to take such training by his employer. More importantly from his perspective, though, was the fact that it never occurred to him that he needed such training until these complaints surfaced. There had never been a complaint of harassment filed in his workplace before and he said it was such a great place to work he never thought he had to worry about harassment ever occurring there.

I'd like to say these types of responses to my questions were rare, but, unfortunately, I can't. In fact, these answers are quite typical. I have, quite honestly, yet to come into a workplace to conduct an investigation and found that there exists a regular and consistent education program to train employees about their anti-harassment/anti-discrimination policies. Needless to say I think there's a pretty strong correlation between the absence of this type of training and the subsequent need to call me in to investigate formal complaints of harassment.

While a good many organizations I come into do have some basic training for their managers on their general human rights law obligations, these training courses are usually very rudimentary in nature. Certainly, very few managers I've spoken to during an investigation disclose to me that they have anything but an extremely general understanding of what they are legally responsible to do if they learn about an issue of harassment in their workplaces. And, often their understanding is limited to human rights-based harassment. Even fewer know about personal harassment or they get the two confused. And, even though these supervisors might have a general understanding of their legal obligation to prevent harassment in the workplace, they more often than not lack insight into how exactly they should go about putting those legal requirements into practical action.

So, why this pattern of a lack of training and education? Well, I think the response of the manager in my most recent investigation goes to the heart of this — why spend precious time, energy and money on learning how to prevent harassment in the workplace or on learning how to appropriately address it when it's easier just to believe it's never going to happen in the first place? Thinking harassment (or at least an allegation of harassment) is never going to occur in your workplace is, well, silly. I can point to oodles of requests for investigations and reams of legal decisions that suggest otherwise.

And, thinking those in your workplace will never need training to know how to bring concerns of harassment to the attention of management or how to deal with harassment when it arises is an approach that clearly illustrates what is meant by the phrase "penny-wise and pound foolish." The amount of time and money dedicated to an effective workplace harassment education and training program pales in comparison to what it will cost to hire someone external to do a proper investigation into a formal harassment complaint — or, even worse, to hire a lawyer to have to defend you in a legal proceeding before a human rights commission, an arbitrator or the courts. Complacency has no place here –really, honestly, truly. Training from my perspective is a 'no-brainer' and a key to employers avoiding liability in the area of workplace harassment (which, as regular readers of this blog will know 'liability avoidance' is my mantra). Here's what I think employers should be doing:

train all new employees (whether they are part-timers, full-timers, casual, summer, etc. — this means everyone who is new to your company) on what your workplace Anti-Harassment or Respectful Workplace Policy says. Detail how they can help prevent harassment in the workplace. Explain how they can bring concerns about harassment to the attention of someone in authority;
on a regular basis (ideally this should be annually), remind all employees about your Policy and what it requires. If your current employees haven't received training similar to that described above for new employees, make sure they get this training as well;
all managers and supervisors should be required to attend training which outlines their specific responsibilities to prevent and address harassment in the workplace. Refresher courses should be implemented at regular intervals;
upper level executives/business owners should also receive training specific to understanding their role in preventing and addressing harassment.

So, that's my two cents of advice to address a potential money pit of a problem.

But what about you? Does your workplace have regular harassment prevention training in place? What does that training cover? As always, I welcome your comments and/or feedback.

Categories: Best practices, Harassment, Tips | Tags: harassment training prevention liability supervisors managers employers