Anti-Harassment & Bullying: Symptoms & Regulations in the Workplace

Anti-Harassment & Bullying: Symptoms & Regulations in the Workplace

This is a particular area of specialty and interest to me. Many of us have worked in organizations where bullying and even more serious forms of psychological harassment and even abuse have been not only tolerated by employers, but sometimes encouraged, or normalized. This impacts everyone and powerfully contributes to toxic and dysfunctional workplace cultures that have the potential to harm many.

The damage to workers can be profound and it reaches into all area of their lives, leading to significant impact on a victim's global health and even impacts their loved ones and bystanders in the workplace. If it goes on for too long, or to extremes, it can lead to things such as depression and anxiety disorders.

Statistically, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that there is a loss of $50 billion in the workplace due to mental illness. One might wonder how much of this is related to the circumstances of stress, bullying and psychological harassment in the work environment?

The issues for employees can be so severe and many clinicians are simply unaware of the extent and impacts of these issues. I have made this one of my clinical specialties, offering counselling and consulting services to individuals who have been bullied, harassed, and/or discriminated against in the workplace. I also provide labour relations and workplace consulting and investigations to organizations where these kind of dynamics are at play. These situations are often very complex and sometimes things are not as they appear at first. The person deemed "problem employee" isn't always the person one expects.

One thing I think it is important for employers to understand at this stage of the game is that, whether it's in your labour code, or not, there is a growing body of case law and monetary awards that now clarify employers fiduciary duties to creating a psychologically safe (as well as physically) workplace for all employees. There have been some very, very large awards and important legal judgments for failing to do so.

Some of the symptoms of a toxic and bullying organization:

• Unhappy, disengaged employees & ongoing poor staff morale;
• High turnover from specific offices, departments, or the organization generally;
• The loss of newer and high potential employees, in particular;
• Frequent turnover of managers, or high level employees;
• Toxic people - most bullies are well known and can be named by other employees;
• Toxic cliques - most bullies surround themselves with minions;
• Organizational efforts go into covering up & pretending there are no problems, over addressing them, often in spite of existing policies and feedback from things like employee engagement surveys;
• Rapid changes in leadership and direction, or, leaders in "Acting" positions for lengthy periods;
• Placement of individuals into supervisory, or managerial jobs who are close to upper managers, but not necessarily competent for their new positions over more experienced and competent candidates (Peter Principle);
• Work performance and other issues of supervisory/managerial people are not addressed and continue to get worse, with greater impacts, while still being ignored;
• Increases in internal workplace investigations, sometimes even for criminal activities, such as fraud;
• Times of organizational change, downsizing and job losses are particularly problematic times.

**********************************************
Manitoba announces new regulations against psychological harassment

Canadian Safety Reporter, Oct 22, 2010.

Changes to the Workplace, Safety and Health Regulation will introduce new requirements to protect workers from psychological harassment in the workplace, Labour and Immigration Minister Jennifer Howard announced today.

"Manitoba now joins other provinces such as Ontario, Saskatchewan and Quebec in requiring employers to provide protection from such harassment," Howard said. "This builds on other measures that protect workers from harassment based on age, race or gender and ensure that workplaces are respectful and safe for everyone."

The amendments are the result of review and consensus by employer and labour representatives on the advisory council on workplace safety and health. Recent studies have shown that about 40 per cent of the workforce has been subjected to harassment or bullying.

New provisions will address psychological harassment, such as intimidation, bullying and humiliation. Normal and reasonable management actions, including discipline, are not defined as psychological harassment.

Employers will be required to put in place measures to prevent harassment and address it if it occurs. Manitoba Labour and Immigration will help develop and implement policies and educate employers and employees on their responsibilities to ensure a respectful and healthy workplace.

Other technical changes respond to a recommendation made following the inquest into the 2002 death of a Manitoba worker at Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company and other issues identified by stakeholders. Amendments will provide clear direction to employers and workers on the steps necessary to eliminate or control workplace hazards, strengthen the requirements for the use of personal protective equipment and reflect updated standards, Howard said.

Employers and employees have until Feb. 1, 2011, to become familiar with and comply with updated requirements.

Self-employment, Freelancing & Finance

Here are some good links I've come across to articles about freelancing, income & finances for the self-employed.

Some of these are American articles, but the principles remain the same.

Be Your Own Boss by Freelancing
Glenn Curtis, Investopedia.

Traditionally, most people took a job with a single company at age 20, worked there their entire lives and eventually retired from that same company 40 years later, often with a nice gold watch. Now, the gold watches are gone and multiple career changes are almost expected over a working lifetime. This has given rise to the professional freelancer, someone who works without long-term commitments to a single employer. They hop from job to job, selling their swords to the highest bidder.

Freelance Careers: Look Before You Leap

How would you like to reduce your taxable income while simultaneously increasing your financial independence? Starting your own business, whether on the side or full-time, can be a great way to turn costs that you would incur anyway into legitimate, tax-deductible business expenses.

10 Most-Overlooked Tax Deductions

How to Budget for an Irregular Income
Globe & Mail

The working world seems to be separated into two groups: the employed and the self-employed. For those of us who are newly self-employed, the biggest question is probably how to budget for an unreliable income. When you're employed, it's effortless: you receive X amount of dollars per month, and that's what you use to build your budget on.

10 Tax Benefits For The Self-Employed

Emotional Intelligence & Anger

The post below is from George Anderson, coach and "Anger Management Expert" and creator of the Anger Management Forum.

The topic of Emotional intelligence (EI) is a crucial one in our personal and professional lives. In the workplace, most of us have experienced the impacts of others emotions and their expression at some point in time. As George discusses in this article, the world of work can be a frustrating place these days. With so much economic uncertainty, downsizing and increased workloads for those "lucky" enough to continue to be employed, the workplace leaves us all with many emotions to manage.

Emotional Intelligence: An Antidote to Anger

1. Learn and practice optimism for success: see the doughnut, not the hole

To do more than survive – to thrive in a world of accelerating change and uncertainty – we need to respond well to adversity. Optimism is a skill just like listening which can be learned and perfected over time.

2. Positive self-talk: talk yourself out of defeat and anger.

The way we talk to ourselves can and does affect our sense of well-being and our ability to motivate ourselves in the face of challenge. By being optimistic and learning to replace negative self-talk with positive self-talk, this will help to bring about a proactive and creative climate at work and help participants to be proactive and take control of themselves.

3. The art of letting go: you’ll never be a butterfly if you can’t stop being a caterpillar.

It is important to learn to tackle the essence of coping effectively with change and letting go of old ways of thinking and doing. Challenging existing concepts enables the participants to understand their own resistance to change.

4. Managing unhealthy anger: you can’t always get what you want

Many people have difficulty managing anger - both their own and other people. Frustrations built up in the fast-changing workplace, where roles are not always well defined and job security no longer exists.

Anger usually results from frustration. Frustration results from feeling unable to control and/or improve their situation. A sense of control is a basic human need. Frustration behaves like an emotional virus, infecting everyone.

5. Increasing sensitivity: take a look at the emotional landscape

In a stressful work environment, it is easy to ignore the mood and morale of our co-workers. People rarely communicate how they feel. However, being insensitive to the needs and feeling of others makes it hard to gain their support and enthusiasm. The ability to recognize our own feelings and the emotions of those around us is a key step in developing emotional literacy.

Emotions bring people together. Our emotions are perhaps the greatest potential source of uniting all members of the human race. Empathy, Compassion, Cooperation and Forgiveness together have the potential to unite us as people. Our thoughts may tend to divide us, whereas our emotions, if give the chance, will unite us.

Emotional Intelligence is one of the most promising interventions available for anger management.

Leadership & Communication: Employee Engagement

In the Big Chair: The Challenge of Communication in Corporate Canada

Social media offer leaders opportunity to engage employees in conversation, executive coach says

By Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun October 12, 2010

Rosie Steeves has spent 35 years dispensing advice to senior corporate executives, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small startups, on topics like leadership and organizational development. Recently, the Vancouver-based executive leadership coach took some of her own advice to heart and left the Refinery Leadership Partners Inc., where she was co-founder and principal, to start a new enterprise called Executive Works so that she could do more hands-on work with clients.

She has written a new book, Breaking the Leadership Mold, An Executive's Guide to Achieving Organizational Excellence, which focuses on the challenges faced by senior executives in developing and sustaining healthy and successful corporations.

This is an edited version of a recent question-and-answer session with Steeves.

Why write the book?

I guess because I felt I had something to say, and to say what I really feel strongly isn't being said -- "Hey, look, I think there's a problem at the top of organizations. By the way, executives, you may not know because your employees won't tell you."

Just about every book that I know of on this topic doesn't address the unique situation that's at the top. They tend to be generic leadership books. Things are different when you are running organizations. The book really is for those who are faced with those challenges, where they have to fly around the world, and deal with shareholders and regulators and everything else.

Give us a key point from your book.

I asked a colleague once if he knew of one highly performing executive team, and he didn't know of one. I didn't know of one. I know of a few individual executives who are doing great things, but as a team is anybody spending the time? No, they are not.

It's not bad intent. They think if they spend time on themselves that it's a luxury, that they've got to take care of the organization first. That's the wrong way around.

They've got to spend time on themselves and develop their leadership. Simply because they are at the top doesn't mean that we should expect them to be perfect.

The corporate communications sphere is changing very rapidly, thanks to social media. Are executives really ready for the challenges that this presents to them? You have some that are great, but for the most part, no.

Let's not assume that what has been happening in the past was effective. The way that executives particularly have got their message out to employees is through such things as a communications department. It crafts this beautiful message and out it goes. There is a lack of real, honest dialogue and conversation.

I think what can happen now, and we are seeing it in some organizations with social media, with blogs and whatever, is that there is an opportunity for those at the top to truly engage their employees in a conversation.

You suggest in the book that executives end up working too hard and taking on too much responsibility. What warning signs do you have if there's too much on your plate?

Clearly, it's the time [you spend on work]. I think more than that, increasingly we are seeing a trend not toward time management, but towards energy management. They can't get the energy unless they are sleeping properly, unless they are eating properly, they're exercising, they're having some times where they actually don't do anything.

There are going to be times when it's going to be nuts and they're going to be living on planes. It's actually okay, I think, to have those times as long as there is a time when that stops.

Veteran senior executives risk falling into a trap of believing they don't need more training. How do you figure out that might be the problem and how do you explain to people what they need to do?

Well, I'm very direct. But many aren't, and therein lies the problem. I find it fascinating to go into organizations and see how those at the top see themselves and how those in the rest of the organization see them.

I did an informal poll on one of these LinkedIn networks of executives only, just kind of senior executives. Somebody put a question up there: What one word would you use to describe your leadership? You wouldn't believe this was executives responding. They are "visionary," "empowering," "inspiring," all these kinds of things.

Those are not the words that I hear when employees describe their leaders. I put a question up there: What one word do you think your employees would use to describe your leadership?

We got exactly the same answers, these beautiful wonderful words that did not describe what employees were experiencing -- The leaders are absent, distracted, distant, they don't understand their employees, their employees are not important to them.

Occasionally we get some of the real dysfunction, that the leaders are arrogant and all those things, but we don't get that very often.

Leaders are so busying trying to manage their external environment that they are not paying attention to employees. The No. 1 driver of engagement is the extent to which senior leaders care about their employees.

What things can aspiring

executives do to make sure they are ready to move up to that next level when the opportunity arises?

The most important thing is that they get to know themselves, that they grow and mature as people, that they become feedback junkies. That can happen in the workplace, but it can also happen outside the workplace. Some of the best leaders I've seen are young people that have taken on something in their community, or decided they are going to head up the strata council, or run the soccer club, those kinds of things.

It's doing whatever they can in terms of personal development. I don't mean going to do a course on Leadership 101 -- but doing things they've never done before, things that scare them. It could be going on a hiking trip or jumping out of an airplane -- things that cause them to look in the mirror.

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

- - -

Rosie Steeves's bio

Rosie Steeves is a founder and president of Vancouver-based executive coaching firm Executive Works. She has a PhD in human development from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, Calif., and an MA in engineering from Cambridge University, England. She has written a new book, Breaking the Leadership Mold, based on 35 years of experience working with local, national and international companies.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Caregiving Advice: Finding Work-Life Balance as a Caregiver

Caregiving Advice: Finding Work-Life Balance as a Caregiver

Kathryn Haslanger, Oct. 11, 2010, Huffington Post.

Presenteeism -- When You're There, But Not Really ...

According to Wikipedia, presenteeism is the opposite of absenteeism. Presenteeism occurs when employees come to work but are unable to focus on their jobs. This distraction is often caused when a sick family member or loved one at home needs frequent phone check-ins throughout the day, and requires help from the working caregiver to coordinate doctors appointments, follow up with insurers, etc.

Presenteeism takes its toll on everyone involved; it is stressful for the caregiver and family, and often results in poor work productivity. Researchers say that presenteeism cuts individual productivity by one-third or more. In fact, presenteeism appears to be a much costlier problem for employers than its productivity-reducing counterpart, absenteeism. (2004 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation).

With the growing number of family caregivers caring for someone at home, more and more working people are struggling to balance their caregiving responsibilities and work. Nearly 25-35 percent of the workforce is now caring for a chronically ill or aging family member and this number is expected to increase 50 percent over the next five years. According to the Met Life Caregiver Cost Study, businesses regardless of size or classification face the same relative costs: $2,110-$2,441 per caregiving employee. This translates into an estimated cost of $33 billion annually in workplace errors, absenteeism, tardiness and increased supervisory costs.

Presenteeism due to caregiving is a legitimate concern for employers, but it is also a problem for individuals, who at times are forced to make tough choices about whether or not to leave work in order to take care of a dependent family member. According to CareGiver Helper, Inc., a provider of eldercare employee benefit programs, 10-30 percent of any given workforce is at risk for leaving due to caregiver family commitments.

Carol, 54, is a family caregiver who quit her job as a health club manager to care for her aging parents. While she was comfortable at her job, and had accepted increasing responsibility over the years, she struggled daily and then made the hard decision to leave work after it was clear that both of her parents required daily assistance.

Carol is the youngest of three siblings, and her brother and sister live in other states, so daily caregiving responsibilities have fallen solely on her. At first, she was able to visit each evening after work to help prepare dinner and ensure that her parents were safe. She felt more at ease because her parents had each other and seemed to be coping well. However, now, with both her parents in their mid-80s, and both having complex health conditions (her mother has had two strokes and her father has worsening congestive heart failure), she finds that she has to manage their housekeeping chores, medical appointments, medications and financial accounts in addition to paying their bills, overseeing their insurance paperwork, and driving them to church, doctors appointments and other activities.

"At work, I was spending a couple of hours a day on the phone helping my parents. While my boss certainly didn't stand over me all the time, it just became too much. I could not handle my job responsibilities and meet my parents' needs." So Carol quit, giving up her salary, benefits and health care coverage. Luckily for Carol, her short-term financial needs are met. "My parents pay for my COBRA so I can retain health insurance, and they are able to help with my rent at the moment," she says. But Carol has serious concerns about her financial future and knows that the longer she remains out of work, the harder it will be for her to re-enter the workforce at her current level. Plus, she misses the routine of going to work and interacting with her colleagues and friends.

"I had a job I enjoyed. Many of my friends were people I knew from work, and we used to go out together. If I had known how much I would miss them, I might have tried harder to work out a part-time situation, though my position has not ever been considered part-time."

Research shows that it is possible to help family caregivers balance their work lives with their at-home responsibilities. LifeCare, Inc., a provider of comprehensive specialty care services in the work/life industry, has issued the findings of an 18-month study exploring the impact of workplace eldercare programs. Among the study's key findings is news that employees who used a geriatric care management (GCM) program to help manage their caregiving responsibilities were less likely to report negative caregiving impacts on their work performance than those individuals who did not use support programs at all.

Of course, the programs are only helpful if caregivers use them. LifeCare CEO, Peter G. Burki, states, "Too many people wait until their situation becomes unmanageable to use the employer-sponsored support programs. Employees need to understand that these programs are meant to be used before a crisis arises. That's the best way to maximize the benefits of these programs for everyone involved, including the care recipient."

At the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, we offer a unique family member case management program for our patients' in-home caregivers in Staten Island. A dedicated social worker provides personalized case management, counseling, information and referral to caregivers, who also have access to a weekly telephone support group, which is scheduled in the evening hours to accommodate busy work schedules.

This new program has been very well received by family caregivers, many of whom feel for the first time that someone is there to focus on their needs, or help them to connect with other caregivers. VNSNY is planning to expand the program to the other boroughs of New York City, and will take special care to tailor services to those who work, with the goal of reducing the strain and depression that are often felt by working caregivers and guidelines for improving their work productivity.

Are you at-risk for presenteeism at work?

Here is a quick check list of behaviors that may indicate a need for help:

1. Are you increasingly late for work because caregiving commitments make it difficult for you to get out of the house on time?
2. Are you using company time to call home, make doctor appointments, or talk with insurers?
3. Are you missing deadlines or working overtime trying to fulfill work responsibilities that are taking a backseat to caregiving duties?
4. Are you fearful that your manager may find out the amount of time you have to put in to caring for family members?

For more information and a list of helpful resources, please visit: www.VNSNY.org.

Change, Growth, Renewal & Transformation

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination. ~ Napoleon Hill

It's been a long time since I last posted to this blog. I have several others and have been through a lot of changes, much renewal, growth & transformation in that time.

I'm now working in my business, Catalyst Enterprises BC full-time. We offer consulting, counselling and coaching services. We also provide research, media relations and communication strategies. One thing I've learned along the way is that unless an individual, or organization has a solid communications strategy, it is difficult to get the word out about all of the good work that is taking place.

I feel very grateful for the opportunity to "be my own boss." It is the healthiest, best decision I have ever made. I am now able to be fully in tune with my own goals, my own yearnings for creativity and have the ability to structure my time and days in such a way that I can continue to strive, thrive and move forward in my personal and professional life in a much more balanced and happy way.

In the spirit of renewal & transformation, I'm going to begin a new chapter for this blog. I've decided this will be a hodge-podge of my interests and involvements. I will write commentary, provide links to media, research and ideas in a variety of areas.

Like many people, once I consciously made space to clear away the things that blocked me from moving forward, ample and abundant space opened up to think, dream, be inspired and for my creativity to flow.

The life of an entrepreneur is not easy, filled with challenges and lessons, but it also embodies a spark of excitement, innovation and there is nothing to stop an entrepreneur from dreaming big. For a long time, my personal motto has been the cliched "Go Big, or Go Home" philosophy. Due to personality and other factors, I've never really had the option not to be that kind of person.

I've always been in a state of striving to reach a potential I could even scarcely understand. The Greeks called this entelechy. When I learned of this word, I finally understood where my intrinsic motivation came from and that it was a good thing. Over the course of my life, I have had no choice but to develop my potential and it was only with life experience did I come to understand that when I have been in situations where I felt blocked, devalued and stuck that I became shut off and sometimes even became sick from the lack of progress I was making.

Now that I'm in this new chapter of my life, my business, work and goals as a catalyst are built around helping others, individuals, families and organizations find a way to develop, to change, grow and transform. I know that each of us has a potential we can manifest that will lead us to be happier, more integrated and healthier people, which we will then bring to our families, our communities and organizations.

Thank you for visiting our blog and I hope you will find information that will be helpful. I want to encourage people to comment and to share our blog with others who may find it of interest.

All the best,

Tracey Young, MSW, RSW