Targeted
Workplace harassment and bullying seems to be more common than I used to think it was. Perhaps, the lack of a safe platform for victims to actively voice out and share such matters contribute to such low awareness of the type of workplace harassment and bullying that exists across the different industries. Though companies may have whistle-blowing channels, it might not be perceived as safe depending on the party who are handling the active channel (especially if it is handled by an internal staff/department).
Hierarchical organisation structure remains the most prevalent in many established organisations where employees are assigned reporting managers/management who have greater authority. It’s usually depicted as a pyramid with the management at the top, managers in the middle, team leads and operational staff right at the bottom. As intuition can tell, the bottom listens and obeys the top. It’s a structure that have always been used since historical times. Those with power and resources rule over those without. There are benefits of such structure where those assigned at the “top” or “middle” are responsible for ensuring their teams’ goals aligned with the organisation’s vision and mission and meets their teams’ key performance indicators (KPIs), whereas the ones in the bottom are supposed to complete their operational tasks as assigned by their reporting manager or management. Such structure may or may not foster teamwork and staff development as it is highly dependent on the leadership style (or non-leadership style) of the manager (which is a persistent and concerning problem faced by staff that was raised in multiple town halls that I have attended across different companies with hierarchical structure). To further exacerbate the problem, the power imbalance between the manager and the staff could result in unwarranted implications when staff highlights problems and challenges that he/she faced at work. If workplace harassment or bullying is involved, it’s likely that the problem becomes more complex. The choice for those at the bottom is much limited as compared to those in the middle and at the top.
In general, there are three well-established areas that fair employment laws focused on.
- Unlawful discrimination: Treating a person as lesser due to background or personal characteristics (such as gender, age, disability).
- Harassment: Persistent behaviours that cause could distress to an individual such as insults, explicit remarks, offensive languages, derogatory comments, intrusive inquiry to personal life and more.
- Bullying: Unreasonable behaviours that could create risk to the mental or physical health and safety of an individual such as violent acts, offensive language, purposeful exclusion and isolation, intimidation, impossible job assignments, deliberating changing work rosters to inconvenience, undermining work performance deliberating by withholding vital information and more.
Most organisations would need to have established processes and workflows in place to handle such cases to comply with the jurisdiction’s laws and regulations. Given the fact that such laws exist, it means that such practices exist, these practices are deemed as threatening by the jurisdiction, and laws and regulations need to be in place in effort to protect (maybe) the individual affected.
One of the common channel that staff may have access to is a whistle-blowing hotline or email. Yet, more should be done to improve the design of such channel. The balance between reporter’s anonymity and information needed for case-by-case investigations leave much to be desired. There are whistle-blowing channels that are collecting reporter’s national identity number and reporter’s consent to collect, use and disclose their personal information, which could be seemingly equivalent to zero protection to the reporter’s identity and safety from those of higher authority (depending on the severity of the incident).
The question that has been troubling is whether the current channel and process in place are effective. If there is an effective channel, how could one find out and access it. If not, what could be the reason behind that. What are the real options for the individual subjected to discrimination, harassment or bully prioritising the individual’s safety, mental and physical well-being. Even after googling for the entire morning, the answer remains bleak. Walking away seems to be the safest option (and the most common choice of victims); yet, not voicing out would mean that others may be subjected to similar treatment at present and in future. Such an irony.
