Policy: Workplace Harassment, Bullying and Discrimination Prevention
Policy overview
A purpose behind establishing this policy is to ensure that “healthy and safe work environment is maintained for all employees” (Relationships Australia Queensland, 2013). It Is to ensure that any alleged workplace harassment, discrimination, vilification or sexual harassment claims are treated seriously and investigated fairly, promptly and impartially. Bullying has serious emotional, financial and legal repercussions for employees and employers alike. The incidences of violence in the workplace seem to be increasing worldwide. Kramar et al. (2014) also specifies that any policies and practices developed by workplaces to address workplace …show more content…
In Australia, The Commonwealth Public Sector Union in 2011, received 2000 bullying related complaints, which is 360% percent higher than a number of complaints received 4 years earlier (Kramar, et al., 2014).
Qualitative data survey of 399 students attending business school who may have existing, or previous work experience in Australia, Turkey and India, shown, that 114 have identified as being targets of workplace bullying. Interestingly, manifestations and ways of dealing with workplace bullying were found similar in all three countries (D 'Cruz, et al., 2016). Kramar et al. (2014) has defined bullying in Australia to be mostly downward focused – from managers to subordinates. This has been mostly true for the respondents from Turkey and India in the cross-cultural survey, however Australian respondents have identified almost equal numbers of 58% Supervisory and 44% peer bullying. In dealing with the effects of bullying, both India and Turkey focused more on informal support systems, where Australian respondents indicated seeking formal support of psychologists/psychiatrists or union representation (D 'Cruz, et al., …show more content…
In this instance, employee has made a formal complaint to the state’s Business manager on day four of continuous bullying. However, the manager did not at that stage followed existing bullying and harassment policy and contacted store manager directly over the phone, to let them know of the complaint. This has not addressed the behavior and after additional 7 days the employee made a subsequent complaint, just to be told to “work it out herself” (Cooper Grace Ward Lawyers,