An excellent, succinct blog post by Earl Phillips of the law firm of McCarthy Tétrault LLP sets forth nine requirements which British Columbia employers must meet to be in compliance with the new WorkSafeBC bullying and harassment policies which will take effect on November 1, 2013.
We quote the nine requirements below, directly from his blog, but refer readers to the blog post itself for the helpful “suggested approach to get ready” for the new polices.
- Develop a policy statement about workplace bullying and harassment not being acceptable or tolerated
- Take steps to prevent or minimize workplace bullying and harassment.
- Develop and implement procedures for reporting bullying and harassment, and specifically provide for reporting an incident when the alleged harasser is the employer, a supervisor or someone acting on behalf of the employer.
- Develop and implement procedures for investigating, following up and recording complaints of bullying and harassment.
- Inform workers of the policy statement in 1 and the steps taken in 2.
- Train supervisors and workers on workplace bullying and harassment.
- Annually review 1 – 4.
- Not engage in bullying and harassment of workers and supervisors.
- Apply and comply with policies and procedures on bullying and harassment.
Readers in other jurisdictions might recognize some or all of these items from their harassment training, and might also find it useful to apply them to attack workplace bullying, which is not illegal in many or most jurisdictions.