Are you experiencing high employee turnover or absenteeism? Is workplace harassment driving away star performers?
Our web-based online diversity and inclusion training programs are designed to prevent future incidents by increasing awareness and reinforce response training to counter workplace harassment, bullying and discrimination.
How Workplace Harassment Affects Employees
Employee harassment can prevent a workplace from being respectful and productive and leave you vulnerable to legal action. Workplace harassment in Australian organizations is more common than we realize. Statistics indicate that one in every three women and one in every five men experience workplace harassment.
Workplace harassment leads to mental stress and loss of valuable employees, a tarnished brand image and poor reputation for the organization. Unfortunately, in many cases, managers are not even aware that employees are being subject to workplace harassment and oftentimes on a daily basis.
Harassment, especially in an organization that does not take it seriously, demoralizes employees. Every workplace should have appropriate measures in place to identify, investigate and respond to harassment issues. An indifferent attitude towards harassment fosters poorer employee health, increased absenteeism and lower productivity.
Studies also show that workplace harassment contributes to psychological stress and illness that may include anxiety, panic attacks, depression, stress and physical violence.
Symmetra provides workplace harassment prevention training programs to organizations and businesses across different sectors. Our customisable training programs help employees and leaders identify different types of harassment and take the steps necessary to prevent future incidents.
How Workplace Harassment Prevention Helps
Organizations must cultivate a culture of trust and safety where employees feel comfortable and safe coming forward with their grievances. Fortunately, the culture of silence against bullying and harassment has been broken, and modern organizations are taking proactive steps to address such issues.
Australian employers have a legal and moral responsibility to eliminate workplace harassment and adequately respond to situations. There should be clear and firm policies in the company manual addressing harassment and these should be reviewed and updated regularly.
Review your workplace harassment prevention training programs and address any gaps in understanding on the subject. Do employees understand what harassment is? Do they know what to do if they experience or see harassment in the workplace?
Treat harassment prevention as an organizational goal and define steps and metrics to measure success and compliance. Employees will be more inclined to trust a leadership team that has streamlined grievance redressal processes in place. Training your managers and employees to identify, respond to and prevent harassment shows employees the organization takes employee wellbeing seriously.
Workplace harassment prevention initiatives support a diverse workforce. When employees from minority groups are harassed at work they are likely to quit, leading to a loss of diversity and leaving the company at risk of a discrimination lawsuit.
Symmetra leverages its extensive cross-industry experience and offers result-oriented online diversity training for employees. Our training programs are geared towards employee awareness and empowerment. We help our clients eliminate workplace harassment, build diverse organizations and foster inclusive leadership.
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