As CSC works to address cases of harassment and bullying within the organization, senior managers are encouraging employees to use the assortment of tools at their disposal to report inappropriate behaviour as soon as it happens.
In doing so, they’ll be helping to bring about a safer and more inclusive workplace.
In addition to established methods for addressing workplace harassment – everything from speaking informally to a colleague, supervisor or union representative to contacting the Office of Conflict Management – the organization recently expanded the tip line and established a generic email address that gives employees across the country another avenue to come forward and report inappropriate behaviours and/or actions.
According to Nathalie Dufresne-Meek, CSC’s Director General of Labour relations and Workplace management, adding a confidentiality component to the equation was meant to address potential barriers that may be preventing people from coming forward.
“The expansion of the tip line and the creation of an email address afford employees an opportunity to signal misconduct or to signal harassment, intimidation, and bullying to others that are not necessarily in their region or within their team, so that people feel a sense of safety (and) that it’ll be addressed maybe by some folks that aren’t in the immediate area,” she explained.
“I think that people are often afraid that nothing’s going to be done, that they won’t get taken seriously, which again brings us back to one of the reasons why the tip line was created and the generic email,” she added. “So that, again, people have a sense that they have a voice and they’ve been heard.”
That said, not all situations may warrant a call to the tip line or the pursuit of other, sometimes arduous, formal processes.
Dufresne-Meek suggests that employees consider all the tools at their disposal when deciding how to address an issue in the workplace.
“I always encourage employees to think about what the expected outcome is of the situation that they’re dealing with and then try to determine what is the best mechanism to address the issue based on the outcome they’re looking for.
“Every form of harassment, sexual harassment, violence, intimidation, bullying – none of that is acceptable in the workplace, but not all allegations will warrant discipline or termination, so we really encourage people to use the informal conflict management mechanisms to try to address and work with a co-worker or supervisor to resolve issues at the earliest possible opportunity,” she added. “If issues can be managed at the lowest level possible, it’s often more of a win-win situation for people.”
If victims and witnesses feel unsafe going directly to their supervisors, CSC is ready to help. The tip line can be reached by dialling 1-866-780-3784 and the generic email address is respect@csc-scc.gc.ca.
Speak up. Take action. Stop harassment.