INTERNATIONAL NEWS
AUSTRALIA Heed the Warning Signs of Avoided Conversations
HR practitioners and managers who are alert to signals of "silence and violence" can take early preventative steps to stop workplace issues from exploding, says Sydney Institute of Management managing director, Brian Taylor. According to Taylor, who is a Crucial Conversations certified facilitator, most barriers and obstacles to getting results at work arise because people get "stuck". The people involved invariably need to have a "crucial conversation" to get them unstuck. Most people either don't hold crucial conversations, or they try to do so and make a mess of it. In these circumstances, employees resort to either “silence or violence” which are counter-productive and derail crucial conversations that hold the key to better results. Silent behavior begins with an employee avoiding and withdrawing from conversations and can lead to controlling, verbally and even physically abusive behavior. Silence can only continue for a certain period of time and Taylor warns that eventually, people will either leave - the department, or the organi- zation altogether - or they'll "blow up."
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Bullying Audits Could Prevent the Blame Game A proactive approach to bullying could really change the landscape of workplace bullying in Australia – yet organizations continue to lose millions of dollars in reactive approaches instead. That’s according to leading Australian industrial psychologist, Dr Rod Gutier- rez, who says organizations simply aren’t doing enough to prevent workplace bullying from happening in the first instance. To Gutierrez, the stock-standard approach taken by most organizations – replete with zero-tolerance policies and counseling of offend- ers, is failing. Most organizations have safety rules, oversight professionals and a system to manage performance. Yet, despite all these well-established procedural and behavior-based reinforcement measures, incidents have shown a sharp rise over the past decade. A new approach gaining traction among some organizations is to conduct a so-called ‘bullying audit’ – instead of reacting to complaints as they come through, the workplace culture and relationships are proactively reviewed to ensure compliance with policies.
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Myths About Workplace Bullying Addressed Josh Bornstein, of Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, said that criminal law is not a workable model and that workplace bullying “should be addressed by national workplace legislation and by giving victims access to a user friendly, proactive system which emphasizes early intervention.” Bornstein has since addressed some of the common misconceptions surrounding workplace bullying which include: workplace bullying is illegal; workplace bullying is a misguided reference to a personality conflict; there is no definition of workplace bullying; workplace bullying is a safety issue; employers should address workplace bullying by codes of conduct and policies; work- place bullying should be criminalized, etc. In order to reduce the incidence of workplace bullying, a new policy and legislative approach is overdue. An investment in an educational campaign about workplace bullying, together with legal reform, would reap a huge dividend by saving millions in lost productivity, healthcare costs and social welfare payments.
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Australian Laws Against Aggressive Violence in the Workplace In Australia, if workplace violence endangers a worker's health by causing stress or other bodily harm, the employer can be found liable for not providing a safe place for employees. To prevent this from occurring, Australian legislators
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