If harassments are allowed to continue, a company will suffer from employee stress-related illness, low morale, and ultimately low production as well.
The other cost is to the company’s reputation in the marketplace.
People won’t stay with an employer when they are not happy. Looking at the turnover rate in employment may be a good way for a potential employee to tell what kind of company it is. A high turnover rate might not represent the presence of harassment, but it would be a good indicator to all sorts of different problems an organization might have.
Employers have become more sophisticated in wanting to deal with the issue of harassment. For instance, women are moving towards making up 50 percent of the world’s work force and they are represented in higher levels within the organization each year. I see fewer cases of harassment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that harassment is less prevalent. It may still exist, just in a different form.
When I first started practicing 12 years ago, I used to see lots of cases having to deal with employees returning from maternity leave and the employers terminating them. This is a form of discrimination; the employee was entitled to return to her job or a comparable job. But employers would still fail to reinstate the employee. We rarely see that nowadays. Most employers are more sophisticated than that, and they realize they have a continuing obligation to an employee when they are off on leave. I think that harassment is similar to that. Most employers are in tune with the idea that they have an obligation, and it’s in their best interests to keep their work place free of harassment.
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If you, or someone you care about, is dealing with mployment law issues in the Ottawa, Ontario Region,contact Law Office of elynda Layton.
This article is taken from an interview with Melynda Layton, Employment Lawyer at Law Office of Melynda Layton, an Ottawa, Ontario Employment Law Firm. Note that laws vary from rovince to province. Please consult with a lawyer in your own area to be sure of the laws and specific issues in your own jurisdiction.
