Workplace Harassment Prevention for Employees: How it Can be Done

Woven into workplace harassment prevention for employees, learning is an understanding of the fundamentals of basic human rights. This is important as once everyone knows about their rights, they can draw power and freedom from them. Having rights protects us and gives us the authority we need to challenge what is not fair and can potentially harm us.

Equality also ensures that rights are not the domain of a select few, but are bestowed on everyone to ensure their well-being is safeguarded. When a workplace places human rights at its core, this elevates the standards of the organisation beyond one that is simply preoccupied with achieving compliance with employment law which incorporates elements of human rights.

Going beyond the minimum

The focus of human rights is on protecting the vulnerable and ensuring basic needs are met. Employers who are committed to human rights are not only concerned about people’s quality of life within the workplace but also beyond the workplace.

They understand the impact that community has on the ability of people to thrive and contribute to their maximum if a broader range of needs are met beyond simply their direct obligations.

First-class employers who provide online equality and diversity training will provide this, not only to empower people internally but also to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to protect themselves from significant challenges outside its confines.

For example, they would strive to ensure women are not only protected from abuse within the workplace but also at home and in the community. Caring employers become activists and change agents in society knowing that ignoring the external environment only exacerbates the perpetuation of injustices everywhere.

The main thrust of workplace harassment prevention for employees and bullying prevention training online is to get affected people to speak up and take action. There is a greater probability of this occurring when people are confident of their rights and the fact that these will be consistently upheld without negative repercussions for them.

When people are assured that they deserve dignity and respect, when they don’t receive it, it becomes easier to stand up and step forward.

Moving the needle

Equally important in workplace harassment prevention for employees is the knowledge that we are entitled to our unique perceptions and version of events. Knowing that not everyone has to agree with us to be taken seriously and be heard is essential to facilitating reporting and opening up conversations about what is acceptable and what is not.

Online equality and diversity training will make us more comfortable with divergent ideas and get to a point where debating issues and different views is constructive and positive. We only learn when freedom of speech and expression are treasured as core to our human experience.

Violence and oppression have occurred throughout history. It would be naïve to believe simply because workplaces are deemed to be more civilised, that they do not find expression within them. Workplace harassment prevention for employees does not deny these realities.

With the sharing of rights, obligations, and consequences, the objective is to secure systematic recourse to peace and harmony by uprooting violence and oppression in all their manifestations in the workplace. Recognising the enemy early is one of our greatest defences against tyranny.

Human rights are also about access to knowledge and learning. Employers that have a strong emphasis on continually upgrading all types of education in the workplace in the overall interests of employees benefiting in all aspects of their lives and mastering their environments are true advocates of sustainable evolution and transformation.

Harassment and bullying are quickly eradicated when knowledge, rights, and protections become true forces to be reckoned with.

At the end of the day, human rights are about accountability. Workplace harassment prevention for employees makes the standards clear for everyone. The responsibility to address the ills of harassment and bullying, therefore, falls on everyone, including the perpetrators for rehabilitation. There will be fewer and fewer places to hide what is an abomination.