Preventing Harassment and Bullying
A work-related gradual onset psychological injury is caused by repeated significant stressors at work. Most often, these kinds of injuries happen because of ongoing bullying or harassment in the workplace, and they are injuries that build up over time.
Examples of Workplace Bullying and Harassment
Some examples of behaviour or comments that might suggest workplace harassment and bullying are taking place. For more information, you can read the full psychological injury policy (PDF).
Verbal aggression or yelling
Calling someone insulting names
Vandalizing personal belongings
Sabotaging someone’s work
Spreading gossip or rumours
Engaging in hazing
Making threats or personal attacks based on someone’s private life or personal characteristics
Inappropriate sexual conduct
As of September 1, 2024, new supports and benefits are now available from the WCB Nova Scotia to workers who experience a psychological injury from workplace harassment and bullying.
Here are six (6) resources and tools to help employers and workers identify harassment and bullying in the workplace, and learn how to prevent it and provide support where needed.
How to use these tools
As an employer or a worker, you will want to know specific, measurable, and attainable steps to take when workplace harassment and bullying is present. These tools can help with that. For example, the Employer Checklist is a valuable tool that includes preventative actions, potential pathways for resolution, and links to additional resources. For workers in different sectors, the Worker Fact Sheet includes example behaviour that constitutes workplace harassment and bullying, worker responsibilities, and links to additional information.
These tools can be used to ensure your workplace is equipped with the resources you need to stop harassment before it starts.
Here are two scenarios to illustrate how they can be used in your workplace:
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Alex runs a small moving company. Alex has a high school diploma and ten people working under them, most of whom are older men. Most of Alex’s workers don’t like talking about their feelings and make fun of each other daily. It’s mostly in good fun, but sometimes it can get heated.
One of Alex’s newer workers is a younger man just out of high school. He’s been part of the team for the past six months. For the first five months he was fitting in well, chatty, and a great team member. However, in the past month Alex has noticed their newer worker starting to withdraw. He shows up later to work, is not as talkative, and avoids interacting with others at work wherever possible.
Alex talks to this new employee who says he’s being bullied by an older worker. Alex is shocked that they let a culture of workplace harassment and bullying develop, and knows they needs to get their business in shape to stop this. Alex uses the Employer Checklist provided by WCB to establish a culture of workplace harassment prevention. They get their employees together to let them know that workplace harassment and bullying is unacceptable and runs through a list of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours.
After the meeting, Alex discreetly follows up with the newer worker. They don’t want everyone in the moving company to know that this one person was responsible for the team meeting. Alex provides the newer worker with supports such as an Employee Assistance Program and ensures that going forward the moving company will have required training and a workplace harassment and bullying policy.
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Morganne is a paramedic dispatcher. She had a workplace injury a year ago in which she suffered a concussion after slipping on ice in the parking lot at work. She fell on the ground and hit her head on the pavement. She was diagnosed with a concussion and was off work for six months. Since her concussion, Morganne has been struggling in fitting in with her colleagues.
When Morganne returned to the workplace six months ago, she changed her pronouns to they/their. Morganne’s direct supervisor refused to acknowledge their preferred pronouns, repeatedly misgendering them and belittling them. Morganne became anxious at the prospect of going to work every day.
Morganne learned that the Worker Fact Sheet was available as a resource and opened it to see what it said. The fact sheet validated their thoughts that they were being harassed in the workplace. Morganne checked their experiences against the behaviours listed in the tool describing workplace harassment and bullying, and realized they were indeed being harassed by their supervisor.
Following steps described in the Worker Fact Sheet, Morganne began keeping a record of the facts and reached out to the individual identified in their workplace’s harassment and bullying policy – in their case, their direct supervisor’s manager. Together they collaboratively developed a plan to ensure Morganne’s psychological safety was protected in the workplace.