Harassment Archives - Page 3 of 11

Investigations involving white fragility

December 19, 2022 | By Chantel Levy

If you are an investigator like me, you may have noticed the term “white fragility” has emerged in some of your cases, especially when the investigation involves claims of race-based harassment and/or discrimination. This may be as part of a complainant’s allegation, as in the respondent engaged in “white fragility,” or as part of a respondent’s response, as in “this is not a case of ‘white fragility’.” The concept has sparked much debate, as not everyone agrees with it.

When decision-makers disagree, and what we’ve learned from this

July 22, 2022

In the summer of 2020, there was an incident involving a City of Toronto Municipal Standards Officer, Michael Rushton, and two Black women, Eva Amo-Mensah and Deborah Ampong (the “complainants”).

Rumour. Gossip. Hearsay.

April 26, 2022 | By Bruce Best

Sometimes, allegations of workplace misconduct will be clearly articulated and will be backed up by first-hand evidence of inappropriate behaviour or harassment, and employers will take the appropriate steps to conduct a fair and impartial investigation to determine whether such allegations are well founded.

Respect at Work Training – why now?

March 21, 2022 | By Christine Thomlinson

We’ve been hearing much talk about the “Great Resignation” – specifically, between April and September 2021, more than 24 million American employees left their jobs, an all-time record. While the same hasn’t yet been seen in Canada, experts speculate that this may just be delayed…

Revisiting workplace assessments under Bill C-65: What we know now

August 26, 2021 | By Cory Boyd

In August 2020, my colleague Veronica Howard and I published a blog on conducting workplace assessments under Bill C-65. At that time, Bill C-65 and the related Regulations set out the requirements that federally regulated employers were required to meet in order to satisfy their obligations under the Canada Labour Code (CLC)…

The relevance of intent in workplace investigations

August 17, 2021 | By Bruce Best

When conducting a workplace investigation, particularly those involving allegations of discrimination, harassment, or reprisal, one issue that may arise is the relevance of the intentions of the respondent.

Workplace harassment 2.0

June 29, 2021

Remote work was once considered a privilege. Requests to work from home were largely denied and granted only in special cases. As the March 2020 lockdown went into full effect and office buildings emptied, once bustling downtown cores became near ghost towns. For the last fifteen months, remote work has been the status quo. Fears of low employee productivity have largely been allayed. In fact, some organizations have spent in the millions building up VPNs and infrastructure to enable remote work.

Part 2: Restoring the workplace after a harassment or discrimination investigation

April 14, 2021 | By Dana J. Campbell-Stevens

In my last blog, I discussed “Restoring the workplace before a harassment or discrimination investigation.” However, what if the horse is already out the barn? An investigation has been conducted; relationships in the workplace are broken; the environment has become toxic because of the situation, the investigation, or both; there is a lack of trust; productivity is low; and/or communication is poor. How do you restore the workplace now?

Serious insight for serious situations.