The document is a travesty from beginning to end. It enshrines the ability of someone else to take "offence" or deem "harassment" for anything I say or do. It also demands that I sign to allow them to investigate the complaint, talk to witnesses and make a decision, before notifying me that a complaint has been made. At which point I will be forced to try and defend myself against any accusation from a position of a decision having already been made.
Quite literally I could be the target of a complaint by someone who is receiving medical counselling for self esteem issues and be fired for having harassed them without even knowing that this person was in treatement.
Here is an extract.
According to the Act respecting labour standards, psychological harassment is defined as follows1
:
any vexatious behaviour in the form of repeated and hostile or unwanted conduct, verbal
comments, actions or gestures, that affects an employee’s dignity or psychological or physical
integrity and that results in a harmful work environment for the employee. For greater certainty,
psychological harassment includes such behaviour in the form of such verbal comments, actions or
gestures of a sexual nature.
If follows with.
A single serious incidence of such behaviour that has a lasting harmful
effect on an employee may also constitute psychological harassment.
There is more. All in the same vein. I have told them that they cannot have a policy of this kind without a code of conduct. That I will not sign the document unless they create the code of conduct and modify the policy to refer to the code of conduct.
The code of conduct needs to create boundaries for both the complainant and the accused and any complaint should refer to how the accused has broken the code of conduct.
This document, as written, is carte blanche for anyone, anywhere, to take offense for almost any reason. One of the most common complaints on the Sexual/Psychological or Race platform I have seen is to escape the consequences of their own inability to do the job.
Don't get me wrong I know and have seen, all three types of harassment in the workplace. Plus a fourth which you rarely see; which is physical violence. I don't tolerate it in my teams and won't tolerate it in others. However this does not entitle a company to force me to sign an unreasonable policy; which does not even give general guidelines as to what constitutes a breach of said policy. Apparently the only required test for the breach of this policy is that someone is "offended".
It is not acceptable. I may be forced to sign it, but I now have documented evidence that I challenged it and deemed it not fit for purpose. After all I write policies for a living.
