Harassment by any other name

New research from Queen’s School of Business published in the Journal of Applied Psychology suggests that a single type of workplace harassment on its own can be just as harmful to an employee as being exposed to one or even two additional types of harassment.

The study also found that general workplace harassment—the origins of which are difficult to identify—can actually be harder on victims than racial or gender harassment, which are typically rooted in bias.

Surprisingly, Caucasians report higher levels of general workplace harassment than minorities, and women are no more likely than men to experience either gender harassment or general workplace harassment.

The report is timely in that Ontario has just introduced Bill 168: The Occupational Health and Safety Act, which requires employers to put into place policies and programs regarding workplace harassment. This places the province in exclusive company in North America—only Quebec and Saskatchewan have similar measures on workplace harassment.

However, it is no silver bullet in the fight against harassment.

“Even with the best preventative measures in place, harassment may still occur,” caution the authors, Jana L. Raver of Queen’s School of Business, and Lisa H. Nishii of Cornell University. “If it does, leaders should clearly communicate to employees that they are taking the situation seriously and that all forms of mistreatment are unacceptable.”

According to the authors, workers subconsciously steel themselves against a toxic workplace environment by establishing an adaptation level, which may insulate them from additional harm when faced with a second type of harassment.

“Each type of harassment is independently associated with a host of negative strain outcomes,” the authors write. “With that said, it only takes a single type of harassment to predict negative consequences; secondary or tertiary types of harassment did not further reduce job-related attitudes and turnover intent.”

Further findings suggest that general workplace harassment is more directly associated with negative outcomes than ethnic harassment or gender harassment, and that tolerating additional harassment may be more difficult when general workplace harassment is involved. The authors point out that unlike gender and ethnic harassment, general workplace harassment is not illegal in most of North America, an element of the issue that may cause further anxiety for victims.

“If organizational leaders fail to enforce their anti-harassment policies, employees may conclude that the climate supports harassment, leading to more harassment and organizational backlash,” says the report. “Building inclusive environments and squelching harassment when it does occur will go a long way toward building an environment for healthy and productive employees.”

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