Nearly two-thirds (61 per cent) of Canadian human resources professionals feel workplace harassment is a growing issue in their organization and needs more attention, according to a new survey by Traliant.

The survey, which polled 1,000 HR professionals in Canada from organizations ranging from 50 to more than 1,000 employees, found 52 per cent said harassment prevention training is a requirement for employees to be completed once a year, while 20 per cent said they conduct training once every two years.

The majority (81 per cent) of respondents reported employees have to complete workplace violence prevention training, with 74 per cent providing a single training that covers both harassment and workplace violence prevention.

Read: 70% of Canadian employees have experienced workplace violence or harassment: survey

Roughly half (52 per cent) of HR professionals said their workplace harassment reporting processes aren’t clear or standardized. Additionally, 28 per cent said they don’t have a comprehensive workplace harassment prevention policy that meets all legal requirements and 19 per cent said they have a policy, but it’s outdated or not very comprehensive.

While Canadian law requires employers in all provinces and territories to provide regular training to all workers, 26 per cent of organizations aren’t applying this training to all employees and all levels.

For organizations that didn’t provide training in the last year, the main reasons cited include their current training partner lacked inclusive content and design (25 per cent), the cost of developing, licensing or purchasing workplace training programs and materials (24 per cent) and the cost of pulling employees away from their regular duties (20 per cent).

“Canadian HR professionals need to empower employees to actively commit to a culture of respect,” said Cory Gendron, chief revenue officer at Traliant, in a press release. “My experience leading teams across Canada has shown me that a strong harassment prevention strategy helps bring awareness and action to critical safety topics in today’s workplace.”

Read: Half of U.S. workers say employee well-being supports healthy workplace culture: survey