On December 15th 2017 Royal Assent was given to Bill 30, an Act the Alberta Government introduced aimed at protecting “…the health and well-being of working Albertans.”
According to the Act one of its primary purposes is “the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, psychological and social well-being of workers”. For most companies the emphasis on physical safety in the workplace is a familiar one. There are a variety of physical safety risks inherent in any workplace and over the last number of decades we have seen significant developments put into place to address them. “Everyone home safe each day”, or something similar, is a common refrain. Part of the intention of this Act is to continue to address those physical risks.
What might be somewhat new or different however is the added specific emphasis on psychological and social safety in the workplace. In my experience this element provides a unique challenge to companies as they work through what this means for them and how to put it into practice. Some of the hardest, but most meaningful, work that I have done over the last few years has been with teams wrestling with this aspect of the workplace. The issue is not necessarily a lack of desire for psychological or social safety, but a struggle to define or articulate precisely what that means or what it looks like in practice.
A key element of this is the expanded definition of harassment. Bill 30, mirroring the language that other provinces in Canada have used, defines harassment as “…any single incident or repeated incidents of objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comment, bullying or action by a person that the person knows or ought reasonably to know will or would cause offence or humiliation to a worker, or adversely affects the worker’s health and safety…”
There is a lot packed into this definition and teasing out what this means practically takes some discussion and work. While there are many concrete examples of harassment as defined above, there is also an element of subjectivity that needs to be addressed. For example, humour can be a very tricky thing. What is funny to me may not be funny, and perhaps be offensive, or even bullying behaviour, to you. Because of this subjective element some individuals I have worked with have expressed a great deal of frustration and wanted to pass on the discussion.
However, I believe it is work worth doing. Not simply because of the new Act, but more so to genuinely address the negative impacts of an unhealthy workplace. We are becoming more aware of the prevalence of mental health concerns in our society and the effects of stress on the human body; and given the amount of time we generally spend at work, it makes sense to include that environment in this conversation. Bringing these concerns out into the open where they can be genuinely addressed is a good thing I think. There is great benefit in doing so.
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Labour Law Changes in Alberta
According to the Act one of its primary purposes is “the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, psychological and social well-being of workers”. For most companies the emphasis on physical safety in the workplace is a familiar one. There are a variety of physical safety risks inherent in any workplace and over the last number of decades we have seen significant developments put into place to address them. “Everyone home safe each day”, or something similar, is a common refrain. Part of the intention of this Act is to continue to address those physical risks.
What might be somewhat new or different however is the added specific emphasis on psychological and social safety in the workplace. In my experience this element provides a unique challenge to companies as they work through what this means for them and how to put it into practice. Some of the hardest, but most meaningful, work that I have done over the last few years has been with teams wrestling with this aspect of the workplace. The issue is not necessarily a lack of desire for psychological or social safety, but a struggle to define or articulate precisely what that means or what it looks like in practice.
A key element of this is the expanded definition of harassment. Bill 30, mirroring the language that other provinces in Canada have used, defines harassment as “…any single incident or repeated incidents of objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comment, bullying or action by a person that the person knows or ought reasonably to know will or would cause offence or humiliation to a worker, or adversely affects the worker’s health and safety…”
There is a lot packed into this definition and teasing out what this means practically takes some discussion and work. While there are many concrete examples of harassment as defined above, there is also an element of subjectivity that needs to be addressed. For example, humour can be a very tricky thing. What is funny to me may not be funny, and perhaps be offensive, or even bullying behaviour, to you. Because of this subjective element some individuals I have worked with have expressed a great deal of frustration and wanted to pass on the discussion.
However, I believe it is work worth doing. Not simply because of the new Act, but more so to genuinely address the negative impacts of an unhealthy workplace. We are becoming more aware of the prevalence of mental health concerns in our society and the effects of stress on the human body; and given the amount of time we generally spend at work, it makes sense to include that environment in this conversation. Bringing these concerns out into the open where they can be genuinely addressed is a good thing I think. There is great benefit in doing so.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2018 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.