Canadian HR Reporter

Canadian HR RepoRteR november 17, 2014 6 News Healthy cultures, reduced costs Unhealthy workplace cultures can have costly consequences – but there are fixes to be found, say our 5 panellists By Sarah DoBSon tHERE Is no shortage of liability landmines and bottom-line-suck- ing HR issues in the workplace — bullying, harassment, violence and poor employee engagement, to name but a few. And in nearly every case, the underlying root cause is an unhealthy workplace culture. "A toxic culture is often char- acterized by people's inability to speak directly to each other respectfully and assertively, so problems become bigger and big- ger and the toxicity just becomes embedded in the culture," said Sharone Bar-David, president of Bar-David Consulting in Toronto. "It's often things that could be resolved with a little conversation early on, either person-to-person or from an alert supervisor or manager." The good news is that un- healthy cultures are quite fix- able — it's just a matter of a solid commitment from leadership, a little bit of legwork and ensuring resources are targeted at areas that will truly make a difference. at was one of the conclusions reached at a special roundtable discussion moderated by Cana- dian HR Reporter managing edi- tor Todd Humber in partnership with Sun Life Financial. An unhealthy workplace is an evolution, brought about through the prevalence of bystanders or an environment where people turn a blind eye to bad behav- iour, according to Susan Wright, HR manager at Sabic Innovative Plastics in Cobourg, Ont. "It becomes a creeping culture, then that becomes accepted." Productivity levels, employee engagement levels, injuries — these can all be indicators of an unhealthy culture, said Wright. "We look at our disability data, we look at our absence trends, we look at our employee engagement survey data — which we do on an every couple of years' basis. And we look at ad hoc pulse surveys to understand what people are thinking, feeling because… cul- ture is what people say and do — we want to get a pulse on that on a regular basis," she said. "So we use very quantifiable and in some cases qualitative data as well to assess where we are from an organizational health standpoint." Tracking numbers, highlighting problem areas Benefits providers can help orga- nizations by tracking the numbers and highlighting problem areas. "You need to understand your data and your demographics in your organization so that you can truly understand what's working well and what's not, and what do we need to do more of and where can we make the largest invest- ment so we're going to get the ROI," said Sandy Fallon, senior vice-president of people at tech- nology company Softchoice in Toronto. "at's really important so that we know we're putting our money into the areas that are going to be most beneficial for our employees and what they need the most. So whether that be all the different carriers or EAP or (Ceridian's) LifeWorks — whatever it is, it's just important to get that data be- cause… it's really hard to find the time to actually do that internally." It's also very telling to look ex- ternally at websites such as Glass- door to see what employees are saying about your company, and their perceptions, said Fallon. "Exit interviews, taking a look at exit interviews and understand- ing: Are we doing what we say we're going to do, is our culture living up to what we think it is? " she said. "So it's that reality check that helps you understand and validate." Another sign of a toxic culture is a person not showing up for work or being actively disengaged, who constantly brings everyone else down, she said. "at's the other poison that you get." If problems of the same nature are recurring, and seemingly in- soluble, that's another indicator, according to Howard Levitt, se- nior partner at Levitt & Grosman in Toronto. And often manage- ment is the first to know. "Perhaps the best sign of a toxic culture is a unionization cam- paign that you're having trouble fighting," he said. is toxicity can lead to perfor- mance management issues and excessive absenteeism claims, particularly stress claims, said Levitt. Legal concerns: Wrongful dismissal has nothing on negligence e legal implications of a toxic workplace can be considerable. First of all, employees having dis- putes with their employer can sue for constructive dismissal, said Levitt. "e second thing is negligence claims, and there have been some massive decisions in Canada on negligence — far greater than wrongful dismissal, which is really a relatively poor cousin." And if an employer knows an employee is breaking down physi- cally, emotionally, psychiatrically — there may be complaints or symptoms — and has to leave the workforce, then the employer can be sued for constructive dismissal and negligence, he said. "e individual who did it — if there's a particular abuser, man- ager in the workplace who did it — can also be sued, and the dam- age can be up to payment until they've otherwise retired — de- cades, potentially." ere's also human rights li- ability and the social stigma to employers, said Levitt. "at's where employers face embarrassment if it ends up in a newspaper because no one wants that because that hurts the brand and that hurts recruitment," he said. "The other thing with the human rights commission is it goes on for years. Even with the new tribunal, it's a lengthy pro- cess compared to other particular proceedings." Finally, there's more amorphous harassment under occupational health and safety legislation, such as Ontario's Bill 168. While vio- lence is relatively rare, harassment is almost always in the eye of the beholder and an employer is liable if it knew about it and didn't stop it, said Levitt. "Employees can be liable indi- vidually; the penalties for a cor- poration can be one-quarter of a million dollars. For an individual, it can be jail for 12 months and only $25,000, which may not seem much compared to $250,000, but that can be ruinous for some individuals." A cure for unhealthy cultures So, what can be done? How can an employer cure that which ails it and build a healthy culture? Softchoice does everything it can to preserve its strong culture, said Fallon, and that includes at- tracting and recruiting the right kind of people who fit its values. e company also did a brand- ing initiative, talking to employ- ees, vendors and partners in the industry, to find out about its culture and then it communicat- ed back to employees about any changes it made. "It's really important that or- ganizations build the pride in the organization around how great your culture is and they celebrate the win, celebrate all those won- derful things that are going on," she said. "It's important to make sure you go back and you thank the employees for their efforts and you do what you say you're going to do, so that you continue to get that kind of feedback." Reinforcing values is also im- portant to building a strong culture though, too often, those are defined at 30,000 feet, said Carmen Klein, senior director of organizational development and culture at Cadillac Fairview in Toronto. "Your average worker or em- ployee doesn't know how to oper- ationalize those, so how does that translate into what I do differently when I walk into the workplace every day? So it's operationalizing those values so people understand what to do." Levitt cited one employer that posts its values everywhere — in emails, on coffee mugs, on walls, form letters and contracts — and everything is discussed in the con- text of those values. "ey make my life really easy… when I have a case because I start off with that letter of employment where they agreed to those values — in the context of a case of cause for discharge where the behav- iour's antithetical to those values — and they agree to it there and I get them to admit that they know the values," he said. "Everybody can recite them and if they say they can't, it's not cred- ible because everybody can, all the other witnesses can. And it makes the context of a cause much more egregious than it would be other- wise, and the people behave ac- cordingly because they really do live those values. And it's anoma- lous if they don't." As part of its drive for contin- ued organizational health, Sabic is incorporating the new National Standard of Canada for Psycho- logical Health and Safety in the Workplace. It also tries to engage and involve committees, whether it's health and safety or employee advocacy, said Wright. "There's true ownership and involvement on an ongoing basis to understand the issues and con- cerns of employees so that you can proactively deal with situations before it gets to a place where Credit: Liam Sharp DefiNe > pg. 9 another sign of a toxic culture is a person not showing up for work or being actively disengaged, who constantly brings everyone else down. SponSored by The legal implications of a toxic workplace are considerable, says Howard Levitt (centre) of Levitt & Grosman with (from left) Sharone Bar-David of Bar-David Consulting, Susan Wright of Sabic Innovative Plastics, Sandy Fallon of Softchoice and Carmen Klein of Cadillac Fairview.

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