Bill 168 introduced changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act creating statutory obligations for employers to protect employees from violence and harassment in the workplace. In addition recent Court decisions have awarded damages to employees for psychological harassment.
In this changing legal landscape businesses need to have clear policies to address violence and harassment in the workplace and a mechanism for following through when complaints come forward. Equally important is a consistent and effective manner in which to investigate these issues.
Investigations into allegations of workplace harassment, discrimination or employee misconduct need to be done in a fair and impartial manner. A basic requirement is that employees be provided with particulars of the allegations of wrongdoing and then provided a reasonable opportunity to respond. Failure to do so can substantially increase the costs of dismissal.
Melanie has been hired in a variety of circumstances as a neutral third party investigator to meet with individuals where there have been complaints of violence, harassment or allegations of employee misconduct. Melanie is familiar with and applies best practices in workplace investigations to ensure a fair process which will result in findings that employers can rely upon with confidence when making what are often very difficult personnel decisions.