Workplace Bullying & Harrassment Seminar: What you need to know & what you can do

Things on the people side of the business, already complex and often tricky to manage, will soon have another level of legal complexity added to the mix. 

There's great potential for things to get a whole lot messier - even ugly - with real financial, productivity, interpersonal and emotional consequences.

Read on to find out what you need to know and what you can do.


A recent article highlights the fact that "from January 2014, employers [in Australia] will be subject to a new anti-bullying jurisdiction with employees alleging workplace bullying able to bring a claim to the Fair Work Commission."

Though the laws are Australia-specific, the issue that the article highlights is increasingly common in workplaces everywhere:

...the psychological contract between business and employee has noticeably shifted...there is an increasing mismatch between the expectations of employees and employers and the gap is widening.

In my work consulting and coaching in organizations I hear both sides of the story.

Managers complain of staff who think that being asked to take responsibility and held accountable for delivering on the requirements of their job constitutes "bullying".

On the other side, I routinely hear of people managers who either can't or won't manage people effectively - whether due to a lack of training and experience or, in the extreme, individuals who can best be described as corporate psychopaths.

What you can do

More than ever this points to the need for effective communication, conversations in which expectations are set and routinely reviewed (rather than the once-or-twice-a-year adversarial session that passes for a "performance review"). 

I call these Conversations for Real Life. In my experience when people are equipped to have these conversations successfully, it can make the difference between an organization that is high performance and one that is mired in unresolved conflict, low productivity, poor engagement and, increasingly, expensive and time-consuming legal dramas.

Specialized in the people side of the business, tmc offers clients a wide variety of ways to get people working better together. Get in touch to explore how to apply tmc's more than 15 years of experience working with organizations and discover how to bring out the best in your people, learn ways for them to engage more effectively with others, create more productive cultures and deliver better results, faster and with longer-lasting impact.

What you need to know

My associates at Cox Purtell are hosting an breakfast seminar in Sydney on Thursday 14 November, featuring a speaker from Harmers Workplace Lawyers. 

To join, please be sure to RSVP directly to John Le at Cox Purtell. 

For full details see below - and I look forward to seeing you on Thursday morning!