Today is Day One of New Anti-Bullying in the Workplace Legislation in Australia

Sydney, NSW, 5^th December, 2013 -  News of (ABC News Mon 2 Dec 2013, 6:10pm AEDT) an inquest has heard a 17-year-old killed himself after months of being bullied while working as an apprentice in central western New South Wales.

Advocate-Assisting Steven Kelly said the teenager was subjected to constant bullying at Downer EDI in Bathurst by his colleagues including his supervisor.

The rail transport industry is famous for it’s tradition of good humored ragging of it’s apprentices and the internal investigation found the Downer EDI company had breached a number of its policies including one revolving around the prevention of bullying - a zero harm policy. 

It found Meikle had been subjected to put downs and sarcasm, required to do work well beyond his skill level and that a chart of his mistakes with a threat of consequences, that was created for him was “completely inappropriate, offensive and derogatory".

Today is January 1 and the launch of new legislation, under the “Fair Work Act” has begun.   

Safe Work Australia simultaneously has determined to release its draft Code of Practice on Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying in the form of a Guide (Bullying Guide).

We believe that this opens the door to resolving the significant pain and distress so many of our workers in our industries have to bear.  Corporate Health will now have another meaning – safe, bully free workplaces.

Our coaching and training business deals regularly with the effects of bullying: Stress, overwhelm, loss of productivity and toxic morale.   

Most business owners and managers don’t want to talk about these things openly – they accept it as part of the “Company culture”. 

Workplace Bullying is the elephant in the room. Business Owners and GMs are willing to fund virtually anything to deal with the negative side effects, rather than face that they are supporting a culture of disrespect and mistrust.

We are delighted to see that the root cause of these oftentimes toxic workplaces is being addressed, talked about and legislated against. 

The antithesis of bullying is respect and trust.

When people meet to work in teams in an atmosphere of respect and trust, to achieve inspiring goals......then productivity soars.

This is the flat structure of the lean entrepreneurial business model.  Bullying has no place in these structures – they destroy respect and trust & undermine productivity.

Thanks for visiting us here. What would your life be like with some clarity?  Call me on (+61) 439 979 577 or  email me, Mike Kennedy... to find out if this would work well for you.