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Do you know the real cost of breaches to the EEO laws in your workplace?
If you did would it make a difference to how your organisation approached training in this area?
Recent research has shown that a shocking 53% of people questioned in a study reported being victims of workplace bullying or harassment at one point in their careers, with as many as 77% of respondents either witnessing workplace bullying or being aware of its existence in their place of employment. It doesn’t take long to see that the implications for your workforce don’t stop with the victim.
If you’re lucky, or well-trained, you can resolve it internally. That’s the best option. However, if that doesn’t happen you could be facing legal action for breaching equal opportunity laws, unfair dismissal, criminal injuries compensation and possibly even defamation. Even if you win, you are unlikely to recover any legal fees.
Of course, you also have to consider the ‘hidden’ costs which occur. Replacing staff, staff absenteeism, payment for health-related problems due to the behaviour, lower staff morale and therefore lower staff work performance are some of the flow on costs from the illegal behaviour.
Whichever way you look at it, it all adds up and your organisation is the one who will have to pay.
Consider this scenario:
Account rendered to Your Company for breaching EEO laws
ITEMS
| 1. |
Internal Investigative Process |
$3,100 |
| 2. |
Internal Settlement of Complaint |
$13,600 |
| 3. |
Related Health and Medical Expenses |
$35,800 - 119,500 per employee |
| 4. |
Legal Costs (to take it to trial) |
$15,600 |
| 5. |
Trial Costs (average hearing 4 days) |
$31,000 - 71,000 |
| 6. |
Staff Replacement (1 in 4 victims will leave) |
$52,500 - 150,000 |
| 7. |
Absenteeism |
$15,400 |
| 8. |
Low Staff Morale & Decreased Staff Performance |
$29,000+ |
|
|
|
| TOTAL PAYMENT DUE |
$196,000-417,200+ |
How much is a safe, fair workplace worth?
It makes no business sense for employers to allow unfair and illegal behaviour to occur in the workplace (whether knowingly or not), especially when there is a real solution to the problem.
The Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (WA) provides a platform from which employers can establish their organisation’s policies and practices in this area. But what is the best way to communicate these principles to your people in a way that is meaningful to them?
You want your employees to know what the law is and you want positive action from your employees, so that they follow the law, helping you to prevent a complaint from even occurring.
Research on adult learning principles have found that people learn best in an environment where the information is presented in a simple, engaging manner that causes an emotional response, which leads to an attitudinal change in which a person is then motivated to act a certain way.
It makes sense when you think about it. After you have attended a talk on anything, what do you remember about it the following day, or next week or 3 months later? Usually it is a story that someone told to highlight a point and that story impacted you (emotionally). If the speaker did a really god job then this emotional response resulted in you changing the way you had previously seen something (attitudinal change) and then perhaps in the future if that situation arose for you it might result in you acting differently.
This means on line learning does not work to change a person’s behaviour. What they do is merely provide a superficial compliance with the legislation.
If you want to see real change in your workforce then provide them with the legal information in an easy to understand format and link it to practical training that makes the learning personal and real to the people attending.
 Click here to make an appointment for a consultant to discuss your current workplace environment in relation to EEO issues.
http://www.workplacebullying.co.uk/employerind.html, 1997 BBC survey by Charlotte Rayner PhD of Staffordshire University Business School and Prof. Cary Cooper of the Manchester School of Management (UMIST)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43944-2004May20.html gives the figure at $2600 (US) per complaint, according to an EEOC survey. XE.com provides conversion to AUD.
In the formal complaint stage, found to be an average of USD $11,358, according to http://www.eeoc.gov/federal/adr/adr_report_2006/index.html, converted to AUD by XE.com.
Leymann, H. (1990), “Mobbing and psychological terror at workplaces”, Violence and Victims, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 119-26.
Legal costs totalled to £7,090 in an actual case, reported in books.google.co.uk/books?id=7..., converted to AUD by XE.com.
Resulting costs found to be the total value of court costs for an actual case (£28,109) minus legal costs to take it to trial (£7,090) and absenteeism (£6,972), found books.google.co.uk/books?id=7... and converted to AUD by XE.com. Upper value found by adding maximum $40,000 damages to this figure, maximum damages set out by the Western Australian Equal Opportunity Act 1984.
http://www.australiatop.com/Jobs/salaries.asp for average pay rate in Australia for managers and in all sectors. Figure of 150% rise for standard workers and up to 250% for managerial staff found at http://www.isquare.com/turnover.cfm.
Costs of absenteeism in an actual UK case as £6,972, reported in books.google.co.uk/books?id=7..., converted to AUD by XE.com.
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x50179.xml cites a figure of 5.8% total revenue lost to lowered morale, taken for a company that has a half-million dollar yearly revenue upwards
C.Heath & D. Heath, Made to Stick. © 2007 Random House
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