Francisco Trujillo, professor of the Master's Degree in Occupational Risk Prevention, Excellence, Environment and CSR at Bureau Veritas University Centre, summarises some of the conclusions of his new book 'Spain against workplace harassment. A comparative study with Canada'.
Currently, workplace harassment, also known by the English term “mobbing” or psychological harassment, is considered one of the phenomena that causes the greatest concern in the world of work. The presence student data of this psychosocial risk in companies is beyond any doubt. Without going any further, according to recent statistics, in Spain, workplace harassment affects 15% of workers. At an international level, according to the International Labour Organisation, it is a recurring phenomenon, concluding that 80% of the working population has suffered some form of harassment during their working life.
These worrying statistics, which are causing social alarm, refer to workplace harassment from a psychological perspective, given that from a legal perspective the figures are much lower: less than 5% of workers report this situation for fear of reprisals and, more specifically, of losing their job and not finding another.
In my recent book, 'Spain and workplace harassment. A comparative study with Canada', I highlight something that is already unanimously established by scientific, political and social doctrine: workplace harassment situations are considered to be risky and, as such, just like other risks present in the workplace, it is possible to apply preventive policies and mechanisms in accordance with the different regulations on the prevention of occupational risks.
It is certainly unacceptable that a person's mental health is undermined in the workplace. However, on many occasions, the boundary that separates workplace harassment or mobbing from other situations that may occur in the workplace, such as a bad relationship (syndromes such as burnout or work-related stress) can be distorted, given that the way in which all of this affects a person's health is not a uniform issue. When workers suffering from anxiety or depression go to health centres, health professionals have a (difficult) decision in their hands that they must make with the little information they have about the sick leave and its common or work-related origin.
In another order, as I point out in the book, there are more and more theses that are close to understanding that if, in fact, damage has been caused to people's health, it is due to a failure or non-compliance with the preventive obligations of companies. Not in vain are the latter the ones that must influence and deal with the psychosocial aspects that can affect their workforces. All this only serves to demonstrate the high complexity that surrounds psychosocial risk.
As a brief summary and entering into the comparative study between Spain and Canada, we can conclude that in companies in both countries that already classify workplace harassment from this risk perspective, the implementation of mechanisms that foresee and try to avoid these situations is gradually spreading. Without a doubt, this is good news. Some of these mechanisms are the development of policies and programs of good practices, the awareness and training of workers or the weight of collective agreements when dealing with issues of prevention of workplace harassment in their different precepts. Truly, these agreements are essential to achieve the objective of stopping and eliminating possible situations of harassment, by regulating issues such as consultation procedures related to the identification process, the analysis and evaluation of risks in companies, and the planning of preventive activity, including, where appropriate, their periodic review and updating.