Law Reform on Harassment: A Step Towards our Well-Being

Starting from January 1st, 2019, all businesses in Quebec will need to have a psychological and sexual harassment prevention policy in order to comply with the new legal provisions of the Labor Standards Act. They will also need to implement a complaint handling system.

Poison for businesses

The National Assembly’s will in stopping psychological and sexual harassment in the workplace is clear and necessary. Workplace harassment has very negative consequences. Victims not only have lower levels of satisfaction, involvement and job performance than their peers (Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Chan and al., 2008), they are also more prone to absenteeism and present with more symptoms of anxiety and depression. Post-traumatic (Nielsen, Tangen and al., 2015) and psychological distress (Khubchandani & Price, 2015) symptoms are also often present. Even physical health problems are more common among harassment victims (Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Khubchandani & Price, 2015; McGinley and al., 2016).

Impacts on witnesses may, in some cases, be just as severe as on victims (Glomb and al., 1997; Lim, Cortina, & Magley, 2008). The workplace atmosphere is then greatly affected and this poison can spread to reach all staff members.

Workplace harassment not only poisons the lives of those directly involved, but also the business in which the situation occurs. Employers have a lot to gain by preventing those situations from happening to the best of their ability and by facilitating the denunciation process that will help quickly put an end to such situations.

Denouncing is good, but supporting victims is even better!

Optania, with its expertise in psychology, sexology and web development, has designed a digital platform that allows companies to easily comply with these new legal requirements: Epsylio.

This unique and innovative virtual assistant allows staff members to be better informed about psychological and sexual harassment while providing them with a simple platform to report incidents. Above all, it provides completely anonymous psychological support to those in need, tied in to their specific situation.

We know how hard it can be for harassment victims and witnesses to go through the denunciation process. We are also aware of the challenges these processes can impose on businesses. And the consequences can be even worse if staff members do not receive the support they need to get through these situations. Preventing and stopping violence of all shapes is a shared responsibility, but so is taking care of victims.

The Optania team