Harassment in the Workplace
In Ireland, workplace harassment is unwanted conduct violating dignity, creating a hostile environment, often linked to protected grounds (gender, race, disability, etc.), including verbal abuse, social exclusion, or unwanted touching.
Types of Harassment
Verbal: Insults, offensive jokes, derogatory remarks, malicious rumours, cyberbullying.
Physical: Unwanted touching, blocking movement, assault.
Psychological/Social: Social exclusion, isolation, excessive monitoring, undermining, impossible tasks, spreading gossip.
Employment Equality Acts: Prohibit discrimination and harassment based on gender, age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc..
Duty of Care: Employers must ensure a safe workplace, free from harassment.
What to Do if You’re Harassed
- Document Everything: Keep records of incidents (dates, times, what happened, witnesses).
- Check Company Policy: Follow your workplace’s grievance or dignity at work procedure.
- Report: Inform your manager, HR, or a union representative.
In conclusion:
By law, harassment at work is any unwanted behaviour or actions that:
- Violate your dignity – that is, the purpose or effect of the behaviour is to make you feel degraded, and
- Are intimidating, hostile, humiliating or offensive to you.
Harassment under Irish equality law, is unwanted behaviour related to one or more of the ‘protected grounds’ listed below.
The unwanted actions may either deliberately aim to violate your dignity or unintentionally have that effect.
Many kinds of behaviour could be defined as harassment, such as spoken words, gestures, and displaying or sharing words, pictures or other material.
Harassment could be one single incident or a pattern of behaviour.
It does not have to be directed at one specific person for that person to feel they have experienced harassment.