Most organizations have anti-harassment training in place, yet harassment, bullying, and discrimination persist, often escalating into formal complaints, investigations, and permanently damaged working relationships. This informative session offers HR professionals a comprehensive look at both sides of the challenge: preventing toxic behaviour before it takes root, and responding effectively when complaints surface.
In the first portion, workplace investigator Dean Benard takes anti-harassment a step beyond educating staff on what harassment is and that it is unacceptable. Drawing on more than two decades of conducting workplace investigations and restorations, Dean will show HR practitioners how to shift organizational culture toward one that simply does not accept harassment, bullying, and discrimination. Participants will examine the true costs of these workplace poisons, including financial, operational, reputational, and human impacts, and gain practical tools to address issues before they escalate into difficult and often permanent disputes.
Complementing this, Tushar Anandasagar will tackle the legal, ethical, and policy-based challenges HR professionals confront when a complaint lands on their desk. From the moment when good intentions meet hard obligations. He will explore the employer's duty to investigate, procedural fairness for complainants and respondents alike, the limits of confidentiality, managing anonymous or bad-faith complaints, navigating competing obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Human Rights Code, and the ethical dilemmas that arise when legal risk, organizational pressure, and doing right by employees pull in different directions. Participants will come away with a clearer framework for handling complaints defensibly and fairly from intake through resolution.
This session equips participants with real-world scenarios, practical frameworks, and toolkits they can bring back to their workplaces.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will be able to articulate the larger organizational cost of harassment, bullying, and discrimination, including financial, legal, productivity, and human impacts, and apply practical tools to recognize and address emerging issues before they escalate into formal complaints or irreparable disputes.
Participants will understand the legal, ethical, and policy-based obligations that govern the management of harassment complaints, including procedural fairness, confidentiality, and employer duties under applicable legislation, strengthening their ability to respond in a defensible and principled manner.
Participants will develop strategies to move their organizations beyond compliance-based training toward a culture of respect, integrating proactive prevention with sound complaint-handling practices to function more effectively as strategic business partners.
AGENDA
8:30am-9:00am Registration and networking. (Continental breakfast and light refreshments.)
9:00am-10:15am Anti-Harassment Presentation (Dean Benard)
10:15am-10:25am Short break
10:25am -11:40am Legal Aspects of Managing Harassment Complaints (Tushar Anandasagar)
11:40am-11:45am Final Words
Registration Difficulties or Questions: Please reach out to our Specialist Member Engagement Bobbi-Lyn at BLSmith@hrpa.ca