Workplace harassment and violence impacts over 70% of employees in Canada, study shows

A study looking at harassment and violence in Canadian workplaces has found that 71.4 per cent of workers have experienced at least one form of harassment and abuse in their workplace last year. 

Researchers from Western University, the University of Toronto and the Canadian Labour Congress examined all types of workplaces across Canada through surveys and interviews. These include corporations, service sectors, hospitality, private sectors, and blue-collar jobs. Forms of harassment included verbal, sexual, and online abuse, along with intimidating practices to sabotage work performance.  

Over 4,800 participants were surveyed from October 2020 to April 2021, and 34 people were interviewed. The majority of respondents were between 30 and 59 years old.

Those more likely to experience toxic work environments and sexual harassment are women, Indigenous peoples, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people of colour, according to the study. The majority of harassment experienced included sexual conversations (61 per cent), personal space or touching (60 per cent), sexual teasing or jokes (56 per cent), and unwanted looks of gestures (42 per cent).

Barb MacQuarrie, Community Director at the Centre for Research and Education on Violence against Women and Children at Western, said fields such as healthcare, education, social services, and public administration represented the majority of the survey sample size.

"Essentially, what you're seeing are people who have secure jobs, union representation, and mostly, well-paying jobs which offer better protections against workplace harassment," she said.

"So we can only imagine what's happening to people who don't have that security or a union protecting them."

Other factors considered were the impacts of harassment on the overall mental health and wellbeing of employees and their organizations, the role of COVID-19 and online abuse, along with barriers to reporting and potential repercussions. 

One of the study's researchers, Adriana Berlingieri, said the consequences of toxic workplaces can be extremely severe and destroy not only careers, but also the lives of workers. 

"We tend to often only think about work, but their [workers'] relationships, children, health and so many parts of their lives are negatively affected by this," she said. 

MacQuarrie believes that workplace structures often give permission for harassment to occur. Managers don't necessarily need to be harassers but them turning a blind eye or playing favourites can open up opportunities. 

"It's the dynamic of having power over someone and exploiting that power. Things like racism and sexism play into this. It's anytime someone says 'you're less than me because you're different.'"

She added that that hostile work environments can also have an impact on employers and overall company efficiency. 

"If you have to replace a new worker for someone who isn't working at their full capacity because they're being harassed, that also represents a cost to the workplace."