Effective from August 2017

Approved by: Chief Executive Officer

At a Glance

Five Good Friends is committed to preventing workplace bullying. We consider bullying to be an unacceptable form of behaviour and it will not tolerate it under any circumstances.

Under State health and safety legislation, including the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld), Five Good Friends has a responsibility to do everything possible to eliminate or reduce risks to worker health and safety. All staff have a right to a workplace that is free from bullying.

Workers must also accept responsibility for their actions towards others in the workplace and must not take part in any bullying conduct.

Scope

This policy applies to all employees, volunteers, independent contractors and subcontractors (collectively, workers).

Objective

To provide a clear position and direction on the issue of workplace bullying.

Definition and Examples

• Workplace bullying - repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker, or group of workers, which creates a risk to a worker’s mental or physical health and safety. Unreasonable behaviour is that which a reasonable person, having regard to all the circumstances (i.e. those that the alleged bully would reasonably be expected to know), would expect to victimise, humiliate, undermine or threaten its recipient.

  Behaviour includes actions of individuals or a group and may involve using a system of work as a means of victimising, humiliating, undermining or threatening another person. The source of bullying could be workers within the Five Good Friends, its clients or suppliers.

• The following types of behaviour, when repeated or occurring as part of a pattern of behaviour, can constitute bullying:

  • verbal abuse
  • excluding or isolating workers
  • psychological harassment
  • intimidation
  • assigning meaningless tasks unrelated to a worker’s position
  • giving impossible assignments
  • initiation practices
  • sabotaging another worker’s work
  • deliberately withholding information that is vital for effective work, and
  • ridiculing a worker’s opinions.

• Legitimate and appropriate actions to manage work performance or discipline a staff member for misconduct do not constitute workplace bullying.

• Generally, this policy is concerned with behaviour that is persistent and part of an identifiable pattern. The specific form of the behaviour need not be the same – bullying can involve diverse incidents, e.g. - verbal abuse, isolation and deliberate damage to personal property.

• While a single incident of the behaviour described does not fall within the above definition, Five Good Friends does not condone and will not ignore such incidents. Any concern should be reported and will be considered seriously.

Policy Statement