CBC is once again engulfed in headline making news; this time as a respondent in a lawsuit filed by Todd Spencer, a former CBC Human Resource Director previously tasked with conducting an internal investigation into the Ghomeshi allegations. The fallout continues, the costs are mounting, and CBC’s reputation is battered some more.
Would your business survive Jian Ghomeshi?
If this case hasn’t yet compelled you to inventory your organizational safeguards, now would be a great time to start. The road to recovery and redemption is long and tumultuous for an employer tarnished by a failure to protect its employees; and hindsight does nothing to reverse the damage suffered by victims of workplace harassment and sexual harassment. We need look no further than Ghomeshi’s mistreatment of CBC colleague, Kathryn Borel and CBC’s subsequent handling of the situation to understand the consequences of an employer’s failure to meet its duty of care to safeguard its employees and protect its reputation.
An employer’s duty of care is immense. To meet health and safety obligations, attentive employers maintain due diligence across the healthy workplace continuum of care – awareness, prevention, maintenance and response (APMR). Actively engaging employees across all organizational levels in practicing APMR won’t entirely remove your exposure or vulnerability to the abhorrent actions of a lone employee, it will however, reduce the likelihood and will help sustain a healthy, safe and respectful workplace.
