1 in 5 City of Edmonton employees say they’ve been harassed on the job

One in five City of Edmonton employees say they have been the subject of harassment. That’s the finding of an audit looking into the corporate culture with the City which was released on Thursday.

The goal of city auditor David Wiun is to change the trend and make it so that all employees feel they are treated with respect and dignity.

“We don’t want to see where one-fifth of employees believe that they have experienced harassment, yet many of them haven’t come forward,” Wiun said.

“Hopefully, through the recommendations… there will be better training for management, there’ll be a better reporting process that employees believe is fair and neutral and they can use and have confidence that at the end of the investigation that takes place… the right result will happen.”

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The audit calls for more consistent messaging from management on how to deal with workplace issues.

“I was surprised. That’s a lot,” Councillor Bev Esslinger said of the findings. “We’re a very large organization, we’re going to take this seriously.”

Esslinger said she’ll be asking questions about the figures during Monday’s audit committee meeting. The report does not differentiate between claims by gender, or which departments the complaints have come from.

“I don’t know how we rank compared to other organizations,” Essliner said, “if we’re good or bad. For me, it’s too many and we need to do something.”

Esslinger said she’s heard of problems, but only anecdotally. She said she’s happy to have the data.

“I’m hoping the conversation at audit committee with our administration understands the actions that they are planning so that we can make sure we have a concrete plan moving forward.”

The one-in-five figure might even be low, according to Wiun.

“In all likelihood, because of the discussion taking place now, there’s probably going to be a spike in the amount of people that come forward,” he said. “There’s probably going to be more confidence now that some of these issues will be addressed.”

Wiun is recommending that employees, as well as union reps, be consulted during the process to improve the complaint system within the City.