The Department of Employment and Labour’s Deputy Director: Employment Equity Policy and Compliance, Niresh Singh, told the roadshow that the Code of Good Practice on the prevention and elimination of harassment in the workplace is the responsibility of employers and employees.

He said although it is the duty of the employer to protect employees against harassment, "it is equally the responsibility of employees and their union representatives to be active participants in the formulation of policies. Stop waiting for incidents to happen in order to participate".

Singh was addressing the Employment Equity roadshow in collaboration with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration(CCMA) today, 30 August, at Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal Province.

He told the roadshow that harassment can be physical, verbal, or psychological. "Physical harassment includes physical attacks, simulated or threatened violence, or gestures such as raising a fist as if to strike a person or throwing objects near a person.

Verbal on the other hand may include threats, shaming, hostile teasing, insults, constant negative judgment, and criticism, or racist, sexist, LGBTQIA+, or phobic language.

In addition, Psychological harassment in the workplace may be associated with emotional abuse and involves behaviour that has serious negative psychological consequences for the complainant(s) such as is often the case with verbal abuse, bullying, and mobbing", he said.

Concurrently, Robert Dzhombere, the senior practitioner: employment equity registry, presented to the roadshow statistics of misnomer where the highest economically active population is least represented in the middle- to upper occupational levels.

In his conclusion, Dzhombere told the roadshow that the Department will be opening the EE reporting system in less than two days’ time, 01 September 2022 for all designated employers, with those submitting manually closing on 01 October 2022 and those submitting online closing on 15 January 2023. "Please submit on time", he requested.

The new Code of Good Practice on the prevention and elimination of harassment in the workplace was published on 18 March 2022 by the Department of Employment and Labour. It expands on the previous Code which focused on sexual harassment as the only form of harassment.

The roadshows/workshops, held under the theme: "Real transformation makes business sense", are continuing as follows:　　　　

　KwaZulu-Natal