Offensive acts, bullying & sexual harassment
Your employer is obligated to ensure that abusive behavior does not occur in your workplace.
The employer must therefore plan the work and implement effective measures that ensure that you as an employee can attend work without being negatively affected - neither
physically nor mentally.
You can read more about physical and mental work environment in the box with the same title on this page.
In workplaces where offensive acts have occured, the management and the employees / work environment organization must discuss concrete measures to deal with the violations and prevent any occurences, new or repeating.
What is an offensive act?
Offensive acts are a collective term for bullying, sexual harassment and other ways in which violations can occur at work.
Offensive acts can be when one or more persons at the workplace grossly or repeatedly expose one or more people to bullying, sexual harassment or other degrading conduct at work. It can be both active actions as well as passive behaviour.
Offensive acts in relation to the work can be, for example:
- Hurtful remarks
- To be shouted at or ridiculed
- Physical abuse or threats of abuse
- Slander or exclusion from the social and professional community
- Hostility or silence in response to questions or attempts at conversation
- Impairment of employees' jobs, their work effort or their competence
- Offensive written messages, text messages, pictures and videos - also on social media
- Unpleasant teasing.
Who decides how serious it is?
It is a completely individual assessment whether you have been the victim of an offensive act or not.
If you experience violation in one way or another, do not doubt yourself but report it. In relation to offensive acts, it is each person's own experience of the abusive acts that is key.
Documentation is always critical though, so talk to Pharmadanmark’s Legal Department about what documentation you need.
Whether the offensive acts are a risk to your safety or health depends on both the extent as well as the duration of the offensive acts. These may be isolated infringements of a particularly serious nature and/or infringements of a certain duration and frequency.
Bullying
Bullying occurs when one or more people in a workplace regularly and over a long period of time - or repeatedly in a gross manner - expose one or more other people in the workplace to offensive acts. The actions must be perceived as degrading by the victim or victims.
However, the offensive acts only become bullying when the persons against whom they are directed are unable to defend themselves effectively against them.
In addition, bullying differs from other ways of violations as far as it is always the same person or persons who are systematically exposed to the offensive acts. Often it is also the same person or persons who are committing the abusive acts.
Offensive acts of sexual harassment
The Equal Treatment Act defines sexual harassment as:
"Sexual harassment exists when any unwanted verbal, non-verbal, or physical behavior is exhibited with sexual undertones for the purpose or effect of violating a person's dignity, particularly by creating a threatening, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or unpleasant climate."
Offensive acts of a sexual nature are all forms of unwanted sexual attention and may, for example, be:
- Unwanted touches
- Unwanted verbal urges for sexual interaction
- Lewd jokes and comments
- Irrelevant inquiries about sexual topics
- View pornographic material.
Consequences of offensive acts
Offensive acts can lead to physical reactions such as headaches and pain, and mental reactions such as nervousness, difficulty concentrating and more. Offensive acts can - if they are of a serious nature and / or of a certain duration - lead to serious illnesses such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
What can you do yourself?
If you have the courage and ability in the situation to say no, it will by far be the best if you clearly mark that the offensive behavior is crossing your limit and cannot be tolerated.
However, you may find yourself not being able to say anything in the situation - perhaps because you are in a state of shock.
Either way, we would recommend that you talk to a trusted colleague and involve your immediate manager in what has happened. You can also talk to a union representative or your health and safety representative at your workplace about the violations.
We recommend that you save emails and other documentation that documents the offensive acts. In addition, it is a good idea to describe the events in writing in as much detail as possible.
We recommend also that you contact Pharmadanmark´s Legal Department if you need support and legal sparring in connection with offensive acts. We can help you by listening and together with you assess how to best deal with the offensive acts from here.