Workplace Boundaries for Safer, More Inclusive Environments
At the Centre for Sexuality, we often talk about the value of boundaries in personal and intimate relationships. But knowing and sticking to our own boundaries is important in all different areas of life, including in our job. This is why we have developed a new workshop offering boundary-setting tools to address harassment at work.
For over 50 years, the Centre for Sexuality has provided sexual health education and training to support healthy bodies, relationships and communities in Calgary and across the country. Along the way, the Centre has worked to advance broader issues of sexuality, equality, health and human rights.
Responding to Client Needs
Our Training Centre offers evidence-informed programming to help create cultures of respect and more inclusive workplaces and communities. Our new workshop, Where is the Line: Setting Boundaries in the Workplace, was created based on a request from a client and aims to empower individuals to foster safer environments at work.
Recently, we were approached by a client in need of a program to help its staff set respectful yet firm boundaries to better navigate troubling behaviours from patrons. The Centre created a workshop that addressed harassment in the workplace specific to the organization’s needs, effectively teaching attendees how to set and maintain healthy boundaries with clients and the public.
Programming That Works
When you’re in a position where you’re serving the public in a particular way, you may feel like your boundaries don’t matter because you have to show up as a professional. You might think, ‘I don’t feel super comfortable with this, but I have to be providing good customer service.’
While this specific workshop was new, what it meant to address is painfully familiar: workplace harassment shows up in various forms and can often be sexual in nature. Sometimes it is obvious, but more often, it’s difficult to recognize. It can be a comment with an underlying sexual tone, or a patron who visits often and asks questions that are too personal.
It’s important to address all forms of harassment — it’s part of our individual and collective responsibilities in creating safer spaces. It’s equally as important at work, but it can feel more difficult because of the duties that are part of your job.
“When you’re in a position where you’re serving the public in a particular way, you may feel like your boundaries don’t matter because you have to show up as a professional. You might think, ‘I don’t feel super comfortable with this, but I have to be providing good customer service,’” explains Nathan Flaig, Manager of the Training Centre.
Our training explores behaviours that can compromise the safety and well-being of staff and helps participants understand these actions in a broader context of harassment and harm. Participants leave the workshop with tangible tools that help establish and maintain personal boundaries while at work. And these tools prove effective: 90 per cent of participants say they feel more comfortable setting boundaries at work after attending the workshop.
Boundaries at Work = Happier Employees
Toxic workplaces are not where people thrive. If someone is in … an unsafe environment, they’re not going to be engaged in the work.
Everyone deserves a workplace that is safe and respectful. But more than just feeling comfortable, inclusive spaces also optimize work performance.
“Toxic workplaces are not places where people thrive,” says Flaig. “If someone is in a kind of predatory or unsafe environment, they’re not going to be engaged in the work.”
The Centre takes an approach to include the whole organization, providing HR and leadership with the tools and skills for safe and welcoming spaces. This establishes preventative solutions as opposed to responsive resources. No experience or internal issues are the same, so we tailor all our workshops to an organization’s specific needs.
“It’s really about how we create a great workplace culture that focuses on belonging, safety and respect. All of those things are super important to make people feel productive and also celebrated and safe at work. If there’s always a threat of some level of violence or harassment at work, people aren’t going to be working at their optimum level,” says Flaig.
Where to Start
Identifying harassment can be hard. Here are some behaviours to watch out for:
- Advances or comments of a sexual or intrusive nature
- Comments about a person’s body or appearance
- Pressure for a relationship that crosses professional boundaries
- Angry, threatening or coercive behaviour
- Touching, getting too close or invading personal space
We Can Help
If you’re experiencing some of these behaviours, you have the right to set boundaries and expect a safe, comfortable work environment for yourself and your colleagues. Learn the tools to address harassment at work and gain the confidence to set respectful yet effective boundaries.
Our workplace boundaries workshop is a new offering, so you may not see it on our website yet, but you can contact us to learn more about it and see if it could be a fit for your workplace. We also offer engaged bystander training for people who are looking to protect and make safer environments for others.