by Teboho Seretlo
There have been a lot of articles, social media posts and research done on this topic of bullying and harassment in the workplace. It seems that this is a huge challenge festering and lurking out there and one is left wondering if, like issues of sexual harassment, discrimination etc, which some companies even go to the extent of having an HR Policy about, are the ones that occupy our minds more.
Why am I talking about this challenge? Firstly, I was triggered by an article I read recently about how a female employee was treated by a wine farm CEO because of pregnancy. The CEO of the farm expected this employee to work even when she was supposed to be on lawful maternity leave. He made outlandish comments about the fact that he felt let down by the employee because “I did not expect her to be pregnant as she did not have a boyfriend”. Needless to say, there is a lot wrong with this statement as it is loaded with assumptions that we know, in today’s society, are not necessarily correct. Why would it take a boyfriend to make one pregnant when women are now making different choices of how to start a family without a partner, by simply going to a sperm bank? However, I digress. Let me quickly get to my personal story of being bullied and harassed.
For more on the wine farm story, please click here. stellenbosch-wine-farm-ordered-to-pay-r800-000-to-employee-it-fired-when-she-gave-birth-to-baby-20221029
The story of this employee was a very painful reminder of my own personal experience when I was still employed. I am sharing this story because I want us to put a face behind “victims” or “survivors” of such behaviour at the hands of bosses who may have no training /awareness about how such behaviour can affect employees’ morale and productivity. Or bosses who are merely narcissist - a whole separate subject on its own - dealing with narcissists.
I am also sharing this story with the Lionesses, who are business owners in their own right, to be careful of such a culture and to rather seek assistance from qualified labour relations professionals about this, so that we don’t perpetuate the behaviour. I share my story also because a lot of people who know me personally would never have thought that I was “harassable”, if ever there is such a thing.
Anyway, here is my story. I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis through an annual executive medical check-up - which my then employer offered to senior employees as part of employee benefits. I was then referred to one of the best orthopaedic surgeons in the country, whom I only managed to get an appointment with some three months after first contacting him. This is a reflection of how good and popular this surgeon is. The surgeon did the necessary x-rays that once more confirmed the extent of my arthritis and that it required urgent attention. He booked me in for the following month for a hip replacement procedure, which then meant 6-8 weeks sick leave to recuperate. The surgeon also advised me that the second hip procedure would need to be done a year after the first one. I struggled to get my boss to agree to sign my sick-leave for the second procedure; he kept on telling me he was going to think about it. That was end of December, 2 months before I was due for the second operation. He eventually avoided this topic and by end of April the surgeon expressed huge concern about how this postponement was affecting the other hip and eventually would affect my whole-body frame. I then booked myself into hospital in May, without my boss’s signature on my leave form. On the morning following the procedure, while I was still in my pyjamas being attended to by the morning shift of nurses, my boss called about a work-related matter. Thereafter, I was expected to do work, prepare presentations, and respond to emails as if I was not on official post-op recovery. The worst was when he called me about something that had come to his email, which he never responded to, and shouted at me on the phone in front of junior staff including his Personal Assistant. I had never, in my over 20 years of working, been treated with such disdain and disrespect. This treatment was to continue until I found it very toxic and unbearable working for this boss and left the company three months thereafter, adding myself to the stats that supports the statement that “people usually do not leave a company, they leave bosses”. Maybe the universe was trying to nudge me out of a comfort-zone to rush to what I was destined to do, to rush to meet great people like you, Lionesses. But trust me, had I been younger or inexperienced, this harassment and bullying could have broken my spirit.
I hope we learn from these mistakes, that are not only costly to your business in terms of money, but also about reputational risk. Always remember your obligations as an employer. Let us do better as business-owners and women in positions of power. Let us raise our voices and say, “bullying and harassment - not in my name”. More importantly, let us not look the other way when we see this happen among our midst because this makes us complicit.
Teboho Seretlo is the managing director and founder of Seretlo Investments (Pty) Ltd, a business support services consultancy which assists micro, small and medium enterprises with business intelligence support, business plans and investor pitch decks, funding applications, business cost optimization and business improvement processes. She also ran a franchised premium dry-cleaning outlet of her own for 5 years. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Maths from University of Fort Hare, Management Development Programme (MDP) from GIBS and an International Executive Development Programme (IEDP) GIBS & Rotterdam School of Management. She has over 25 years working experience with corporates such as Nedbank, Momentum, The Coca-Cola Company, SABreweries and Unilever, where she gained experience in a variety of disciplines including B-BBEE &transformation, financial management & budgeting, project management, decision-support, business strategy & analysis as well as research. She is passionate about gender issues and does volunteer work for women empowerment organisations.
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