PODCAST | ‘Speak up’ culture serves notice on employers

In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews a panel of employment law experts from Baker McKenzie in five different jurisdictions around the world. 

The panel of Mirjam de Blécourt (partner and head of employment, Amsterdam), Monica Kurnatowska (senior employment partner, London), Johan Botes (partner and head of employment, Johannesburg), Fermin Guardiola (partner and regional head of employment, Madrid) and Joanna Matthews-Taylor (partner and head of employment, Dubai) discuss how organisations face growing pressure to address complaints about inappropriate behaviour in the workplace.

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The Context

There has been an increase in employee activism globally, with workers expecting to be heard on issues such as social inequality, discrimination and environmental impact. The younger generations particularly (though not exclusively) is less likely to stay silent on issues that they feel strongly about. There is an ever-increasing expectation that employers will be transparent, accountable and behave ethically and responsibly, with these characteristics being as important for many workers as individual pay and progression.

Fostering a “speak up” culture is growing in importance not only from the perspective of treating staff fairly and the demand for it from workers, but also because it is critical to identifying and addressing business risk issues.

For example, in 2018, a study in the Netherlands demonstrated that the #MeToo movement had caused an increase in reports and legal proceedings. This increase has continued, as demonstrated by a rise in the number of successful termination proceedings relating to inappropriate behaviour in the workplace since January 1 2019. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), several discrimination cases have been raised in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) over the past year. Further, the first race discrimination claim is currently ongoing in the DIFC. In the UK, as a result of the #MeToo movement, employers have found themselves having to investigate historic complaints, particularly those involving sexual harassment. In addition, there has been an increase in employees raising concerns relating to bullying and harassment in the workplace. SA is seeing a similar rise in litigation, serving notice on employers to improve their application of the law.

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