The School of Social Sciences in the College of Human Sciences under the directorship of Professor Linda Cornwell, held a seminar on the 2 of August 2017 entitled Happiness in the workplace. Professor Conwell outlined in her open address that the seminar serves as a platform to explore two critical challenges in the modern workplace which are bullying and harassment. She quoted the Executive Dean of the College of Human Sciences Professor Andrew Phillips when he said that “bullying and harassment have no place in the College, no employee in this college is allowed to be a victim of bullying or harassment”

In the first session of the seminar, there were various presentations focused on exposing the challenges interfering with the overall employee happiness in the workplace. It was enlightening for the audience to know that challenges such as bullying and harassment were part of the findings of the institutional health audit which was presented by Cecilee Phatudi, Director of Organisational Development and Human Resource Information Systems at Unisa.

This session included the dynamics of workplace bullying and harassment from an employment equity perspective, this is how to identify it when it happens and knowing the best way to handle it. Dr Cristo Celliers a lecture in the Department of Communication Science said he is of the view that it happens uniquely different to a diverse group of people, and as such, each case will require specific ways of resolving it. He advised that it is important to understand the different types of bullying and harassment in order to address them effective and appropriately.

Professor Petro van der Merwe from the Department of Psychology delivered an insightful presentation on cyber-bullying which she explained as a type of bullying using electronic means. She recommended three simple rules for people subjected to cyber-bullying – they must stop and not respond to any message, save it, and then share it with relevant HR office or manager. She added that employees facing cyber-bullying should be careful not to ignore the problem but just the message.

 Diversity in the workplace was the focus of the second session of the seminar. Karen Redelinghuys from Unisa Employment Equity office suggested that in order for one to attain happiness in the workplace, one should overcome personal issues and know their default mode because she believes that with bullying there are a lot of personal issues attached.

Leon Roets from the Department of Sociology spoke of using diversity as our strength and a weakness. His presentation demonstrated what he called a diversity iceberg. He said no matter where you place yourself on it, you will realise that everyone is on a position of privilege and how we use that is absolutely up to us. He advised that it can help everyone if we can all focus on the university’s vision, create spaces for dialogue so that we can understand each other better and to push for talent management to be more inclusive and not focus on selected specific employees because he believes that everyone possess some sort of talent.

Pictured are Karen Redelinghuys (HR: Employment Equity), Dr Christo Celliers (Department of Communication Sciences), Prof. Linda Cornwell (Director: School of Social Sciences), Prof. Petro van der Merwe (Department of Psychology), Dr Mimi Sesoko (Department of Social Work) and Prof. Deidre Byrne (Head: Institute for Gender Studies).

*By Katlego Pilane (CHS communication and marketing)

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