Personality conflicts, disagreements with management not harassment: arbitrator

Abrasive interactions with management who were reasonably performing their duties supervising a BC hotel worker were not harassment, an arbitrator has ruled.

The worker was a room attendant in the housekeeping department of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver.

Housekeeping supervisors assigned rooms for attendants to clean and checked them after cleaning for quality control. Assignments were done on an application called “HotSOS” that room attendants could access at the beginning of their shift. Attendants had to check the application before cleaning any given room, which they marked clean on the application after finishing.

The Hyatt had a policy against bullying and harassment that advised employees that if they felt that they were being bullied or harassed, they should tell the harasser to stop and report it to human resources, their manager, or the hotel’s ethics point hotline.

On Dec. 27, 2022, the worker was assigned to clean rooms on two different floors. However, during her shift, one of the rooms was removed from the HotSOS app. The worker called the housekeeping department and told that the guest had indicated that the room didn’t need to be cleaned. She called the front desk, which told her that the room should be cleaned.

Superficial efforts in an investigation will not be considered sufficient to pass legal muster, according to an employment lawyer.

Supervisor ‘brusque and dismissive’

The worker cleaned the room and called the housekeeping department to add the room to HotSOS so she could mark it as cleaned. She spoke with her supervisor, who asked her why she had cleaned the room because it had been designated as no service. The worker asked to add the room back to the app, but the supervisor declined.

The worker felt that the supervisor was “brusque and dismissive” in the call. She also claimed that the supervisor hung up on her, but the supervisor said that she ended the call when the conversation was done. She said she didn’t remember raising her voice more than usual, but she may have been “a little loud.”

The worker was upset after the call and had difficulty sleeping that night. The next day, she discussed the incident with the assistant housekeeping manager and said that she needed an apology from the supervisor.

The three of them met that afternoon and the supervisor said that she didn’t remember anything about the phone conversation, which further upset the worker. The assistant manager suggested that he could talk to the employee with whom the worker spoke on the first call, but the worker felt that it was an attempt to blame that employee. She said she would talk to human resources or the general manager and the assistant manager told her to leave the office. The worker then apologized to him.

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‘Garbage’ comment upsetting

According to the worker, the assistant housekeeping manager commented that she “played with words” and “you are garbage.” The worker was upset even more and couldn’t sleep again that night.

The assistant manager said that he said something to the effect of “don’t play with me” and that he had several years of managerial experience, but denied telling the worker that she was garbage, saying he wouldn’t use words like that with anybody.

The worker next worked on Dec. 30. After she finished her room assignments, the assistant housekeeping manager sent her a message that he wanted to speak with her. She called from the room she was in and the assistant manager told her that a wine bottle and some bags had been found left behind in a room she had cleaned. The worker said that she couldn’t come to his office because she was allergic to something there. The assistant manager asked what and she responded, “an animal in the office.”

The worker was shaken after the conversation and remained off work until Feb. 6, 2023. She provided a medical note that described physical and psychological symptoms. The doctor submitted the note to WorkSafeBC, which contacted both the worker and the hotel.

It can be challenging dealing with the aftermath of a harassment investigation, regardless of the outcome, says a lawyer.

Investigation found no harassment

When the worker returned to work, the hotel investigated and interviewed the worker, the supervisor, the assistant manager, and three other employees. The hotel determined that the matter involved interpersonal conflict and miscommunication but did not rise to the level of bullying and harassment.

The union, on behalf of the worker, filed a grievance alleging harassment by the supervisor and the assistant housekeeping manager and that the hotel failed to appropriately respond.

The arbitrator found that the Dec. 27 phone call with the supervisor was not harassment. The supervisor was engaging in her work-related duties and, although her manner of communication was direct and she wasn’t interested in hearing the information the worker had, it wasn’t to the level of harassment, the arbitrator said.

The arbitrator also found that the meeting with the assistant housekeeping manager involved “a difficult exchange” that led to both the worker and the assistant manager getting upset, it also did not rise to the level of harassment. The arbitrator noted that, if the assistant manager had told the worker that she was garbage, it could constitute harassment, but the evidence did not support that it was said. The worker was upset in the moment and was “predisposed to interpret the actions of management in a negative light,” while the assistant manager was clear and unequivocal that he didn’t make the comment while acknowledging that he got upset. In addition, neither the worker nor her colleagues had heard the assistant manager make any similar comments in the past, said the arbitrator.

As for the events of Dec. 30, 2022, the assistant manager tried to raise a concern about items left in a room to the worker and the worker refused to meet with him. There was nothing constituting harassment of the worker in that interaction, said the arbitrator.

A government employee’s dissatisfaction with the result of a harassment investigation didn’t mean it wasn’t reasonable, a court found.

Management engaged in supervisor duties

The arbitrator found that the series of events over those few days “had a very significant impact” on the worker and she ultimately had to take a medical leave. However, at all times her superiors were engaged in work-related tasks around the supervision of the worker in her job and their conduct did not rise to the level of harassment, said the arbitrator.

This was the same conclusion reached by the hotel after it investigated the allegations. The hotel investigated once it learned of the allegations from WorkSafeBC and interviewed relevant parties, making it a “timely and reasonably thorough” investigation, said the arbitrator in dismissing the grievance. See Innvest Hotel GP Ltd. and UNITE-HERE, Local 40 (Nualmuenwai), Re, 2023 CarswellBC 2083.