Deadline: Harassment and violence report due today

The deadline for federally regulated organizations to submit their first Employer’s Annual Harassment and Violence Occurrence Report (EAHVOR) is today.

The report is among the new rules that took effect in January 2021. The anti-harassment and violence legislation requires employers to conduct a workplace assessment, develop a workplace harassment and violence prevention policy, develop and implement violence and harassment training, and establish a thorough process for dealing with incidents.

“The report must include information relating to any occurrences of harassment or violence for which a notice of occurrence was provided to the employer pursuant to the Regulations during the 2021 year,” say Dianne Rideout and Kyle Lambert of McMillan in Vancouver and Ottawa.

In particular, employers must report:

• the total number of occurrences
• the number of occurrences that were related, respectively, to sexual harassment and violence and non-sexual harassment and violence
• the number of occurrences that resulted in the death of an employee
• the number of occurrences that fell under each prohibited ground of discrimination set out in the Canadian Human Rights Act
• the locations where the occurrences took place, specifying the total number of occurrences that took place in each location
• the types of professional relationships that existed between the principal and responding parties, specifying the total number for each type
• the means by which resolution processes were completed and, for each of those means, the number of occurrences involved
• the average time, expressed in months, that it took to complete the resolution process for an occurrence.

At the start of 2022, the expanded version of Saskatchewan’s rules around workplace harassment also took effect. In January, Alberta also said it is expanding anti-harassment training to more public sector workers in the province.

The requirement to file the annual Harassment and Violence Occurrence Report coincides with other annual filing obligations of federal employers, including the requirement to file an annual Workplace Committee Report and an annual Hazardous Occurrence Report.

Employers can complete the report by filling out the form here. As of 2022, if employers have an email address on file, they will receive an electronic package in January of each year. The package will include a prepopulated template in Excel format. If they don’t have an email address on file, they will receive a reporting package by mail to their mailing address on file. The package will include a prepopulated report in paper.

Too often, people are afraid to speak up about harassment or uncomfortable situations at work. And the top reason is safety concerns and fear of backlash from the perpetrator, according to a survey from the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto (WomanACT).