PSA: IRD Recommendations on Workplace Bullying Slowly Worked Through

A working group was recently organized including the Public Sector Association which identified some areas requiring some focus for the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), mostly concerning on workplace bullying. On the other hand, IRD, through a report, said that they are making moves to address the workplace issues of their agency. Basil Prestidge, Assistant Secretary of the PSA, said that the recommendations have not yet been implemented, but are being slowly worked through by their organizers.

Prestidge added that little action on dealing with workplace bullying have been made despite a lot of talk. Accordingly, the change for the IRD is aimed to having more efficient tax collectors. However, the incumbent circumstances have created pressure on its employees, Prestidge noted. While not believing that IRD had a toxic working culture, he said that there were issues, particularly those involving managers in smaller IRD offices, which need addressing as there was a significant variability among managers.

Such recommendations have been acknowledged by the IRD’s annual report although nothing had been acted upon yet. However, they believe that changes will occur as they update their human resource policies and guidelines. Recent research reveals that 10% of employees experience discrimination, harassment, or bullying at work in the past 12 months. Another survey suggested that almost one-third of the 16,000 PSA member respondents experienced bullying at workplace.

Click here to read the full article.