SABC failed victims and protected culprits – inquiry
THE SABC’s human resource department was slated for failing to follow sexual harassment procedures, with a commission of inquiry questioning whether that was due to ignorance or a cover-up.
Last week Tuesday, the findings and recommendations of the commission into sexual harassment found that a “strong perception” existed that HR and senior managers collude with and cover-up for alleged perpetrators.
The failure to handle cases in line with policies and the law led to the premature resignation by all but one complainant, while all alleged perpetrators enjoyed their senior jobs and perks.
That, it stated, had left a lack of confidence in the public broadcaster’s HR practices.
Most of the sexual harassment cases reported to the commission had come from Lotus FM and Channel Africa.
The commission recommended that there was an urgent need to focus on its “leadership and support to address the worrying cases of genderbased violence”.
“Lotus FM was run by men who regard the station as their fiefdom and the women their personal harem”, and the SABC was labelled a “brothel run by prostitutes”, the report stated.
Hannes du Buisson, of the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media & Allied Workers Union, said many employees had not lodged formal complaints for fear of being victimised.
“But the findings are quite correct that HR is covering up issues and failed employees who had sexual harassment and employment issues. We have been saying for a while that we have a non-existent system at the SABC. Everything was against employees and in favour of management.”
Professor Shaun Ruggunan, an associate professor of human resources management at UKZN, said a company as large as the SABC would have had a policy on discrimination and harassment in the workplace.
He said HR was responsible for logging every complaint and investigating it.
Negligence
“At no point should HR have ignored any complaint, or breached the confidence of any complainant. HR, in the case of the SABC, wilfully ignored the public broadcaster’s own policy, code of good practice of the Employment Equity Act and the country’s Constitution. This is an astonishing negligence of duty and professional ethics.”
He said HR needed to be seen as an advocate of employees when it came to complaints of sexual harassment or other forms of discrimination.
“Research shows that once HR loses credibility and legitimacy in this area, corruption and unethical behaviour becomes the norm in organisations. In South Africa, far too often HR is viewed as not advocating for the best interest of employees.
“I would want to know what were the HR qualifications of these individuals. Where did they study? Were they registered as professional HR practitioners or were these individuals appointed due to nepotism?
“Companies need to make sure they are hiring appropriately qualified and certified individuals, who are members of a professional body, so they can be sanctioned if they behave unethically.”
Ruggunan said a company could take years to recover from HR departments that were seen as contributing to organisational injustice.
“This raises the chances of outside litigation, which could end up costing the company far more than it would if it had actually hired appropriately credentialled and experienced staff.”
He said collusion between senior staff and HR was “toxic and contributes in profound ways to toxic practices”.
“HR exists not to serve the toxic demands of senior staff but to serve the good of the company and ultimately the good of the public.”