Author: Heather Stewart
Edited by Paula Drouin
When wrongdoing occurs at work, people are left trying to make sense of what happened, and how to address the impact. People’s basic human need for fairness surfaces along side a desire for justice. Our legal tradition to have an outside authority determine fault and met out punishment is directed at bringing back balance. This outcome seems fair but rarely helps the victim restore or rebuild what was lost.
Restorative Justice introduction
Restorative justice requires a different way of thinking when it comes to addressing wrongdoing. Rather than viewing wrongdoing as a violation of policy, it is framed as a violation of people, relationships, and communities. Howard Zehr (2012), a well respected authority on restorative justice describes it as “a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offense and to collectively identify and address the harms, needs, and obligations in order to heal and put things right as possible”. The processes are guided by the three core values of participation, reparation, and reintegration.
Some people have the impression that Restorative Justice is a “light-weight” method for dealing with wrongdoing. Legalistic and restorative approaches can support each other and are not mutually exclusive, and when both processes are used, the different goals of each can be achieved. While restorative procedures can result in empowerment, getting answers to private questions, voice, insight, apologies, and informal accountability, criminal justice serves to formally hold the offender accountable.
Employer responsibility to address harm in the workplace
With legislation, both federal and provincial governments have made it clear that employers have responsibilities to safeguard their employees. For example, employers must protect them from harassment, bullying and discrimination. If it does happen and an employer is aware, or ought to have been aware, they can be charged, in addition to the harasser. To reduce liability, employers need to have, and need to enforce, the laws and internal bullying, harassment and discrimination policies. However, once done, the organization having fulfilled their legal responsibility, are often left with the aftermath of the processes as well as the impact of the wrongdoing. An employer’s obligation to address workers’ psychological health and safety, does not end with the conclusion of disciplinary action.
Fully addressing wrongdoing can not only meets the legal requirements, but is just as important for retaining employees, fostering positive work cultures and environments, and ultimately the bottom line. Restorative processes provide an opportunity to address feelings of injustice which when ignored can result in organizational withdrawal, retaliation, revenge, sabotage, dissatisfaction, anger, moral outrage, escalation of conflict and violence, and potentially most significant, loss of trust.
Leaders and Managers Role
Leaders and managers play an important role when restorative practices are considered, especially when they are directly involved in the situation. A supervisor may have the power and authority to impose their will on a subordinate, but at the same time, success often depends upon a subordinate’s future cooperation. Organizational injustices often involve the immediate supervisor in some way for many reasons: they are involved in many important decisions involving direct reports, they often are the deliverers of bad news, they are perceived to be in the unique position to buffer their reports from harm and are held accountable for doing that. An employee might feel reluctant to initiate a process to acknowledge harm done, but the legitimate power supervisors hold gives them control over important information and resources giving them the unique advantaged position to initiate the repair process. These processes set the tone for mutual respect and provide an important opportunity for leaders to establish good practices, set examples, and begin the rebuilding of a trust filled relationship between themselves and their team by inviting workers into these voluntary processes.
Participants Journey
Whether or not a law or rule has been broken, when inappropriate behavior occurs at work people experience negative emotions and reactions. They are uncomfortable and it might seem the best thing to do is to just move on and try to forget about what happened. However, failure to address those emotions can drag out the negative consequences and in fact cause more harm. It has been said, “if you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself”, the workplace itself could also be interpreted as one of those bodies. Unacknowledged shame is commonly masked by anger (Kidder, 2007). A skilled Restorative facilitator will re-frame discussions to vulnerable emotions such as grief and pain, and away from aggression. The process goes beyond the simplicity of victim/wrongdoer, to restoring peace among all sides of the dispute.
Reparation begins with acknowledgement of the harm caused and continues to a discussion of how reparations can be made. The focus is on the victim while participants work together in this problem-solving exercise. This is where the victim can feel a positive return, which can be either material and/or symbolic. One of the most powerful forms of reparation is an apology and must be well-timed and sincere to be effective. A reparation process should not be looked upon as a punishment, but rather an opportunity to take responsibility and repair damage as much as is possible. The opportunity for wrongdoers to feel they have hope and opportunity to restore their moral reputations raises all involved and fosters positive change.
Ideally restorative processes lead to forgiveness, which is defined as, “a conscious release of the desire for revenge, a release of anger associated with injury to one’s self and self-image”. This does not mean excusing or condoning the action but separating the deed from the doer.
An increased attachment amongst the community is a typical result of restorative practices. “Peace requires a community’s commitment to respect the rights of its members and to help resolve conflicts among them” (Van Ness & Strong, 2015, p. 49). As the workplace community works together, they create a mutual level of accountability and responsibility. As well, they can clarify norms and expectations, and increase group identification as these are internalized.
Organization shift to include Restorative options on disciplinary files
Current approaches to disciplinary file can include an informal or formal investigation, grievance processes, arbitration, possibly some coaching for the manager and/or the employee, and sometimes mediation.
The questions considered are:
- Has a policy been violated?
- Who has violated it?
- According to our policies, what is an appropriate punishment?
As workplaces embrace restorative process options, they are given the opportunity to ask different questions and rethink their approach to wrongdoing.
They can consider asking:
- Who has been harmed?
- What are their needs?
- Whose obligation is it to address these needs?
The biggest shift is from a focus on the organization’s obligations, and the wrongdoer, to a focus that includes addressing harm to the victim/complainant.
Doing so will help to build their employees and organizations to move forward with strength, caring, and purpose.
References:
Allard, P. (2008). The Little Manual of Restorative Justice. Public Safety Canada.
Andiappan, M., & Treviño, L. (2011). Beyond righting the wrong: Supervisor-subordinate reconciliation after an injustice. Human Relations, 64(3), 359-386
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Kidder, D. (2007). Restorative justice: Not “rights”, but the right way to heal relationships at work. International Journal of Conflict Management, 18(1), 4-22. doi:10.1108/10444060710759291
Okimoto, T., & Wenzel, M. (2014). Bridging diverging perspectives and repairing damaged
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