Accra, Oct 10, GNA – Mr Tabase, Charles Lwanga Moandiyiem, Health Tutor has identified workplace harassment as a major cause of poor performance of workers especially at public educational institutions.
“As a health tutor, I have been a victim and observed subordinates experience forms of workplace harassment such as physical harassment, discrimination, intimidation, bullying, verbal abuse, withholding information, name-calling, unmerited transfers, helplessly.
In a statement on workplace harassment and its consequences copied to the Ghana News Agency on Monday, he said most of the perpetrators were principals or heads of departments orchestrated by a systemic failure.
“Turnover rates have increased and many have intentions to turnover. The spillover effects include poor quality of teaching and poor quality of nurses, which would affect health outcomes. Protective systems minimize harassment.
“Principals are immune to tenure unlike Vice chancellors/heads of departments in universities. This makes it fertile for them to harass anyone without fear because they have absolute power. The statement added that most of them appointed and disappointed their deputies and other heads of important departments, who constituted core management.
“Committees including disciplinary committees are constituted by principals who in some cases would determine the leaders of such committees. How many appointees who benefit from such an appointment criticize the appointing authority and to what end considering the systemic failure”? The statement added that, there were instances, where principals name-called their subordinates ‘witches’, ‘fools’; threatened and cursed and to some extent beaten some.
“We suffer from depression, low self-esteem”.
GNA