Picture Butte council approves Respect in the Workplace policy

By Nikki Jamieson
Sunny South News

The Town of Picture Butte has updated their harassment policy.

During their regular Feb. 11 meeting, Picture Butte Town council reviewed an updated version of their harassment policy, now titled the Respect in the Workplace policy

“Basically, it explains and defines each type of harassment, disrespect, bullying, more in depth,” said Shania Banman, administrative assistant for the town. “Also, towards the end of the policy, it explains the steps of the person filing the complaint and the managers should be taking.”

Mayor Cathy Moore asked if they hadn’t already seen the policy last year, or if something new came up that caused them to revise it. Banman said the policy had been passed in June 2018, however, the town’s director of corporate services, Patrick Lyster, attended a seminar in Calgary and realized their policy fell short.

“Our harassment policy was totally not up to snuff; we were missing a bunch of stuff and it wasn’t really to the standards it should be. So we sought out some help from legal advisors, human resources departments to kind of help us with our Respect in the Workplace policy,” said Banman.

Coun. Cynthia Papworth noted that she liked the new name of the policy “better”. Town CAO Keith Davis assured council that “nothing is initiating this policy”.

“These harassment policies, for the rest of history are going to be a living animal,” said coun. Joe Watson, noting they will likely need to update them regularly. “But it looks like you did a pretty good job here.”

Council unanimously passed a motion to approve the policy.

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