Lidia Zarnescu, Kinstellar: “We have seen cases of harassment at work at different levels in companies”

“Moral harassment is a topical issue. We have observed in judicial practice a significant increase in litigations that have as their object moral damages requested by employees claiming that they have been morally harassed at work.

According to the law, moral harassment is a behaviour that, by its systematic nature, i.e. repeated, harms the dignity, physical or mental integrity of an employee, degrading the working climate. What must be remembered from practice is that both stress at work and physical exhaustion (burnout) represent moral harassment at work, and moral harassment can exist both horizontally – between colleagues who are on the same hierarchical level – but also vertically (either descending, also called bossing), in which the one who morally harasses is the superior, or ascending, also called staffing, in the sense that the employee is harassed by his or her subordinate. We have seen cases of harassment at work at different levels in companies,” Lidia Zarnescu, Managing Associate, Kinstellar said during People Empowering Business Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Regarding the legal risks faced by the employer, it must be noted that, unfortunately for companies and employers, employees can request in court either the cessation of the acts of harassment or the reinstatement of the parties to the previous situation, respectively the reinstatement of the employee to the previously held position and the payment of salary rights from the date of dismissal until the date of effective reinstatement, but at the same time employees can also request moral or material damages for the acts of harassment and, worst of all, for a company, in my opinion, the employee can even request the publication of the summary of the court ruling in the media, meaning that the image of a company can be significantly affected if it does not adopt the necessary measures to prevent cases of harassment at the workplace.

Unfortunately, there are also cases of crimes, namely sexual harassment. In this case, we are talking about the act of a person who supervises or follows another person at work, at home or in other places frequented by that person and creates a state of fear in them. Similarly, we are talking about harassment when some telephone calls are made that, by content or frequency, create a state of fear in the victim. At the same time, there is also sexual harassment, which consists of demanding sexual favours, but in this context, it must happen in the case of work relationships or similar relationships, when the victim is humiliated or intimidated.”