VALIDATED ACROSS 40+ COMPANIES • ILO CONVENTION 190 ALIGNED
Innovative leadership transforms organisations with our groundbreaking, data-driven harassment risk assessment. We help prevent catastrophic failures, reduce losses, boost productivity, and retain top talent, all while shielding workers and their families from the devastating effects of workplace harassment.
Our Founding Mission
The Resilient Workplace Institute is a non-profit organisation with Public Benefit Status dedicated to making workplaces safer and more dignified whilst preventing catastrophic governance failures. Our mission is to make harassment risk visible, measurable, and preventable on a global scale—protecting both human dignity and organisational integrity.
We discovered that harassment systematically silences the voices that could prevent disasters—whilst simultaneously destroying the lives of those who tried to speak up.
Our Solution: The Harassment Risk Index
The HRI is the world's first diagnostic tool providing 12-18 months early warning of governance collapse whilst simultaneously protecting workers from immeasurable suffering.
For Governments, Companies & Institutions: We transform workplace harassment from an unmeasured liability into quantifiable competitive intelligence that drives profitability, retention, operational excellence, and Enterprise Risk Management.
40+Companies
79k+Data Points Analyzed
3 out 10Report High Harassment
"Culture is not a mystery—it's measurable."
The 10 Golden Nuggets That Transform Workplaces
01
Predict What's Coming
Detect early warning signs 18 months ahead.
02
Target With Precision
Pinpoint harassment hotspots by team, level, or demographic.
The Silent Risk
Harassment isn't just an HR issue; it’s a measurable early warning sign of systemic governance failure.
03
Benchmark Your Culture
Compare across departments, industries, and national averages.
04
Protect Strategy
Neutralize the cultural toxins that undermine your strategy.
05
Make the Invisible Measurable
Quantify workplace toxicity with a risk index grounded in real data.
Beyond Sentiment
We measure concrete behaviors, not just feelings, transforming vague cultural assessments into predictive, quantifiable intelligence.
06
Turn Risk into ROI
Track savings in absenteeism, turnover, and productivity.
07
Build ESG Credibility
Prove your "S" in ESG with metrics that align with ILO C190.
08
Boost Resilience & Innovation
Psychological safety drives adaptive, high-performing teams.
09
Empower Leaders with Truth
Bridge the gap between leadership perception and employee reality.
10
Diagnose Culture
Understand the root causes of issues, not just the symptoms.
Who We Help
We provide tailored tools and insights for leaders across all sectors. Click a role to learn more.
Set the Standard
Benchmark ILO C190 and SDG 10.3.1 progress using aggregate data
New Data. New Research.
Access anonymised harassment risk patterns and prevalence heatmaps.
Equip Inspection Systems
Apply risk insights to national enforcement and employer compliance.
Measure What Matters
Reduce harassment, improve culture, and report on psychological safety.
Get an Investment Edge
Get a leading indicator that reveals more than what is obvious.
For POLICY INFLUENCERS & ILO TECHNICAL STAFF
A Robust, Scalable Approach
The Harassment Risk Index (HRI) offers policymakers and international institutions a robust approach to measuring workplace harassment. Developed using anonymised data from over 40 companies, the HRI enables countries to:
Monitor alignment with SDG indicator 10.3.1.
Operationalise Convention 190 reporting using empirical benchmarks.
Compare sector- or gender-specific harassment trends.
Support labour law reform, enforcement, and resource planning.
For ACADEMICS & LABOUR RESEARCHERS
Access Research-Grade Data on Workplace Harassment Risk
Seeking novel data on workplace well-being? The HRI offers a rich, anonymised dataset with segmentations by gender, race, sector, and job level from 40+ company assessments.
Provides prevalence data from 40+ company assessments
Allows for comparison of top harassment types across demographics
Enables pattern analysis across time, geography, and industry
Collaborate With Us
We're working with leading South African universities and welcome proposals for joint publications.
FOR GOVERNMENT POLICYMAKERS & LABOUR INSPECTORS
Equip Your Inspection Framework with Risk Intelligence
Labour departments and national authorities can use the Harassment Risk Index to proactively identify, address, and monitor workplace risk across sectors. Our government toolkit includes:
Templates for integrating HRI data into employer reporting
Policy briefs on C190 operationalisation using quantifiable benchmarks
Sample visual reports and dashboards for oversight bodies
Insights into how South Africa is building a national harassment risk baseline
FOR CORPORATE DELEGATES & HR EXECUTIVES
Reduce Risk. Boost Culture. Quantify Impact.
Companies lose millions each year due to workplace harassment—through sick leave, disengagement, and turnover. The Harassment Risk Index helps:
Measure the extent and types of harassment risk employees face
Prioritise interventions based on real-time data
Monitor improvements over time and align with ESG goals
Insights into how South Africa is building a national harassment risk baseline
Clients report measurable improvements in culture and accountability.
For Investors & Portfolio Managers
Three Levels of Risk Management Blind Spot in Your Due Diligence
Management Control, Legal & Risk, and External Auditors can only control what is obvious. Our Harassment Risk Assessment identifies and quantifies the toxicity red flags that are often overlooked by management, legal teams, and external auditors:
Air India: Pilot retaliation, union restrictions, 18 months of harassment patterns → Boeing 787 crashes, June 2025
Boeing: John Barnett harassed to suicide → $60B destroyed 18 months later
Airbus: "Respect and Protect" culture → 37% outperformance
Titan: Safety director silenced → Submersible imploded
VW: Engineers intimidated → Emissions scandal
Steinhoff: Accountants bullied → €6.5B fraud
"Traditional defences catch disasters after bodies and billions fall. Harassment patterns reveal the underlying culture that permits them to occur before any harm is done. Companies that disregard their truth-tellers inadvertently cause harm to their shareholders."
Articles
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Humiliation as a form of Harassment
Eliminating Humiliation: A Leadership Imperative for Safe and Dignified Workplaces
A source produced by the Resilient Workplace Institute
Humiliation include being talked over, put down, slighted or humiliated by a manager, colleague, customer, supplier or external contractor which results in you not participating openly in discussions.
Humiliation as a form of Harassment
Humiliation as a form of Harassment
Why Humiliation Matters: The Psychological & Organisational Cost
Why Humiliation Is Often Overlooked
Humiliation in the Modern Regulatory Framework
Why Addressing Humiliation Is a Business Imperative
How Employers Can Prevent and Address Humiliation-Based Harassment
What is Humiliation?
A dignity-based violation
Humiliation refers to behaviour that demeans, belittles or degrades a person in a way that undermines their dignity. It is deeply linked to shame, powerlessness, exclusion and loss of status.
According to Schneebaum (2021), humiliation is the primary harm in dignity-based theories of bullying and harassment. It is the emotional outcome that creates long-term psychological injury, often with more impact than overt physical acts.
Bandes and Fisk’s foundational legal work (2001) shows that workplaces historically normalised humiliation, expecting workers to endure it as part of the job. This normalisation remains powerful today—many individuals minimise the harm because it is not physical or sexual.
Power and control
Varman (2023) found that humiliation is often deliberate—a tool used by managers or colleagues to enforce compliance, assert dominance and silence dissent. In their study, humiliation included symbolic acts (exclusion, mockery), sexualised humiliation, and physical degradation.
Fisk (2006) adds that humiliation can be embedded in organisational systems—such as appearance policies, surveillance, and hierarchical rituals.
How Humiliation Manifests as Harassment
Humiliation is not always loud. It is often bureaucratic, subtle, or hidden in managerial behaviour. Examples include:
Public criticism, reprimand or shaming
Mocking or belittling comments
Excluding a person from meetings or communication
Assigning demeaning tasks
Micromanagement intended to embarrass or disempower
Sarcasm, rolling eyes, and ridicule
Publicly highlighting mistakes
Sexualised comments intended to shame or humiliate
Appearance-based criticism or humiliation
“Punishment seating” or isolation
Performance reviews used as a tool of embarrassment
Disciplinary processes conducted in humiliating ways
These behaviours often form a pattern rather than a single incident. The cumulative effect is deeply harmful.
Across the bullying literature, humiliation is consistently listed as a core behavioural marker of harassment (Sansone & Sansone, 2015).
Why Humiliation Matters: The Psychological & Organisational Cost
A. Health consequences
Research shows humiliation triggers:
Anxiety and depression
Trauma responses and hypervigilance
Sleep disturbances
Somatic stress disorders
Long-term psychological injury
Sansone & Sansone (2015) describe humiliation as one of the most corrosive forms of workplace mistreatment due to its connection to shame and identity destruction.
B. Productivity consequences
Humiliation leads to:
Withdrawal and disengagement
Lower performance
Avoidance behaviour
Communication breakdown
Higher error rates
Presenteeism
When employees feel humiliated, they stop taking initiative—they fear exposure, criticism, or further ridicule.
C. Turnover and talent loss
Humiliation is one of the strongest predictors of resignation.
Moloi (2025) found that academics experiencing humiliation were significantly more likely to consider leaving the institution.
Your Harassment Risk Assessment data shows a similar trend:
Higher humiliation scores → higher predicted turnover
Strong correlation between humiliation and toxic team cultures
Humiliation often clusters around specific managers, allowing targeted interventions
Evidence from South Africa
South African studies confirm that humiliation is widespread, measurable and harmful:
Badenhorst (2022): Support staff in higher education report significantly more humiliation than academics.
Moloi (2025): Humiliation strongly predicts intention to leave.
The HRA/HRI dataset (24 months of national data) shows:
Humiliation is among the top three non-sexual harassment types.
High humiliation correlates with low psychological safety.
Women report humiliation at higher intensities than men.
63% of humiliation comes from direct managers, not peers.
These findings align with global research: humiliation is a primary mechanism of workplace harm.
Why Humiliation Is Often Overlooked
It is subtle and easily disguised
Unlike physical harassment, humiliation is contextual. Perpetrators can claim:
“It was just feedback.”
“I was joking.”
“They’re too sensitive.”
“That’s my leadership style.”
Reporting systems fail to capture it
Incident-reporting mechanisms are designed for events.
Humiliation is cumulative.
Employees rarely report humiliation because:
They fear retaliation
They think HR won’t take it seriously
They don’t want to seem weak
Reporting itself feels humiliating
Historical legal blind spots
Bandes & Fisk (2001) argue that law traditionally undervalued dignity, focusing on physical harm. Modern frameworks, however, recognise humiliation as a central harm.
Humiliation in the Modern Regulatory Framework
ILO Convention 190
C190 explicitly includes:
Psychological harm
Degrading treatment
Humiliating behaviour
Abuse of power
Harassment that undermines dignity
Employers must take steps to prevent, identify, and address humiliation as violence and harassment in the world of work.
ISO 45003
Lists humiliation as a psychosocial hazard in areas such as:
Poor leadership
Interpersonal conflict
High-demand/low-control environments
Social isolation
Negative behaviours and toxic cultures
South African Code of Good Practice (2022)
Defines harassment broadly and explicitly includes:
belittling
insulting
humiliating conduct
verbal or non-verbal behaviour that undermines dignity
This is a critical legal basis for employer responsibility.
South African Code of Good Practice (2022)
Defines harassment broadly and explicitly includes:
belittling
insulting
humiliating conduct
verbal or non-verbal behaviour that undermines dignity
This is a critical legal basis for employer responsibility.
Why Addressing Humiliation Is a Business Imperative
Harassment risk is governance risk
Humiliation is a leading indicator of deeper organisational problems:
Toxic leadership
Poor accountability
Breakdown of trust
Potential for whistle-blower suppression
Increased safety risk in high-risk environments (mining, logistics, manufacturing)
It affects ESG, culture and reputation
Investors increasingly expect proof of psychosocial safety.
Humiliation undermines:
Employer brand
Gender equality (humiliation disproportionately targets women)
Diversity and inclusion outcomes
Safety culture
Trust in leadership
Financial impact
Humiliation contributes directly to:
Absenteeism
Turnover
Litigation
Reduced productivity
Increased medical aid and wellness costs
Lower innovation
In high-turnover industries, humiliation can cost millions annually.
How Employers Can Prevent and Address Humiliation-Based Harassment
Measure it
Traditional reporting systems miss humiliation.
Digital assessment tools—like the Harassment Risk Assessment (HRA) and Harassment Risk Index (HRI)—allow employers to:
Detect patterns anonymously
Identify hotspots
Benchmark against industry standards
Measure year-over-year improvement
Distinguish between occasional conflict and systematic humiliation
Data allows for targeted intervention, not guesswork.
Train managers and leaders
Managers are the largest source of humiliation.
Training should focus on:
Accountability
Respectful leadership
Communication skills
Trauma-informed management
Feedback without shaming
Aligning tone, intent and impact
Update policies and disciplinary frameworks
Policies should explicitly include humiliation:
Public shaming
Belittling
Ridicule
Demeaning comments
Degrading work assignments
Employees need clear, safe pathways to report psychologically harmful behaviour.
Monitor organisational systems
Humiliation often emerges from:
Performance reviews
Disciplinary processes
Work allocation
Leadership communication
Team culture
Supervisor power dynamics
Organisations must audit these systems for dignity risks.
Build a culture of dignity
This includes:
Zero tolerance for belittling behaviour
Encouraging employees to speak up
Protecting whistle-blowers and complainants
Embedding dignity into leadership KPIs
Ensuring psychological safety in teams
Dignity must become a central cultural value—not a compliance checkbox.
Conclusion
Humiliation is one of the most powerful and destructive forms of workplace harassment. It undermines dignity, safety and trust. It erodes mental health and organisational culture. It drives turnover and disengagement. And it often goes unnoticed because it hides in everyday interactions and normalised behaviours.
Modern global frameworks—ILO Convention 190, ISO 45003, and the South African Code of Good Practice—make it clear: humiliating conduct is harassment.
The organisations that will lead in the coming decade are those that recognise humiliation as measurable, preventable, and incompatible with a safe, productive workplace. Measuring humiliation through tools like the HRA/HRI and acting decisively on the insights is no longer optional—it is essential for employee wellbeing, organisational resilience and sustainable performance.
Humiliation is not “how we do things here”.
It is harassment.
And addressing it is one of the most powerful ways to build a truly resilient workplace.
Creating safer workplaces is not just a regulatory expectation — it’s a leadership imperative.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions? We have answers.
"Isn't this just another expensive consulting fad that will be forgotten in two years?"
What we've developed is a data measurement system—like a financial audit, but for workplace culture. Our 18-question assessment maps directly to established ILO Convention 190 standards that 50+ countries have ratified into law. We're providing measurement tools for existing legal obligations, not creating new requirements.
The validation comes from 40+ South African organisations across multiple sectors, with measurable results showing correlation between harassment patterns and organisational failures 12-18 months before they become public scandals. This isn't theory—it's predictive intelligence.
"How can you possibly claim that workplace harassment predicts governance failures?"
We've analysed major corporate disasters—Titan submersible, Boeing 737 MAX, Wells Fargo fraud, Enron collapse, VW Dieselgate, Steinhoff accounting fraud, Theranos, FTX, and Wirecard—and found the same sequence every time:
1. Someone tried to raise concerns about safety, ethics, or compliance
2. They were systematically harassed, intimidated, or fired
3. Critical information was suppressed
4. Leadership operated on false data
5. Catastrophic failure occurred
David Lochridge at OceanGate warned about safety flaws and was fired within 3 days. John Barnett at Boeing faced "campaign of harassment, abuse and intimidation" until he developed PTSD. At VW, engineers questioning emissions software were silenced. Steinhoff whistle-blowers were intimidated before the €6.5 billion fraud collapsed the company.
The academic foundations are robust: Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety, Morrison and Milliken's work on organizational silence. When you measure harassment systematically, you're measuring whether your organisation can process critical information effectively—the fundamental prerequisite for sound governance.
"Our employees will never answer honestly about harassment. They'll be too scared."
That's why our entire system is built around anonymity from the ground up. Responses are linked only to randomly generated machine codes—no personal identifiers. Yet we can still analyse patterns by department, employment level, demographic segments, and harassment sources (senior management, peers, contractors, clients) without compromising individual privacy.
We deploy assessments in multiple languages (currently five, expandable to any language) and consistently achieve 70%+ participation rates across sensitive sectors including government and mining.
Even if some don't participate, the organisational patterns emerge clearly. When 60% of a department reports intimidation from senior management, that tells you something actionable about your environment.
"This could create legal liability. What if we discover problems we didn't know about?"
Let's flip the question: Would you rather stay in the dark about risks that could destroy your organisation, or make those threats visible so you can address them proactively?
Which scenario creates more legal liability:
Scenario A: Discover harassment patterns through systematic assessment and take proactive action
Scenario B: Get blindsided by a major lawsuit, regulatory investigation, or governance scandal you could have prevented
Courts and regulators increasingly expect systematic approaches to workplace risks. Having assessment data strengthens your legal position by demonstrating due diligence. Our anonymisation approach provides risk intelligence without creating discoverable individual complaints.
"We already have HR policies and reporting mechanisms. Why do we need another system?"
You can only manage what you can measure. Your HR policies may be addressing problems that don't exist in your context, while real problems remain undetected because they have no policies.
Without systematic measurement, you operate on assumptions. You might have extensive sexual harassment policies while your actual problem is systematic intimidation from senior management. You might focus on peer harassment while missing contractor-based issues entirely.
Our assessment provides unprecedented granular intelligence:
- Department-by-department risk mapping
- Source identification (senior management, colleagues, contractors, clients)
- Demographic pattern analysis across employment levels and groups
- Policy gap identification showing what harassment types are actually prevalent vs. what your policies address
Traditional HR systems tell you "someone reported harassment." Our system tells you "harassment in Department X comes from senior management affecting recent graduates, while Department Y shows peer-to-peer patterns among mid-level employees." That's actionable intelligence for solving your actual problems.
"How do we know your data applies to our country/culture/industry?"
It's not about whether our data applies—it's about using proven methodology to gather real-time insight wherever you are.
Workplace harassment is a human phenomenon. The ILO's global study of 74,000 workers across 121 countries found 23% experience harassment worldwide.
Our culturally adaptive methodology generates localized intelligence through multilingual deployment and detailed analysis specific to your context: department-by-department mapping, harassment source identification, and demographic patterns unique to your organisational reality.
Think of it as a thermometer—it works the same way globally, but your results are your unique intelligence, delivered in your language, analysed through your cultural lens.
"Isn't this just political correctness disguised as business intelligence?"
This isn't about ideology—it's about bottom-line performance. Organizations with psychologically safe cultures significantly outperform toxic competitors: +28% profitability, +47% innovation output, +39% productivity, +56% employee retention. Companies with highest harassment rates underperform the stock market by 19.9%.
Harassment victims take 58% more sick leave, while 67% of harassment targets lose their jobs, creating massive recruitment costs (21% of annual salary) and knowledge loss. Organizations addressing harassment patterns see 35% productivity improvements in affected departments.
Sector-specific returns are substantial:
- Financial Services: +34% client satisfaction, +28% compliance
- Manufacturing: -47% accidents, +32% quality
- Mining: -51% safety incidents, +23% productivity
- Government: +38% service delivery, +43% retention
This isn't about feelings—it's about conditions where talent and capital generate maximum returns.
"What if this stirs up issues that were manageable before?"
This is like asking whether medical diagnostics create problems by identifying diseases. The problems exist whether you measure them or not—measurement makes them visible for systematic action.
Unaddressed harassment escalates over time. What seems "manageable" today becomes tomorrow's lawsuit, regulatory investigation, or talent exodus. Early intervention is always less disruptive and less expensive than crisis management.
Our approach helps you address issues gradually and strategically rather than waiting for public explosions. You control the process and outcomes.
"We're not a large corporation. Is this overkill for smaller organisations?"
Size makes this more important. Large corporations could possibly absorb losses; smaller organisations cannot.
When you lose a key employee to harassment (67% of targets leave), smaller organisations feel immediate impact. The operational impacts hit harder: 58% higher absenteeism and 35% productivity decline in one department affects your entire bottom line.
Our detailed analysis shows exactly where problems originate—senior management, peers, or external sources—enabling precise interventions. Having demonstrable healthy culture with data becomes your competitive advantage in talent markets.
Smaller organisations often see faster, more dramatic improvements because every person's enhanced performance is immediately visible.
"What if we get bad results? Will you publish that our organisation is toxic?"
Absolutely not. Assessment results belong to you, period. We maintain strict client confidentiality and never publish individual organisation results.
Our approach provides detailed organisational intelligence while maintaining complete anonymity. You receive unprecedented insight into where risks are concentrated and what's driving them, but all data remains confidential.
We do publish aggregated, anonymised research (e.g., "harassment from senior management affects 40% more women in financial services") without any organisation identification. Many organisations choose to share results for policy research value, but this is entirely voluntary.
"How long does this process take? We don't have time for lengthy implementations."
Total timeline: 6-8 weeks from start to actionable insights.
- Weeks 1-2: Platform customisation and communication strategy
- Weeks 3-4: Assessment deployment (2-week participation window)
- Weeks 5-6: Data analysis and report generation
- Week 7: Results presentation and action planning
Assessment takes 10-15 minutes per person. Most heavy lifting is done by our team.
Compare this to months or years recovering from harassment lawsuits or governance scandals.
"What if we measure everything and then nothing changes?"
Measurement without action is pointless. Our methodology includes specific intervention frameworks tied to assessment results. We provide prioritised action plans, resource allocation guidance, and follow-up assessment cycles to track progress.
The assessment is only valuable if you're committed to acting on results. If you want a shelf report, this isn't the right tool. If you want actionable intelligence to build a more resilient organisation, the assessment provides the roadmap.
Organisations seeing most benefit view this as systematic cultural risk management, not a one-time exercise. Like financial auditing—the value comes from regular organisational oversight..
Learn how the Harassment Risk Index is reshaping how governments, researchers, and companies act on workplace dignity.
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