Do you remember the controversy that erupted a few years ago over renaming geographic landmarks like Chinaman Lake in northern B.C., or Chinaman’s Peak in Canmore?

Many people called it nonsense, political correctness run amok – or worse.

But workplace consultant Stephen Hammond of Vancouver calls it a perfect example of why people must try to understand and respect each other’s differences.

Hammond recently penned a new book titled Managing Human Rights at Work: 101 Practical Tips to Prevent Human Rights Disasters.

Stephen Hammond

He recalls once leading a seminar on workplace harassment when the renaming subject was raised. The mainly male audience – well-paid, well-educated and mostly white – considered the Chinaman Lake issue a waste of time, money and effort. Besides, why should anyone care about something that trivial?

Hammond was struggling to explain why the term was derogatory, when a Chinese-Canadian employee bravely raised his hand.

“Whenever I hear the word Chinaman, it reminds me of the times in the schoolyard when I was on the ground and someone was kicking me in the head,” the man said.

You could have heard a pin drop, Hammond says in his book. “I knew we had a teachable moment.”

A compelling anecdote, it’s the perfect set-up for his new book. Ostensibly geared toward supervisors and managers, it is in fact great information for all workers.

Highly readable and filled with practical tips for businesses, it touches on many hot-button issues that many supervisors, managers and employees aren’t aware of – issues that can be terribly painful for others.

The issues might be seemingly small: A male boss calling all female staff members girls; hanging a presumably inoffensive nickname on a co-worker; or (more obviously) disparaging comments about a person’s nationality, skin colour, sex or religion.

“My overall message is that you will get more productivity and a better workforce if you make sure your employees’ basic human rights are taken care of,” Hammond said in an interview.

A former human resources worker and a non- practising lawyer, Hammond is a speaker, trainer and consultant who started his business in 1992 when he realized a lot of managers “didn’t have a clue” about human rights.

In his book – and in a great workplace human-rights quiz at www.stephenhammond.ca – readers will quickly discover how much they know. Or, more to the point, how little they know.

“What I try to do is help businesses prevent human-rights disasters from happening,” he says, noting that he’s often called in to help organizations clean up messes after the damage has been done.

In his book, Hammond discusses many real-life disasters, cases that ended up in front of human-rights commissions and tribunals, the courts and the media.

These worst-case scenarios are divisive, costly and damaging to a company’s reputation and morale. And many could likely have been prevented with a little work, some common sense, and sensitivity.

Beyond the relatively minor number of cases that reach the public view are the more numerous, and troubling, cases that are never raised.

Many people will never make a complaint, instead quietly suffering, often for years.

In these cases, it’s the company and the employee who lose. The company loses loyalty and productivity and has an employee who is likely to leave for another job at the first good opportunity. At the same time, the employee may badmouth the organization outside work, again damaging the corporate brand.

When complaints are formally investigated, says Hammond, it’s amazing just how deeply people have been hurt. They can cite the day, the time and the year when the hurtful comment or act occurred.

“They can even remember what the person was wearing when they made the comment,” Hammond says. “And the person who made the comment, lots of times they don’t recall anything about it.”

Hammond has no intention of making people more liberal in their attitudes or changing the way they think.

His book is a guide to dealing with a “tricky” issue that has many shades of grey and is constantly evolving: Whether it has to do with gender problems, harassment or the increasingly prevalent issue of accommodating people with disabilities.

And while the political right says we’ve gone far enough, the courts, says Hammond, have shown they will continue to expand human-rights protection.

Whether they like it or not, employers must recognize their obligations or pay a price down the road.

Hammond believes that the difficulty with accepting human rights is that they run counter to much of our daily life.

In our normal affairs, he notes, the majority rules. The politician who gets the most votes wins the election; or family members can take a vote on the video they want to rent.

But it’s not that way with human rights.

“Workplace human rights is based on the notion that you must respect minority rights,” Hammond says.

“And lots of times that bothers people, or lots of times people feel it’s not fair.”

Sometimes, people just need to think things through. All of us.

HUMAN RIGHTS AWARENESS QUIZ

Think you’ve got all the answers on human-rights issues in the workplace? Stephen Hammond has posted 20 questions on his website (www.stephenhammond.ca) that will determine if you are on top of your game, or are a disaster waiting to happen.

Here’s a sample question based on a real case described in his book, Managing Human Rights at Work: 101 Practical Tips to Prevent Human Rights Disasters. The answers are provided on the website.

Q: As a supervisor in a retail business during Christmas season, you are putting out a display of six poinsettia plants when you are called to deal with a customer. With no one else around, you ask Kiersten to quickly put out the plants. She refuses – as she always has – for the past 16 years since her religion does not believe in, nor support, the promotion of Christmas. You leave the plants in the aisle and take 10 seconds to put out the display later.

Realistically you:

(a) Discuss with her the company’s “religion neutral” policy that she is violating by allowing her personal beliefs to interfere in the operation of the business.

(b) Do nothing and remind yourself that Kiersten is a good employee.

(c) Talk to her about the need for compromise and listen to what she has to say.