"Zero Tolerance"?

A few short years ago, whilst I worked in the WHS career, many corporations adopted ‘zero tolerance’ for everything in their safety policy, not just drugs and alcohol. If an employee did something against the rules, the employer jumped on ‘zero tolerance’. If an employee wore incorrect garb on the yard, it incurred ‘zero tolerance’. If the employee disagreed with something they’d been told at work, that was also considered, by the employer, to be ‘zero tolerance’. Many employees were fired for no real reason. I never like the ‘zero tolerance’ because I felt that it allowed an employer to be aggressive.

Has this changed? What’s “zero”?

According to Yale Global, “…in 2000 BC [i]t was the Babylonians who first conceived of a mark to signify that a number was absent from a column... Although zero's Babylonian ancestor was a good start, it would still be centuries before the symbol as we know it appeared.”

It seemed to disappear from many writings until 1595-1605, when the word appeared in Italian, the Medieval Latin zephirum and Arabic ṣifr cipher, supposedly used in finance and maths, but not connected to “tolerance”. Wikipaedia says “0 (zero) is both a number and the numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals.”

Outside maths, the use of the word grew. What Is said “In writing outside of mathematics, depending on the context, various denotative or connotative meanings for zero include ‘total failure,’ ‘absence,’ ‘nil,’ and ‘absolutely nothing.’ (‘Nothing’ is an even more abstract concept than ‘zero’ and their meanings sometimes intersect.)”.

'Zero tolerance’ popped up a couple of decades ago. Phrases in UK said about it that it was: “A form of policing that allows no crime or anti-social behaviour to be overlooked”.

Governments, schools and work forces began to use it. Governments included ‘zero tolerance’ on Alcohol and Other Drugs policy. Many sports organisations had Zero Tolerance policies for drugs and alcohol. Schools used it against bullyness.

Whilst it had been introduced into schools in the 1990 as a war against drugs and later included bullyness, many didn’t agree with the use of it. About Parenting said “Zero Tolerance has slowly become synonymous with ‘we don't want to put up with any sort of nonsense.’ Such policies impose severe consequences for violations and, in some cases, this is doing more harm than good.” Huffington looked at a report which believed that ‘zero tolerance’ did not “accomplish the intended goal of making schools safer, and may make schools more unsafe”. However, the government still wanted ‘zero tolerance’ included in school policies against drugs and their education against drugs and the AustralianFamily Association wanted it included against bullying. They said that “anti-bullying programs that work place the focus on zero tolerance for any reason”.

Within the workplace safety environment ‘zero tolerance’ caused discrepancy with WHS policies, yet many employers continued with it. Workforce wrote back in 1999 using the same words. Rio Tinto has “zero tolerance of unsafe behaviours”. The Nonprofit Risk Management Center had “Zero Tolerance for Workplace Violence“ written in 2007 and still appears on their website which is upgraded to 2016. ANMF said: “The ANMF recommends that all workplace establish a zero tolerance approach to occupation violence and bullying based on a system /risk management approach.”

‘Zero Tolerance’ policies introduced by governments in the early 1990s were reported on by authors who wrote “Zero Tolerance Policy” for the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1999, including P N Grabosky who said it was ambigious (he looked at it as a “magic bullet”); Gareth Griffith, 1999, who reported how authorities specifically in New York viewed it (“short-term strategy”, “deliberate strategy to tackle minor crime”, “aggressive short term tactic”); and Jayne Marshall, also 1999, who compared New York use of ‘zero tolerance’ to thoughts from British police. She listed resource implications which (past PM) Howard was asked to consider when he first looked at ‘zero tolerance’: police resources, court workloads and correctional facilities.

What’s happened recently?

Seyfarth Shaw, in the Workplace Law and Strategyblog in October 2015, said that ‘zero tolerance’ was included in the Building Code 2013 in an amendment in September 2015 for Commonwealth construction projects and that “head contractors must have a comprehensive fitness for work policy in place to manage alcohol and other drugs which includes mandatory testing”. No difference to three years ago.

An employer fired an employee for a positive drug test, as per their policy, but the employee was reinstated by the Fair Work Commission (2014) who said that the accident the employee was blamed was not in connection to a drug test. FBC, who reported it, said that “the key factor influencing the Commission's decision was the absence of any evidence establishing a link between the employee's positive drug test and the ferry accident. There was no proof that the employee was ‘impaired’ at the time of the accident, meaning the employer could not rely on its zero tolerance approach.”

HC Online wrote an article on drug testing and quoted Phillip Collins from the Australian Drug Foundation, who said “A policy is not simply a zero tolerance, ‘you must not do’, the policy must cover off areas around educating the employee and the employer on their responsibilities, the process of being tested, the regularity of the testing, what and how it’s being tested, but also the behaviour expectations within the organisation.”

Back in 2011 CMMTechnology looked at a comparison between ‘harm minimization’ and ‘zero tolerance’. They reported that harm minimization involved counselling, but that ‘zero tolerance’ would not accept any drug or alcohol abuse. They recommended a modified approach which still included a ‘zero tolerance’ policy but included an “in-house employee education and counseling program”.

For me, years after I left WHS, I still disagree with the use of ‘zero tolerance’ in any policy. I believe my ex-employer used ‘zero tolerance’ against me and certainly not in drugs, but simply reflected their own disagreement with my questions about a future issue. How many organisations or corporations never used it for any crime and any anti-social behaviour, including those from the top managers? Perhaps far too many employees have been fired with no real reason from any company who relies on their ‘zero tolerance’ policies.

That is not “zero”.