Body odour? Sighing? In Japan, that could be workplace harassment

The Japanese workplace has become a minefield of potential harassment pitfalls due to new office rules, a greater understanding of harassment and victims who are more willing to report misbehaviour among their colleagues.

A woman who is made to feel guilty for being pregnant and having colleagues cover for her when she takes time off work is a victim of maternity harassment. A person with poor hygiene habits or who wears too much perfume can be a perpetrator of “smell harassment”.

One of the newest additions to the list of actions that can be considered abusive towards colleagues is audible sighing, an indication of dissatisfaction or disgust that comes under “mood harassment”.

“As awareness of harassment has increased, and more companies have introduced countermeasures, the public has become more aware of the problem and started asking the question, ‘Isn’t this also harassment?’” said Kaname Murasaki, head of the Osaka-based Japan Harassment Counsellor Association.

“The different types of harassment have become a hot topic of conversation and generated a lot of public sympathy for people who have experienced it,” he told This Week in Asia. “As a result, new and slightly different types of harassment are being recognised.”

The vast majority of incidents in the Japanese workplace can be categorised as “power harassment” – 95 per cent of the people who have consulted the association were seeking help to stop an abusive colleague.

A study conducted by Tokyo-based staffing agency Workport Inc in March indicated that nearly two-thirds of young and mid-career employees had been the target of “power harassment” by superiors, and that half had responded by doing nothing.

About 65 per cent of the 661 people questioned said they had been