A coronial inquest into the death of Natasha Stojkoski has found that she was bullied over her performance when she returned to work after sustaining a work-related injury, and that her employer's policies, procedures and general lack of response failed her.
Ms Stojkoski was injured at work in 2018 when she attempted to use a work-assisted vehicle to move stock in the warehouse, and her shoulders and neck were crushed against a wall. She reported experiencing ongoing pain and struggling to perform some of her duties. From mid-2019 her co-workers and management allegedly stopped talking to her, failed to provide her with assistance, and made sarcastic comments about her injury-related light duties.
At the time, Ms Stojkoski told her manager and the store's executive manager that she felt anxious and was emotionally drained from the perceived bullying. Eventually she was certified unfit for work, with her psychological injury claim being approved on the basis that she was suffering an adjustment disorder from the 2018 incident and her related interactions with co-workers.
Although the store manager commenced an informal investigation into Ms Stojkoski’s bullying complaint he let her down when he began doubting her version of events and failed to escalate her complaints to HR. His lack of impartiality was evident in his communications with her, and he made it clear that he had accepted that the alleged bullies had legitimate frustrations with the worker's performance, the coroner found.
The coroner’s inquest found that despite Ms Stojkoski clearly articulating to her employer the emotional impact her work environment and relationship with her team members was having on her, The Good Guys management did not instigate a fair and impartial investigation into her complaints of bullying but instead favoured the team’s collective reasoning for their behaviour towards her. They conflated her complaints of bullying with the perceptions of others about her performance, effectively victim-blaming and contributing to her feelings of isolation and despair.
When Ms Stojkoski did establish contact with HR, she found that HR processes also failed her – despite a 45-minute phone call with HR requesting a formal investigation, the coroner heard that the HR business partner considered there was insufficient detail in her complaints to proceed. The coroner found that the business partner's justification of HR's inaction equated to "a form of filibustering", a tactic used to delay or block progress.
The failures of the store manager and HR’s enactment of the bullying policies and procedures "falls to The Good Guys themselves", the coroner said. "They are the employer of all those involved in the circumstances related to Natasha and they – The Good Guys – let everyone down. Significantly, they let Natasha down."
The coroner found that the employer had lost "a number of opportunities" to take the worker's complaints seriously, changing her from a long serving worker with no "black marks" on her record to a "distressed and vulnerable" worker.
The coroner recommended that The Good Guys develop policies and procedures detailing the steps to be taken by management in response to bullying complaints, including clear guidance for managers on immediate escalation to HR when one worker makes accusations against a group of workers.
No general recommendations were made.
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Read more: COR 2021 002298 Natasha Stojkoski - Finding into death with inquest_Deidentified.pdf