BC Code of Conduct Legislation
New BC Code of Conduct legislation has been proposed for local governments after the October 2026 election – visit our recent post to learn more. In this post, we’ll explore the nature of municipal workplaces and how to build positive, psychologically safe cultures.
Municipalities: A Unique Workplace
Municipalities are not a typical workplace. They include a mix of elected officials, unionized staff, administrators and members of the public. It’s an environment where political pressure and scrutiny from the media and public, can create extra stress and tension on difficult decisions. Adding personal conflict on top of this setting can lead to a psychologically unsafe culture with increased turnover, slow decision making, and damaged employee, and public confidence.
intersect as BC municipalities prepare for Code of Conduct legislation changes.
A Recent Case of Bullying & Harassment in the Municipal Workplace
In 2022, a BC Mayor was censured after a third-party investigator determined that they had misused their power to target, intimidate and threaten a city employee, therefore violating the city’s Respectful Workplace Policy. This is one of a handful of cases we’ve seen amongst BC municipalities in recent years.
The Difference Between Disagreement and Dysfunction
Not every heated debate is a workplace conduct issue. Healthy local government depends on stakeholders holding and advocating for different views. Disagreement is not the problem. The challenge is disagreement turns into disrespect. Personal attacks, exclusion, intimidation, and other disrespectful behaviours can quickly break trust and harm workplace relationships. Over time, these behaviours create an environment where people no longer feel safe to raise concerns, challenge assumptions, or contribute their ideas. When individuals stop putting up their hands, organizations lose valuable perspectives, innovation suffers, and the culture becomes less healthy for everyone.
Building a Resilient, Psychologically Safe Municipal Workplace
How do you maintain healthy conflict without falling into a disrespectful workplace? Your organization builds the foundation of a respectful workplace by:
How Frame and Associates Supports Municipalities
For more than 30 years, Frame & Associates has worked with organizations across BC, including local governments, to help build respectful, inclusive workplaces. Our services target the pressure points municipalities face:
- Respectful Workplace Workshops – for elected officials, staff, and leadership teams. Tailored to your individual, unique workplace. This can include conflict resolution, de-escalation and how to have difficult conversations.
- Respect in the Workplace e-Learning Programs – target a small group of employees, or train the whole organization, we have flexible options.
- Workplace culture assessment – we assess, evaluate and provide recommendations on teams, departments, and organizations to help you build a respectful workplace culture.
- Third party workplace investigations – conducted independently and impartially.
- Code of conduct implementation – we help translate new legislative requirements into organizational policy and best practices.
Local governments that navigate conflict well are the ones that have built the skills, policies and relationships to manage it before it becomes a culture issue or formal complaint.
Contact us to talk about how your organization can build a healthier, more resilient workplace.
