Kirstin Ferguson Says Workplace Cruelty Must Be Reported—Not Turned Into Office Gossip

Dr Kirstin Ferguson says employees should not look away after overhearing senior leaders mock their colleagues. In her workplace advice column, she responds to a reader who joined an online meeting early and heard two executives ridicule employees over an accent, weight and mental health leave. Ferguson describes the remarks as showing contempt for the people the executives lead. She also says discussing an employee’s mental health leave raises a serious privacy concern. While the reader worried that reporting the incident could expose their own silence, Ferguson says freezing in the moment is a normal response and does not make the reader responsible for what was said. Her advice is to keep a careful record of the comments, including when they were made and who said them, then report the incident through a whistleblower or speak-up channel if one is available. If there is no formal process, she suggests taking it to an appropriate person with authority who sits outside the executives’ reporting line, such as a board member or HR leader. She also urges the reader not to circulate the story among colleagues: the remarks should be handled through a proper reporting route rather than becoming office gossip. Ferguson’s column also considers a separate question from a pregnant senior leader who says exhaustion and sickness have made her stop working at her usual, unusually intense pace. She had regularly operated at what she describes as 150 per cent, but now feels colleagues may be disappointed or resentful as she sets healthier boundaries. The columnist suggests the leader may be interpreting her own fears as evidence of colleagues’ reactions. After years of delivering strong work, Ferguson says, easing back during pregnancy should not undermine her reputation. Any disappointment others may feel about losing the extra effort she previously supplied, she adds, is theirs to manage. She frames the change as a chance to model a more sustainable approach to work for the people the leader oversees.