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Andrew Bayly resigned after an incident involving inappropriate touching at work.
Opinions on workplace touching vary, with many preferring handshakes or minimal contact.
Maretha Smit emphasised the importance of respecting personal boundaries and understanding power dynamics.
The acceptable level of touching in the workplace can be different for different people, but many of those people have a story of a physical touch that made them feel a little awkward.
This time, it was a discussion that went “too far”.
“I took the discussion too far, and I placed a hand on their upper arm, which was inappropriate,” Bayly told media after his resignation.
Aucklanders spoken to by First Up had different perspectives on what kind of touching was appropriate at work.
“Touching? None,” said one Aucklander. “Unless they are family but it’ll just look wrong to those people who don’t know that. [Handshakes] are okay unless you make it not okay.”
A French tourist said while the French loved kissing others, he preferred a handshake.
A retail employee said it was best to keep it to a high-five, while a white-collar worker said the handshake was the go-to, “depending on the situation. Recently I’ve been out of the hospital and I’ve had colleagues hug me, which was quite nice.”
A man who had worked in Europe and had to get comfortable with the cheek-kiss ritual took an easier lens on the matter.
“Hugging is fine, kissing on the cheeks – I guess if that’s the relationship you had with that person.”
But while everyone’s acceptance towards workplace physical touch differed, many had a story of a physical touch that made them feel a little awkward.
“There was a time someone just did a bit too much and it turned into a hugging touch,” a 16-year-old student told RNZ.
She said she stepped away and told that person: “No, thank you.”
Benge was quite upset after helping a customer and did not feel he had the power to tell the customer off.
“He stood over me so I was a bit scared of that. I just went out for a 10-minute break to get all my feelings and emotions back to normal and went straight back to work.”
Port Waikato MP Andrew Bayly resigned from his ministerial portfolios last month after a second incident to do with his behaviour at work. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Personal boundaries
Diversity Works New Zealand chief executive Maretha Smit said power dynamics often made the situation tricky, but she encouraged anyone on the receiving end to take a strong stance in protecting their personal space.
“If it [physical touch] is about to happen, I would suggest very clearly distancing yourself and stepping away. You don’t have to go dark and deep. If the physical touch has already happened, put it through a lens of what has just happened and if it is potentially an honest mistake, you can tell that person ‘hey for future reference, I’m not a hugger’, or ‘my bubble is a little bigger’.
“But if you felt there was some attraction or anger, you do need to raise that through the official channel of your organisation. I think your personal space is your personal space and you have the right to protect that. I don’t think you should ever see yourself as making a big deal of something by advocating for your personal boundary.”
Smit said we must pay attention to our context at work and what position we have compared to our colleagues.
“Physical touch for humans is important, it is a way in which we communicate so it’s not completely off the cards, but we need to understand where it’s invading somebody’s personal space and that’s the point where we go and ask the next layer of questions.
“If there is a relationship of power, where you hold more power than the person that you are engaging with, this should be a red flag around what I need to be quite nuanced around how I’m looking at physical touch here. Am I feeling angry now? If I’m a person with power and I’m feeling angry, no physical touch, just don’t go there because that will immediately have a repercussion on you. Am I by any chance feeling attracted? No physical touch.”
The Immigration New Zealand website has a page for people moving here, which states: “We come from a land of wide open spaces so we do not like having people stand too close to us. We walk on the left side of the footpath and we smile at each other a lot.”
But of course, there is one greeting that’s special to Aotearoa – the hongi.
The traditional Māori greeting is not just a physical act, but also spiritual, when two noses touch together and share a breath.
The 16-year-old student and her friend told RNZ the hongi was the etiquette to follow, especially on the marae.
“For Māori it’s definitely a way of welcoming people in. Māori people that you’ve met before, and you see them in public it’s normal for us to give them a kiss on the cheek or give them a hongi.”
