Make It Perfectly Clear: Harassment Won't Be Tolerated
03/06/07
Although laws prohibiting harassment in the workplace were enacted years ago, employers continue to pay out substantial sums to settle employees’ harassment claims. For example, in 2005 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recovered $47.9 million in monetary benefits for aggrieved individuals who filed sexual harassment charges. (The total does not include additional amounts obtained through separate litigation.) But harassment also can be nonsexual and sometimes less obvious, such as harassment based on religious beliefs and national origin. No matter the kind of harassment you may observe, your managers and supervisors need to know how to avoid simple — but often costly — mistakes that might allow it to spread.
Put your harassment policy into action
Most employers recognize the importance of reducing the risk of harassment litigation. But not every company follows through, resulting in millions of dollars being paid out each year to cover harassment claims. One reason for this discrepancy is that managers and supervisors often lack the knowledge and skills required to put a firm’s anti-harassment policy into everyday practice. Make sure this common oversight doesn’t occur in your organization.
Some managers are prone to certain mistakes. For example, they may: - Forget that harassment can be nonsexual — Harassment goes far beyond the sexual variety. It also can be traced to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability and reprisal. Regardless of the harassment category, managers should treat all claims seriously and report them promptly. And employees should be assured that the confidentiality of their complaints will be protected.
- Ignore nonphysical harassment — Physical harassment is fairly straightforward. But there’s also nonphysical, visual and verbal harassment — any one of which creates a hostile environment for employees. Examples include threatening one-to-one e-mails, offensive personal comments, lewd and obscene gestures, distasteful photos and inappropriate cards. If there is graffiti in the workplace containing racial or sexual epithets, managers shouldn’t wait for a complaint to be filed before eliminating it.
- Judge the seriousness of a complaint without an investigation — Managers should never ignore a complaint, regardless of how trivial it may appear. Everyone has different sensitivities, and some employees are more easily offended than others. Pending the conclusion of an investigation, interim measures may be called for. These could include placing the alleged harasser on nondisciplinary leave with pay.
It should be noted that ordinary teasing, offhand comments, or isolated non-serious incidents are not prohibited under federal law. Harassing behavior must be sufficiently frequent or severe to 1) create a hostile work environment, or 2) result in hiring, firing, promotion, demotion or an undesirable work reassignment. A decision causing a significant change in benefits or compensation also might be interpreted as harassment.
An upcoming G.Neil webcast will provide your managers with the information they need to reduce the risk of harassment and potential legal action against your company. The training session is titled The Cost of Harassment in the Workplace: The Mistakes We Continue to See. Designed for both first-time and seasoned managers, it will explain how employment laws relate to everyday management decisions. We think you’ll find the webcast to be required harassment training for anyone who manages or supervises employees.
Do your managers know how to handle the following scenarios?
These and other harassment challenges will be addressed during the webinar, scheduled for 2:00 p.m., ET, on December 6, 2006. Register today!