Avoiding Sexual Harassment at the Workplace

Monday, November 14, 2005

One of the major parts of Title VII is sexual discrimination. There are two facets to this: discrimination based on sex, and sexual harassment. Sexual Harassment is one of the most common problems in the workplace. Sexual harassment can be unwanted sexual advances and/or jokes or inappropriate actions at work. The following article will do two things: outline what sexual harassment is and describe ways to try to overcome sexual harassment in the workplace.

What qualifies sexual harassment?

Sexual harassment is any behavior that causes an individual to feel intimidated or threatened in the work place. Any employee can do the harassment; it does not have to be in a boss to employee relationship. Either a man or a woman can be a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace. The problem does not necessarily have to come from the opposite sex. The restraint that considers it to not be harassment is if the advances are not unwanted. For instance in a mutual relationship, this may not be considered harassment.

How to prevent sexual harassment

If you are a business owner or management, it is important to take this problem seriously. Sexual harassment should not be tolerated in the workplace. Luckily there are several steps that can be made to try to prevent the risk of such actions taking place in your company.

The first step is to have a clearly defined zero tolerance sexual harassment policy. Put this policy in the employee handbook of your company. Make sure it states that the company will not tolerate any sexual harassment and the employee will be fired if they are found to be harassing anyone. You will also want to define a procedure for filing complaints and make it clear that the company will fully investigate any complaint that is received. If you do not have an employee handbook you should look into writing one, and consulting a lawyer about it.

If you receive a complaint from an employee, make sure your actions are effective. Carry out an investigation on the matter as soon as possible. If the employee is found to have been involved in sexual harassment make sure to respond to the mater. There should be no question about whether enough action was taken or not.

As a business owner or manager, you should train employees what sexual harassment is, and how to deal with it. Make sure you cover the procedure to file a complaint. Also train managers and supervisors to be able to recognize and deal with sexual harassment cases. Make sure to explain the process of handling complaints.

Another thing you can do is just try to keep tabs on your employees. Walk around, talk to the employees see if anyone thinks any inappropriate behavior is going on. Be careful to mind posters, notes, and pictures that may be hanging up for anything offensive. Ask the managers if they have noticed anything going on.

Finally you will want to keep good records of anything that is filed, and all efforts made to detect sexual harassment. This will help in deciding whether efforts were successful or not. Also, if any lawsuit does come about, you will have proper documentation of events for the case.