Sexual harassment is inappropriate and illegal. It can be defined as "unwelcome activity of a sexual nature." You must familiarize yourself and comply with all laws regarding sexual harassment in your location. It is your responsibility to try to prevent sexual harassment from occurring in the workplace and to deal with the situation appropriately if it does occur. Sexual harassment encompasses any sexual attention, from either gender, that is unwanted. It is defined as unwelcome advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:
- Submission is made an express or implied term or condition of employment or status in a class, program, or activity.
- Submission to or rejection of the behavior is used to make an employment or educational decision (such as hiring, promotion, or grading a course).
- The conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with a person’s work or educational performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for work or learning, including harassment in the workplace from an outside party, such as a vendor.
Sexual harassment may take many forms, for example:
- Physical assault.
- Direct or implied threats that submission to sexual advances will be a condition of employment, work schedule, promotion, job assignments, evaluation, wages or any other condition of employment.
- Direct propositions of a sexual nature.
- Comments of a sexual nature.
- Sexually explicit statements, questions, jokes or anecdotes.
- Unnecessary touching, patting, hugging or brushing against a person’s body.
- Remarks of a sexual nature about a person’s clothing, body, sexual activity or previous sexual experience.
Employees need to be concerned not only with the intent of their actions of this kind but also the effects; while sexual harassment involves repeated, unwanted sexual attention, persons involved in isolated or inadvertent incidents demonstrate insensitivity toward others. Repeated occurrences will be considered intentional violations of the policy. Anyone who feels it necessary to discuss what may appear to be sexual harassment should report the harassment promptly to at least two people who are in a supervisory or management capacity. Their report must be kept as confidential as possible. A prompt and thorough investigation will be made. If a claim is substantiated, the Company will take immediate and appropriate action, including discipline and possible termination.
Handling Complaints
The biggest mistake made in the area of sexual harassment is failing to take a complaint seriously. All complaints must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. You must have a procedure in place to deal with a sexual harassment complaint. 1. Conduct Investigation
- Interview complainant and obtain all details: who, what, when, where, why, how.
- Interview accused. Explain policy on sexual harassment; state you have not drawn any conclusions yet and you are only fulfilling your responsibility under the law to investigate the complaint; disclose exact accusations made by the victim.
- Interview witnesses provided by both parties and collect facts; do not take witnesses' statements as facts; keep details of situation confidential.
- Conduct all interviews face-to-face and as soon as possible, before memories fade. You may need to interview those involved and witnesses more than once.
2. Gather Results of Investigation and Take Action
- If truth cannot be determined, inform victim the evidence is inconclusive and you cannot take action at this time, but will re-open the investigation if new evidence arises.
- If the investigation shows sexual harassment has occurred, it is your responsibility to take action to eliminate the sexual harassment.
3. Follow Up
- The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requires a follow-up. Initial corrective action is not enough. You must make sure sexual harassment has not re-occurred or the accused has not retaliated against the victim.