Yesterday’s Advisor gave tips for preventing harassment. But there’s always the lingering question, What’s harassment and what isn’t?
In many cases of harassment, the question is where the line lies between permitted and forbidden actions. In fact, the law maintains that harassment is really defined by the victim—it doesn’t matter what the harasser’s intentions are—it’s the victim’s reaction that counts.
One problem with this is that victims often appear to be going along with harassing behavior, although later they say that they believed that they had to do it to keep their job (and feed their children). That means it’s essential to train all employees in what could be harassment before they take harassing actions.
So how do you do it? Start with this grid from BLR’s popular training booklet, Stop Sexual Harassment. The grid helps all your employees focus on the differences between appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
Don’t Make a Direct Accusation of “Harassment”
If you do have to investigate harassment charges, legal experts recommend avoiding coming to the conclusion that “Terry harassed Gale.” That admits that harassment happened on your watch and makes things easy for opposition lawyers.
It’s better to conclude that Terry’s behavior was inappropriate and not consistent with your policies. A finding of inappropriateness allows you to take the same disciplinary steps to react to the problem, but you haven’t had to admit to unlawful activity.
Pros and cons of best practices from across the nation, distilled and delivered to you about every 14 days: They’re in BLR’s innovative case study newsletter, Best Practices in HR. Click to learn more
News Flash—Harassment Isn’t Your Only Challenge!
Harassment is a huge challenge for HR but, unfortunately, it’s not the only one. You need to know best practices for dealing with many HR hot buttons. There’s a constant need to keep up, but how?
It’s pretty hard to do it by yourself (try a Google R search on “HR management best practices”—we got 26 million hits), but there is a way to let BLR’s editors do it for you. That way is called Best Practices in HR.
Get case studies that show what the best companies are doing to solve the same problems you struggle with—in BLR’s twice-monthly, problem-solving newsletter, Best Practices in HR. Click here for info.
Your Own HR Think Tank
Best Practices in HR is your own “think tank,” a twice-monthly newsletter with the pros and cons of HR’s most innovative ideas. Its mission: to help you achieve success and avoid costly experiments.
What Best Practices in HR delivers is case studies … each covers the practical inside story of how the country’s smartest companies are using new HR ideas and techniques to improve hiring, morale, productivity, and retention. The case studies give you the inside data and conclusions on what other companies have tried—what’s worked for them, and what hasn’t.
For example, CMP Technologies recommends its “Bin There, Dump That” spring cleanup program for HR records. VistaPrint describes its “Everyone Is a Talent Scout” program that draws 50 percent of new hires from employee referrals. And a survey of several companies shows that 71 percent of Gen Y women (ages 18 years to 29 years) intend to stay in the workforce after having children. Watch out, though, in controlling their lives, they want to be “ringmasters, not jugglers.”
If you’d like to see if Best Practices in HR is right for you, on a strictly complimentary basis, you can sample two issues … a full month’s service … at no cost or risk. Click here and we’ll be happy to arrange it for you.