Handling Sexual Harassment Complaints in the Workplace
Imagine you’re sitting in your office at work, or in your own business, and one day, it happens: an employee comes up to you to complain about an incident or event that he or she considers to be sexual harassment.
The complaint is one that borders between severe and what you might consider minor—perhaps, in your mind, not quite enough to warrant an immediate firing of the alleged perpetrator, but certainly enough to merit a further investigation. So what do you do?
What Does Your Policy Say?
The first step is to follow your sexual harassment procedures, which you hopefully have, and which hopefully detail the steps that your company takes in investigating these kinds of complaints.
If you have no such policies, you should have them. These policies can protect you legally in the event an employee ever argues that you “don’t do anything” when there are sexual harassment complaints levied against you.
Documentation and Interviews
The initial step is to document in writing what the alleged victim is telling you, whether you believe it to be credible or not. While your investigation is starting, it may be a good idea to try and separate the employees (victim and perpetrator) as much as possible, or else, to take measures that the alleged offender and alleged victim are not alone together or in a scenario where harassment may continue.
From there, you would likely have interviews with the alleged perpetrator, as well as with any witnesses to the behavior being complained about. Again, document in detail everything that anybody is telling you.
If there is harassment on company computers or company email systems, or texts on company issued devices, your IT department should assist you in getting emails that may bear some light on what actually happened.
If There Are No Clear Cut Facts
In many cases, there is a gray area, where the victim may be right, but the alleged perpetrator may have good points or good defenses as well. You may feel like you want to “do something” in response to the complaint, but perhaps, you don’t feel there is enough credible evidence to warrant firing in a “he said she said” situation.
You do have options. You can opt to put the perpetrator on some kind of probationary period, where, if there are any further incidents, termination would happen immediately.
You may opt to move the alleged perpetrators workspace, somewhere that management can physically see him or her.
Another option is to have the alleged perpetrator sign a document that acknowledges the sexual harassment policy—the document doesn’t have to confess that he or she actually did what is accused, but at least, a document agreeing to the company’s harassment policies.
You may also want to check on the victim, as the days go by, with routine questions about whether things have improved, or whether there have been any further incidents, and of course document the responses that you get.
Again, make sure that these options are allowable under your existing corporate policy, which, if properly drafted, they should be.
Questions about handing employees, or harassment claims, at work? Reach out to the West Palm Beach commercial litigation lawyers at Pike & Lustig for support with your case.
Source:
hr-guide.com/Law/Sample_WorkplaceHarassment_Policy.htm
