Sexual Harassment

Related Terms: Gender Discrimination; Office Romance; Nepotism

Sexual harassment is a term used to describe actions that make use of sexual comments or acts in order to intimidate those with whom one works. Sexual harassment is illegal. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination, it is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII applies to all employers with 15 or more employees. Many actions can be legally shown to be either sexual harassment or to contribute to a hostile or offensive work environment. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) defines sexual harassment as follows: "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when: 1) Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment. 2) Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individuals. 3) Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment." But legal experts warn managers and business owners that definitions of sexual harassment extend beyond these boundaries. Although most people think that sexual harassment involves conduct of a sexual nature, based on a study of case law, this is not true. Sexual harassment includes acts that are not overtly sexual but rather are directed at individuals based on their gender. Therefore, profanity or rude behavior that is gender-specific may create a work environment that legally supports claims of sexual harassment.

Some observers believe that small businesses are particularly susceptible to sexual harassment problems. This is because small businesses often have an informal office atmosphere that may seem to allow sexual banter and innuendo. Small businesses are also less likely to have an official sexual harassment policy and training program than are larger firms. Savvy small business owners adopt proactive stances to make certain that their employees know that inappropriate behavior—whether it takes the form of displaying sexually explicit photographs, using offensive language, making suggestive or otherwise inappropriate comments, badgering an employee for dates or other interactions outside the workplace, or suggesting that one gender is inferior to another—will not be tolerated in their company. Indeed, firms that do not do so leave themselves open to financial loss via lawsuits as well as other problems like low morale, employee turnover, and absenteeism. These negative side effects can ultimately impact on financial performance. As EEOC guidelines state, "with respect to conduct between fellow employees, an employer is responsible for acts of sexual harassment in the workplace where the employer (or its agents or supervisory employees) knows or should have known of the conduct, unless it can show that it took immediate and appropriate corrective action."

HARASSMENT AND EMPLOYEE RIGHTS

Over the past several years, sexual harassment has become a subject of considerable discussion. Previous generations of business owners and managers rarely had to address the issue. Business historians and social observers point to several possible factors for this. Some note that women used to comprise a much smaller component of the workforce, and that various societal pressures may have made them less likely to come forward with complaints. Others point out that many of the legal protections that are now in place against harassment have only developed over the last 25 to 35 years. Still other observers contend that the rise in sexual harassment claims simply reflects a general decline in civility in American society. Whatever the reasons, sexual harassment complaints have risen throughout the 1990s and remained fairly steady throughout the first five years of the 2000s. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the governing body that is authorized to administer laws prohibiting sexual harassment. Charges of harassment are filed with the EEOC. The EEOC reported that it received 12,679 charges of sexual harassment in fiscal year 2005, of which 14.3 percent were filed by men. The EEOC resolved 12,859 sexual harassment charges in FY 2005 (some charges take longer than a year to resolve and thus the number of charges filed in a single year may be lower than the number of resolutions) and recovered $47.9 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals. This figures does not including monetary benefits obtained through litigation. To these totals, it should be understood that many charges of sexual harassment are resolved quietly, some at substantial cost, before they ever reach the point at which the charge is officially made with the EEOC. Clearly, the potential for losses, both financial and in terms of reputation, as a result of sexual harassment are great and it is a subject that should be dealt with in a very visible and up-front manner within companies of all sizes.

But small business owners and corporate executives alike need to make sure that in their zeal to protect the legitimate rights of employees not to be harassed in the workplace, they do not trample on the rights of those accused of misbehavior. Just because sexual harassment is a significant social and business problem does not mean it has in fact occurred in a particular instance. Indeed, an employee who is punished or dismissed on the basis of a frivolous sexual harassment claim has the same recourse to the law as the victim of sexual harassment who is left unprotected by indifferent managers/owners. Business owners and managers thus need to consider the rights of all parties involved when investigating sexual harassment complaints.

DEVELOPING AND MAINTAINING SEXUAL HARASSMENT POLICIES

A well-drafted, carefully thought-out policy statement on sexual harassment is an important human resource policy for all companies. It's valuable in at least three major ways:

1. As an employee relations tool
2. As basic education for both managers and employees on the subject of sexual harassment
3. As a way of minimizing legal liability to the organization in hostile-environment sexual harassment cases.

Such a policy statement is evidence of a company's good-faith effort to provide a work environment that is free of harassment. When coupled with a proper investigation that successfully ends illegal or inappropriate conduct, it can also provide a major offensive weapon in employer efforts to demonstrate that all reasonable steps were taken and that they were effective in the case of a sexual harassment charge.

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