Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

HARASSMENT in the WORKPLACE

In the past few years, sexual harassment in the workplace has emerged as a growing concern for employees, managers and policy-makers alike. As a result, the company handbooks of all types of organizations have implemented a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment, and even offer sexual harassment awareness training for all employees. There are other actions that need to be taken, other than implementing a policy, in order to effectively deal with this kind of harassment in the workplace. This paper will discuss three suggestions taken from the articles Changing the Workplace Culture can stop Sexual Harassment, written by Candace Goforth, and Taking Harassment out of the Workplace: the question becomes, where is the line of acceptability drawn-particularly in the workplace? By Peter Elliot.

The first suggestion for how to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace, taken from Goforth's article, is to make the general workplace tone regarding sexual harassment taboo. This basically means that no policy is going to be effective if sexual harassment is not taken seriously as a very negative kind of harassment. The problem with sexual harassment is that it is subject to different types of interpretation, and what some people may view as joking could potentially be very offensive sexual harassment. One method of educating employees as to what exactly constitutes sexual harassment is to require employees to attend training that cites clear examples of sexual harassment. This is very important because while some examples of offensive behavior may seem obvious, others can be very ambiguous. Goforth states that "the key is to make sure an employee knows when he or she is offending others," and "if the actions persist after the first warning, the danger of a hostile work environment emerges." second suggestion of how to address sexual harassment in the workplace is for managers to take aggressive action when it occurs, to ensure that the behavior does not continue. This must be done with care so that the accused offender does not attempt to take retaliatory action against the accuser. The Goforth article discusses how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission use outreach programs to show business leaders how a proactive approach to sexual harassment issues can prevent lawsuits, protect bottom lines and preserve reputations. The article recommends that employers must take an active role in creating an atmosphere in which employees like to come to work. Sexual harassment in this case must be addressed on a personal level with employees, to put the challenge out in the open.