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Ask Slashdot: Preempting Sexual Harassment In the Workplace?
zwei2stein writes "My team of about 10 men (IT guys) is expecting a new colleague: a female one. It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse. We already have women in teams who can somehow handle this (and deliver apropriate verbal slaps). How would you deal with this? We talked about some simple, fun ways — anyone who [acts inappropriately] will have to wear an embarassing tie, etc. — instead of swear jar, having a sexual innuendo jar and even fairly harsh punishments (like people losing their bonuses for the month or their extra vaccation days). I'd like to figure out a solution that would be effective, not call much attention to itself, and not be quickly abandoned." What has your workplace done to create a good culture on this front? And what hasn't worked?
You need to understand the laws around sexual harassment, which you clearly do not.
We went through a couple sessions, mandated by management. We'll have another one in a few months. Key point to make is that people who do not act approrpiately will be pulled from the team and possibly sacked. Fear works pretty effectively.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse.
Hostile Work Environment:
"Hostile work environment harassment occurs when unwelcome comments or conduct based on sex, race or other legally protected characteristics unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. Anyone in the workplace might commit this type of harassment – a management official, co-worker, or non-employee, such as a contractor, vendor or guest. The victim can be anyone affected by the conduct, not just the individual at whom the offensive conduct is directed.
Examples of actions that may create sexual hostile environment harassment include:
- Leering, i.e., staring in a sexually suggestive manner
- Making offensive remarks about looks, clothing, body parts
- Touching in a way that may make an employee feel uncomfortable, such as patting, pinching or intentional brushing against another’s body
- Telling sexual or lewd jokes, hanging sexual posters, making sexual gestures, etc.
- Sending, forwarding or soliciting sexually suggestive letters, notes, emails, or images"
Somewhere, a labor law attorney is locking and loading his briefcase... :-)
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
You need to understand the laws around sexual harassment, which you clearly do not.
In addition, things like "remarks, double entendres and innuendos", while perhaps inappropriate, are not simply and automatically sexual harassment. Generally the "affront" has to be knowingly unwelcome and frequent and severe. So, contrary to many TV shows, simply asking someone out or complementing them on [whatever] is not harassment, until you've been asked not to. Though incomplete, Wikipedia says this:
Sexual harassment is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Harassment can include "sexual harassment" or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.
Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.
Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision ....
People sometimes need to get a grip.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .