Sex. It’s everywhere. The one place it should not be is in the
workplace. But from Bill Clinton to the more recent David Letterman scandal, it is evident that sexual encounters in the
workplace happen. Nevertheless when
consensual sex turns into non-consensual sexual harassment there is a problem
for everyone.
Sexual Harassment at the
workplace is a major point of concern, and not surprisingly, an area of
litigation that is ripe with cases. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome
sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical
conduct of a sexual nature…when submission to or rejection of this conduct
explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably
interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating,
hostile or offensive work environment.” Some conduct
that is considered sexual harassment includes: direct sexual conduct by
employer, Quid pro quo (an employer is also prohibited from negotiating the
terms of employment in exchange for sexual conduct), hostile work environment,
and harassment based on failure to conform to the typical male of female
stereotypes. Although the majority of
these instances involve females, the number of sexual harassment cases filed by
men has doubled over the last fifteen years.
In a recent study
conducted by LegalMatch, the majority
of inquiries into legal services were made after
the individual had reported the incident to their supervisor or human resources
department of their company. I find that
statistic to be very alarming because it means that the harassment continued
even after the individual was reprimanded, or that the company did not take the
complaint seriously enough. Although
there are state laws, federal laws, and usually company rules aimed at
protecting men and women against sexual harassment there is still very valid
concerns that they may lose their job or some other type of retaliatory action
will be taken against them. Often a
sexual harassment claim comes down to proof and credibility and unfortunately
false sexual harassment claims exist as well.
One article reported a startling
figure: Sexual harassment costs a
typical Fortune 500 company $6.7 million per year in absenteeism, low
productivity and employee turnover. And this figure does not include additional
high costs associated with litigation.
The bottom line
is that people need to respect professional and personal boundaries and
employers also need to ensure that they are creating and maintaining a working
environment that is safe for everyone.
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