Understanding Sexual Harassment Training
This post explains what you need to know about harassment law, and what you, as a manager, need to know about addressing and preventing incidents of harassment in the workplace.
To understand sexual harassment law, and provide quality sexual harassment training, it helps to understand where it came from. A number of states have enacted their own statute that prohibits sexual harassment, but before those statutes were there, there really wasn’t any law against sexual harassment.
How Sexual Harassment Training Started
There was Title VII, of the Civil Rights Act, which said that it was unlawful to discriminate against someone because of their gender. And it started a number of cases coming out of the South where it was predominantly women who’d be bringing claims saying that, in their workplace, they are treated differently than the men. And those differences were in the form of rude comments, being touched inappropriately, having to endure lewd pictures, and that sort of thing. A number of women brought claims in the Federal District Court saying, they were being treated differently with respect to the terms and conditions of my employment, so therefore that’s discrimination under Title VII. A number of courts rejected those opinions, rejected those claims, until finally, one court said, if the conditions are so severe and hostile as to affect the terms and conditions of the work environment, then conduct that’s directed at a person because of their gender equals discrimination and even harassment, and is therefore illegal.
Three Definitions
Courts and employers generally define sexual harassment this way:
Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment – when submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment, – when submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individuals, – when 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.
The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) offers its own definition.
Sexual Harassment
It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person’s sex. 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.
Both victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex.
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 (such as the victim being fired or demoted).
The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing says:
State regulations define sexual harassment as unwanted sexual advances, or visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. This definition includes many forms of offensive behavior and includes gender-based harassment of a person of the same sex as the harasser. The following is a partial list of prohibited behavior:
Visual conduct: leering, making sexual gestures, displaying of sexually suggestive objects or pictures, cartoons or posters.
Verbal conduct: making or using derogatory comments, epithets, slurs and jokes. Verbal abuse of a sexual nature, graphic verbal commentaries about an individual’s body, sexually degrading words used to describe an individual.
Physical conduct: touching, assault, impeding or blocking movements.
Offering employment benefits in exchange for sexual favors.
Making or threatening retaliatory action after receiving a negative response to sexual advances.
In Summary
Perhaps some people think of this as dry material, but managers need to be aware of harassment law – know what it is, and what it isn’t.
For most employers, within certain parameters, sexual harassment training is now required by law for all employees in California and New York.
As managers we all need to ensure we are up-to-date and informed about the legal ramifications that can affect us and our organization.
Stay tuned for future blog posts that will help you navigate these potentially treacherous waters.
Consider Accelerate’s online HFC (Harassment Free Culture) training for your organization.
HFC is the Best Harassment Training available because it:
- Has engaging and relatable videos viewable anytime, anywhere; do some in the office, airport or a plane (LMS permitting);
- Exceeds legal requirements of all fifty US states; and,
- Is provided at a great price.
For more information, email Mike@Accelerate-LD.com.
