WORKPLACE Sexual harassment policies need to be enforced to be taken seriously

Sexual harassment policies do no good if they are locked up in an office.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Your no-tolerance sexual harassment policy is spelled out in the employee handbook, and management circulates a reminder memo every year.
Your organization is following the law to the letter. But that's not enough.
The only way to rid your workplace of sexual harassment is to build a company culture that makes it taboo. The trouble is, offensive behavior is subjective, and that makes it tough to prevent.
Sexually explicit jokes that bring levity to the workday for some workers may embarrass and offend others. The challenge for managers is to create a workplace where employees can express how they feel and where those who may be inadvertently offending others will accept criticism and change their behavior.
Anti-harassment policy education should be part of every employee's regular training schedule, said Naomi Earp, vice chair of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But organizations should give special attention to new hires, many of whom may be coming directly from considerably more lax college or high school environments.
Earp said instructors should cite specific examples of sexual harassment. But while some examples of off-limits behavior may seem obvious, others are more ambiguous.
"Twenty or 25 years ago, issues of sexual harassment had to do with quid pro quo -- where a woman is propositioned," Earp said. "What we're getting more of now is the more nuanced situations. And that harassment is more difficult to prove. Courts require pervasiveness and harm. Drawing a line between that and what some workers consider horseplay is not always easy."
Aggressive action
The key is to make sure an employee knows when he or she is offending others. If the actions persist after the first warning, the danger of a hostile work environment emerges.
That is when managers must take more aggressive action to ensure the behavior doesn't continue and that the accused offender doesn't retaliate against his accuser in any way. Retaliation could include talking about the situation in a way that disparages the accuser or the supervisor who intervened.
Michael Fetzer, director of the Cleveland district office of EEOC, said many employers think that as long as they have official anti-harassment policies, they're protected from liability.
But, he said, those policies are ineffective if they are locked away in the human resources office and never thought about until someone reports a violation.
"Management should talk about [the anti-harassment policy] the way they talk about productivity and attendance," Fetzer said. "Otherwise, people won't think it's really that important to the company leadership."
When management doesn't provide training and open dialogue about its anti-harassment policy, employees are left to come to their own conclusions about what constitutes appropriate workplace behavior. And, often, they're wrong.
"Sometimes we get the idea that people are getting their education from sitcoms," Fetzer said. "They do things in the workplace thinking they will get the kind of laughs they get on sitcoms without thinking it might be offensive to other coworkers."
Culture of sensitivity
Kathleen Engel, assistant law professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University, said some companies find creative ways to offer guidance regarding what is and is not sexual harassment.
In one example, cartoons depicting interaction between coworkers are printed on cards with the question, "Is this sexual harassment?" The cards, with the answers on the other side, are left in break rooms and other employee gathering spots.
But, Earp said, much of the responsibility for creating a culture of sensitivity lies with first-line supervisors. In addition to making sure everyone is doing his or her job, supervisors need to be aware of how employees interact with one another. They must be approachable to all employees, and they must be willing to respond when something goes wrong.
"First-line managers really are the weakest link in this," Fetzer said. "They are more closely aligned with the people who work with them than the upper management is. They might sympathize with the [accused] offender and think, 'Oh, I know him. He doesn't mean anything by it.' "
As far as the law is concerned, it doesn't matter what an offending employee might have meant.
"We've tried to have a focus on generally creating a work environment that is respectful of everyone," Earp said. "To treat people not just in a way that we want to be treated, but in a way that they want to be treated. A hostile work environment has a lot to do with the eye of the beholder."