Dear HR sisters and brothers:
The recent Harvey Weinstein allegations have caused an outpouring of personal experiences with sexual harassment shared under the hashtag #metoo. What is deeply disturbing are the accusations that HR has been complicit and has failed to take appropriate action to address this scourge.
In Laurie Ruettimann’s Oct. 18 Vox post, “Let’s face it. HR is powerless to help women who are harassed,” she suggests that many of you are simply ignoring complaints of sexual harassment in your workplaces because HR’s function is to protect the company from employment-related risks.
Is that really how HR is thinking?
It is a huge risk for companies when you consider the enormous cost of turnover, low productivity and poor morale that happens when complaints are ignored. Even more devastating and tragic is the debilitating harm to employees, not only to the employee experiencing the harassment but also to other employees who are deeply affected when learning of or seeing their colleagues being mistreated. Sexual harassment creates a hostile working environment and it cripples an organization.
One very important thing that you need to know that Ruettimann does not mention in her article: Sexual harassment in the workplace is illegal. It is a crime. If you fail to stop sexual harassment in your workplace, you are aiding and abetting criminals. You are breaking the law.
Ruettimann recommends that employees bypass you and form their own affinity groups or quit their jobs. I have a better idea, HR: Do your job and don’t participate in or allow criminal activity! There are effective actions you can take right now to rid your workplace of this scourge and be a champion for your employees. The law is on your side. Start now to:
- Inform everyone in your company, including your board of directors, that sexual harassment is illegal and you have a zero-tolerance policy. This means that anyone found to be harassing anyone in the workplace will be fired or kicked off the board. Full stop. No second chances.
- Make it very clear what is illegal behavior. This is straight from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: 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 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 the 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.
- Inform everyone in your company that everyone is responsible for reporting sexual harassment in the workplace even if they are not the target. If you see something, say something! Failure to report is also cause for disciplinary action.
- Immediately suspend the alleged perpetrators and get them out of the work environment. Yes, you can still pay them while you conduct the investigation but you cannot take the risk of further harassment or interference with the investigation. If they communicate with the person(s) alleging harassment or talk to any potential witnesses while on suspension, fire them. (This will be policy.)
- Establish an independent third party confidential hotline for those who are afraid of reporting incidents of sexual harassment directly to you. Keep in mind that zero tolerance means that if you — the HR professional — fail to address sexual harassment in your workplace, you will be terminated.
The above strategies work. As a 30-year HR veteran, I have used these strategies to address sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse in very diverse settings from corporate to nonprofit, including international operations.
The bottom line for HR: No excuses. Take action now. Do not enable sexual harassment.
Colleen Striegel is the vice president for HR and administration at the American Refugee Committee, a humanitarian and relief agency based in Minneapolis with operations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. She has worked with a United Nations agency team to investigate sexual abuse of refugees by aid workers in Africa and was a part of an independent task force charged with examining how allegations of clergy sexual misconduct were handled by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
I completely agree. Its so frustrating to hear that HR is only sides with the company since that is who is paying them. Employee need to be able to see their HR department as an advocate. When they see HR as the enemy, HR is not doing their job.
Actually, while all sexual harassment is illegal, not all of it is a crime. Normally, what we commonly refer to as “sexual assault” — that is, unwanted touching all the way up to rape — is criminal. However, the so-called “less severe” instances of sexual harassment — while wrong — only constitute violations of the civil statutes prohibiting discrimination. While I agree with the spirit of this article, I also acknowledge that it is probably unrealistic to rely on HR to side with an employee against management. I do think that the investigations should be conducted by a neutral party brought in from outside the organization.
This article misses the mark IMHO. Having worked many years in this area–including investigating/counseling employees…and advising HR and leaders on how to deal with sexual harassment–I found that it really comes down to the senior leaderships involvement, front line employees and supervisors stepping up and education. Certainly, HR plays an important role–primarily with respect to education, fact-finding, and counseling/advising–but they are reliant on senior leaders to set the tone and demands…and employees, supervisors and managers to bring forth the issues. Further, there are nuances to SH that make it difficult to “manage.” This may offer some clarification: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ones-girls-kevin-mcnulty/?trackingId=L4GR6avy1vd0wPL%2BIQ6jyA%3D%3D
You are correct! The puppet masters are those in charge, the puppets are HR and staff. Senior leadership is Superior and HR employees are subordinates. It is a “Do as I say or else” situation for HR and anyone else who answers to those in charge.
We keep missing the point, including HR. If we continue to focus on compliance we leave the door open for individuals to see this as the only reason to avoid sexual harassment. I also don’t buy zero tolerance. For a quid pro quo situation, yes, no second chances. If a male manager tells a tasteless joke and doesn’t see it as offensive, you would fire him? I would give one fair, final warning. I have had one situation where a manager told me they wanted to harass, they actually said they wanted to sleep with every woman in the workplace. In other situations if it’s a comment, joke or request for a date, the offender acknowledges, that’s a situation for a final warning. See my article on LinkedIn, The Naked Truth About Sexual Harassment Training. If HR people are simply viewed as the harassment police that won’t help the reputation of the function or combating sexual harassment. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/naked-truth-sexual-harassment-training-rebecca-mazin/
I found that even the NYS Division of Human Rights and EEOC are both dysfunction and they represent cases on a pick and choose basis. A newspaper article said that they are inundated with complaints and under staffed. When I called to inform them that I was offered a $25,000 settlement (aka “BRIBE”) but would have to sign a general release of all claims I had against my employer; I was told “OFF THE RECORD” that my case was going nowhere and I should have taken the money. I was then sent a Right to Sue letter from EEOC. My lawsuit was dismissed by an incompetent judge who condoned misappropriation of funds and enabled a predator to remain on a college campus. That predator did retire shortly after my claim was filed. As for the others who enabled it, including HR personnel, 10 employees have either been terminated or forced to resign, two of them were HR. What goes around, comes around, but at others expense!
This was my experience. When I finally reported unwanted touch by my supervisor (in the form of a shoulder massage which he then used to hold me down in a chair to force me to make eye contact.
I had been avoiding him and he previously made it clear he hated when I avoided him. He even asked me if it would happen once a month…. cute. ) after a string of other inappropriate events I was treated badly by HR, despite me having the highest productivity in my work group and being recruited to provide trainings to other clinical branches at the agency.
I had documented the event immediately before and after with a time stamped text message and checked in with a collegue. I was asked by HR why I was even there. I was threatened with potential libel from my supervisor. I was told directly that my supervisor said the events happened differently and it was insinuated I was lying.
When I finally quit, the therapy agency freaked out because I was actually doing the work of two mediocre clinicians and they had counted on me to create five clinical trainings over the next year, which would have saved them a lot of money because they wouldn’t have to hire someone outside. I don’t know what they thought I was going to do after being treated so badly.
The supervisor continued to give me threatening looks and at one point was even verbally hostile. I couldn’t stay there and continue my level of productivity nor care about the company when I was clear I was not important enough to take seriously or protect.
I don’t like my current job as much, but at least I’m not being treated like that. I’m supervising now, and I received a significant pay hike. But it still hurts to feel like one did all the things required to be a stellar employee and that no matter how good one is, if one complains about abuse it’s clear all the hard work put in doesn’t lead to the employee being valued.