Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is unacceptable conduct and should not be tolerated in a working environment. Management at all levels should be committed to creating and maintaining and environment conducive to maximum productivity and respect for human dignity. Sexual harassment destroys teamwork and is detrimental to the success of the organizational business strategy. An organization builds its success on how well each employee accomplishes their daily work assignments. A successful working environment can only be achieved in an environment free of sexual harassment for all personnel.

Sexual harassment negatively affects how well the organization performs. Any manager and supervisor, who use or condone any form of sexual harassment behaviors to control, influence or affect the career, pay or job of an employee is engaging in sexual harassment. Similarly, any employee, regardless of his or her employment status, who makes deliberate or repeated unwelcome verbal comments, gestures, or physical contact of a sexual nature, is engaging in sexual harassment (The Free Dictionary).

Sexual harassment is defined as "unwanted sexual approaches (including touching, feeling, groping) and/or repeated unpleasant, degrading and/or sexist remarks directed toward an employee with the implied suggestion that the target's employment status, promotion or favorable treatment depend upon a positive response and/or "cooperation." (The Free Dictionary )Sexual harassment can occur with or without an individual knowing that his or her behavior is offending a person or a group of people. The key word in the definition is unwanted or welcome; this is prohibited by the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1998, the United States Supreme Court made employers more liable for sexual harassment of their employees. (Commission)

There are two different types of sexual harassment that have been recognized in employment law: Quid Pro Quo and Hostile Environment. Quid Pro Quo is a Latin term meaning "this for that". This term refers to conditions placed on a person's career or terms of employment in return for sexual favors. It involves threats of adverse action if the person does not submit or promises of favorable actions if the person does not submit. Examples include demanding sexual favors in exchange for a promotion; award for favorable assignments or projects; disciplining or firing an employee for refusing sexual advancements and a poor job evaluation. Incidents of "quid pro quo" may also have an effect on third persons in the workplace.

Hostile Environment occurs when employees are subjected to offensive, unwanted and unsolicited comments and behaviors of a sexual nature. A hostile environment can bring the topic of sex or gender differences into the workplace in any one of a number of forms. It does not have to include the more blatant acts of "quid pro quo." Examples include the use of derogatory gender-bias terms, comments about body parts, suggestive pictures, explicit jokes and unwanted touching (Global Compliance Company).

Impact vs. Intent is used to view incidents of sexual harassment. Employees may consider to be joking or horseplay must be evaluated on its appropriateness and offensiveness as perceived by the recipient. Assessing whether a behavior is appropriate or offensive must be done from the perspective of the victim, not the alleged harasser. An excuse such as "I was only joking" is irrelevant. When a complaint is filed, the impact of the incident or series of incidents is reviewed and evaluated from the complainant's perspective. However, whether or not the victim is emotionally affected and/or willingly submitted to the behavior of the harasser is also irrelevant in determining an incident of sexual harassment. The only relevant question to be answered is "was the behavior appropriate or inappropriate" as it relates to the organization's policy on sexual harassment.

The Reasonable Person Standard is used to predict the expected reaction to or impact of perceived offensive behaviors on the recipient. The standard asks "How would a reasonable person under similar circumstances react or be affected by such behavior in certain incidents?" Because of our socialization, men and women can watch the same behavior, but have a very different perspective about what they saw, and what they were feeling when the incident occurred (SHRM).

Verbal sexual harassment include telling sexual jokes and using profanity, threats, sexually oriented music, sexual comments, whistling, and describing certain sexual attributes about one's physical appearance. Terms of endearment such as "honey", "babe", sweetheart", "dear", "stud", or "hunk" in referring of co-workers. Non-verbal sexual harassment includes starring at someone (undressing someone with one's eyes), blowing kisses, winking, or licking of one's lips in a suggestive manner. It also includes displaying of sexually oriented pictures; cartoons and using sexually oriented screen savers (Headquarters, 2012)

Physical contact sexual harassment includes touching, patting, pinching, bumping, grabbing, corning or blocking passageway, kissing, and providing unsolicited back and neck rubs. Sexual assault and rape are often mistaken as physical forms of sexual harassment. These are criminal acts and should be reported immediately to law enforcement agencies.

Sexual harassment at work is an unwelcome or uninvited behavior of sexual natures, which is offensive, embarrassing, intimidating or humiliating and may affect an employee's work performance, wellbeing, profession or living. In sexual harassment cases, the most major harm to the human being is psychological (Forensic Psychological). There are other damages, such as loss of job or promotional opportunities, loss of pay