Q&A WITH VIC ALBERT
Employers should take steps now to remove potential sexual harassment
Q: Sexual harassment allegations are rampant in Hollywood these days. Is harassment still common across all industries?
A: Yes, unfortunately. Workplace harassment continues to be one of the main subjects of complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and the number of complaints has increased each of the past two years. Harassment often is found in situations where one person is in a position of authority over those who are harassed, or whom are allegedly harassed. Q: Why does this problem persist? A: The EEOC reports that much of the training done over the past 30 years hasn’t worked as a prevention tool — it’s been too focused on simply avoiding legal liability. As the EEOC notes, workplace culture has the greatest impact on allowing harassment to flourish, or conversely, in preventing harassment. Effective harassment prevention efforts, and workplace cultures in which harassment isn’t tolerated, must start with and involve the highest level of management. Moreover, at all levels, across all positions, an organization must have systems in place that hold employees accountable for this expectation.
Q: What can employers do to address potential issues? A: Every employer should have appropriate policies in place prohibiting discrimination, harassment and retaliation of any form. Employers must inform employees of the relevant policies, and employees must have an effective way to report harassment.
Q: In what ways have anti-harassment policies been deficient in the past?
A: Most anti-harassment policies have an ineffective statement of when and to whom reports of harassment are required to be made. The policy needs to have a clear instruction to immediately report harassment, and it needs to provide several effective options of persons or job positions to which reports are to be made. It must assure the employee that reports will be fully investigated, will be kept confidential to a “need to know” basis, and that the employee won’t be retaliated against for making the report.
Q: What about consensual relationships between employees?
A: The best practice is to implement a “consensual relationship” policy as part of the anti-harassment policies. This policy instructs couples who enter into a dating or sexual relationship that each is required to report the relationship to the human relations department and to the next highest level of management in the company or agency. If one employee has a position of authority over the other, then the employer takes steps to change that chain of command. That goes a long way toward protecting the employer from a quid pro quo harassment complaint if the relationship then ends in a bad way. If both parties didn’t report the relationship as required by the policy, then the employer will be in a better position to have any “after the fact” complaint dismissed by the EEOC or a court.