What employers can do to prevent workplace sexual harassment and discrimination?

For the most part, employers must take proactive measures to prevent workplace sexual harassment. This can reduce their chances of being held liable in civil lawsuits. Every employer is required by law to make a ‘reasonable effort’ to prevent and stop any form of sexual harassment and discrimination. There are certain steps that they can take to do so.

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What are the steps that employers must take?

The EEOC has prescribed steps that all employers must initiate to meet the standards that define reasonable effort. To begin with, the employee must have a strong anti-harassment policy that must be made available to all employees. They must also devise a system that can be used by victims to lodge complaints.

Sexual harassment lawyers say that merely having an anti-harassment policy is not enough. The employer must publicize the policy frequently through updates on the company website, emails, and posting the policy on boards frequented by staff. And if your name is Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (Jennifer Aniston – Horrible Bosses) you should not try to have sex with one of your employees during working hours, on top of a patient, in the office, and so on. Also blackmailing your employees such as Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) is also uncalled for. In addition, if they already have a significant other which Arbus did the chances of this blowing up in your face increase mightily as what happened in this funny movie. Much more happened in the movie as well.

The notices that are circulated must also include the procedures for reporting harassment and specify that the victims will not face any kind of retaliation for reporting an incident. Legal experts caution that if employers fail to take action following a sexual harassment complaint, they are liable to be named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit.

Complaint Procedures

The anti-harassment policy must contain a section on the complaint procedure which must be as simple as possible for everyone to follow. The employer must designate multiple persons authorized to receive such complaints and not a single individual. This way the victim is not made to report the harassment to someone who might be the perpetrator. Sexual harassment attorneys recommend that employers ought to designate people who are not in the direct command chain. For example, a HR manager who is in charge of a separate department can be such a person. Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S.’s office did not have an HR department so someone else as already mentioned would have to be named.

In addition, the employer must also state in the policy how the management will respond after a complaint is received. They must assure the victim of prompt action as soon as the complaint is received as well as tell him/her that the management will keep the matter confidential.

Do all these steps protect the employer from a civil lawsuit?

There is no such guarantee, since it is tough for the employer to prove that he had taken all possible measures in the court of law. However, what the employer can do is to deliver on the promises. In the opinion of sexual harassment lawyers if the employer can prove that the management took prompt action to stop the harasser, they might escape serious penalties. An employer who has all the harassment policies and complaint mechanisms in place but did nothing to enforce the policy does not evoke sympathy from the jury.

Under what circumstances can an employer evade liability?

The employer has a fair chance of freeing the company from getting entangled in  a civil lawsuit if the  management can prove that they took all possible steps to prevent the harassment and that they had enforced all the policies and complaint mechanisms but the complainant failed to take advantage of the mechanisms in place and without a plausible reason.

If you are an employer who needs help with a harassment policy or has been named as a defendant in a harassment or discrimination lawsuit, the best help can come from a sexual harassment lawyer. Your legal representative will determine ways you can be exonerated from the case and save you potentially thousands and thousands of dollars in the process.