When you think about your employment risks (assuming you think about them at all), what do include in that process? Are you expecting employees to walk up to you and say something directly to your face? Or have you and your supervisors been trained to pay attention to the more subtle clues that the company has been put “on notice” for something?
Let’s look at a situation: You’re a supervisor working in your office when you realize you can overhear three female employees talking in the hallway outside your office. One says, “Can you believe Tom mentioned sex during yesterday’s sales meeting?” The second says, “Oh, he always talks like that.” The third responds, “Yeah, he always seems to have sex on the mind.” Should you, or are you required to, do anything? Do you consider this “water cooler talk” and ignore it since they didn’t know you could hear? Or do you take action and, if so, what type of action?
Let’s take our situation a step further. Three months later, during your annual sales meeting, a female employee files a complaint alleging that Tom raped her at the hotel. This complaint obviously requires an investigation so I’m not going whether or not you’ll have one conducted. What I want to know is how your company may be affected?
Regardless of your response to the original situation, the complaint that came later makes what you overheard much more believable and serious, doesn’t it? Guess what, the court and jury are going to agree. In fact, any supervisor overhearing employees talk about any type of harassment … whether they know you’re listening or not … is considered sufficient to put your company “on notice” of harassment and requires action by the company.
While it’s a nice dream to think employees will always be up front with you and know the proper way to phrase things so you see a big red flag at that particular moment, that rarely happens. Your company should have a policy that ensures every supervisor is aware of their responsibility and a process on what to do with information learned about possible harassment.
When your company is put on notice in some way, the clock starts ticking. What that means is that a court and jury will look at your actions from the moment they feel you did, or should have, known there might be a problem. If, in the original situation, you didn’t do anything it’s going to look as if the company doesn’t care. Look at it from the jury’s viewpoint… you knew there might be a problem but you didn’t act and it resulted in an alleged rape case. Needless to say, this will really cost you when a decision comes down.
On the other hand, if you immediately reported what you heard, it will show that your company is serious about providing a harassment-free environment because you acted quickly and followed procedure.
Protect your company by making sure your supervisors are well-trained in the various ways harassment may appear in the workplace… and what to do about it. Oh, it might help them be more diligent if you mention that, in California, supervisors may be personally sued in some cases!
