When HR Is Harassed: What Then?

In the September issue of HR magazine there is an article written by attorney V. John Ella of Jackson Lewis LLP entitled HR vs. HR. (You will have to look it up.) He talks about a number of different situations where an HR employee becomes a plaintiff in a lawsuit against her employer. ("Her" is the appropriate term to use given that 75% of HR employees are women.) I am not going to write about the entire article, I will let you read it, and it is worth it.

But, one example he used is well worth discussion. I have never really thought about this situation. His case involved a female HR employee (am I being redundant?) sued her employer for sexual harassment. She claimed she was harassed by the CEO and had no recourse for filing a complaint, because, (do you see what is coming?) the employee handbook said that any employee with a complaint of sexual harassment had to report it to HR or to the CEO. She had no where to turn.

That gave me pause and I asked myself  "Self... how many handbooks out there have a policy written just like that?" I know most of the ones I have seen are written just that way and they never have an allowance for HR being the harassed party. Perhaps that is because of my male perspective. No one has ever harassed me, at least not since I have been in HR. (There was this one time with a female boss a long time ago.... but you will have to take one of my classes to hear that story.)

So my question is this: Have you female HR employees written your handbooks differently? Is there an option for you reporting sexual harassment, especially if the other person in the reporting heirarchy is the harasser? What have you done? This can be especially problematic in smaller companies.

Lawyer Ella, in the summation of his article, suggests that you "Make sure your sexual harassment policy provided guidance for an HR employee to report harassment." Unfortunately he does not provide any guidance on what this may be. So I will tender a few suggestions. Perhaps the following parties could be included in the policy:

• A member of the Board of Directors
• An outside employment attorney retained for such an event
• An EAP, set up to handle such a complaint
• An HR consultant, retained for such an event

These are a few suggestions. You can do it if you want or not. Of course you can always leave it to the plaintiff's attorney and the EEOC. They will be happy to help solve the problem.

I would love to have someone share what they consider to be an effective harassment policy. You can post it in the comment section or you can find an email link on the panel to the right of this post.

Don't Use Sexual Harassment to Sell Doughnuts

Quik Trip is a chain of convienience stores in 10 states. They have a heavy representation in the State of Georgia, over a hundred stores. I am a frequent customer. They are clean, well lighted at night, and their employees are efficient and generally friendly. I even enlisted them one time to come to a job fair I was hosting at a local high school. So what I am about to say does not come from a dislike of the company or its business.

I heard one of their radio ads the other morning and I was APPALLED! Here is the scenario of the ad. A woman in an office is having to fend off the attention of a co-worker wants to date her. He is persistent and pushy. He promises to stop asking her for a date if she will go out one time for coffee with him. She relents and she picks Quik Trip for a cup of coffee... and oh, a doughnut, because it is quick, with the emphasis on the quick. That way she can be done with him in short order and not have to endure a disagreeable date.

Well perhaps it is my HR sensabilities but I practically screamed at the radio "YOU CAN'T USE SEXUAL HARASSMENT TO SELL DOUGHNUTS!" I can guarantee the marketing person that put that ad together was not a woman. Too many women in business and school have to deal with this kind of crappy situation. And they should not have to. This woman in the commericial should have been reporting this jerk to her boss or HR department rather than accepting a "date" that could lead to an unsafe situation.

I would encourage Quik Trip to drop this ad as soon as possible and to encourge their ad agency to engage in some sexual harassment training awareness because obviously they don't get it. (BTW, I happen to know a consultant that could help them with that. ) Perhaps in the future they need to have HR screen some of the ads.

But as a lesson to everyone, DON'T USE SEXUAL HARASSMENT TO SELL ANYTHING.

Be a Bit Better at HR by the end of the day: Blog Posts You Should Read

Here are links to six blogs I think you should read. Aren't I nice for saving you the time of finding the good ones? LOL

1. Seth Godin, When Smart People Are Hard to Understand. Great advice on making yourself smarter when you don't understand something said. Clue: Acting like you know is not it!


2. Kris Dunn at the HR Capitalist, If you think HR owns turnover, you are already dead. Great story of what should be said to a manager who want HR to take ownership of the manager's problem.


3. Ann Bares at Compensation Cafe, The Excuses you may NOT use to defend gender pay disparities. With equitable compensation so prominent in the news these days this is an important tidbit of information.


4. Michael Moore at The Pennsylvania Labor and Employment Blog, Employment Law Implications of obesity and BMI after the ADA Amendments Act. Michael discusses some of the technical implications of being considered "overweight" and makes a prediction on whether or not obesity becomes a protected catagory or not. Wanna make a prediction on his prediction???


5. KJK, The Ohio Employer's Law Blog. 3 Lessons in handling workplace harassment. Harassment, especially sexual harassment, is still alive and well in the workplace. Here is a case and the lessons that can be learned from it.


6. Cathy Martin, Profitability Through Human Capital. Hey HR, please no more TABLE talk. If you have been in HR for any period of time you will get this one and agree. Time for action not talk.

Well that is enough for one Friday. There are about another 25 I could (and probably should) include on this list. But if you read these today you will be a better HR person at the end of the day.

"Sticky" Supervisory Training: It Has To Last To Make It Work

Attorney Mindy Chapman, who writes for HR Specialist, uses the term "click and stick" to describe what supervisory training in HR must be like. I love that term! Supervisors must understand why it is important to be trained in human resources. They have to sit down at the training table and understand that they are the first line for potential problems. Companies suffer as a result of the actions of supervisors and managers. If they understand this then you have the "click" part of training.

However, most times supervisors only get periodic training. If they are lucky they get it annually. Most get it ONCE in their supervisory career. This violates the principles of reinforcement theory which says that if you want to get behavior you have to consistently reinforce that behavior. This means that if you want training to "stick" HR has consistently reinforce supevisors doing the right HR stuff. Lack of harassment complaints, discrimination complaints, lack of turnover, etc. should be a integral part of a supevisor's performance evaluation. Without this constant reminder the training given on one day will not "stick" very long. Parents with children in potty training age understand this principle. One sit down session does not do it. There has to be consistent and constant reinforcement of the desired behavior of clean pants. So set the goal of "no messy diapers" for all your supervisors.

NASCAR Sued For Harassment: What a Wreck for HR

The headline screams Former official sues NASCAR over harassment claims. Is anyone in HR surprised by this? A black woman official suffers multiple incidents of both racial and sexual harassment. She complains and then is fired. So now there is retaliation as well. This is going to cost NASCAR big time!

But no one, especially HR folks should be surprised this occurred. The history of sexual harassment is rife with example after example of women taking on roles in traditionally male oriented fields or jobs and being subjected to countless acts of hostile environment harassment. And the history of racial harassment has been the same way, only there it was both disparate treatment and disparte impact.

Given this history, that is over 30 years long, you would think that when NASCAR, a bastion of white males, has a black female (or female of any race) join the fold they would be prepared for situations. You would think HR would be sensitive and would not only head off situations but would certainly respond quickly and vigorously to any complaint. But apparently not because the HR manager is named in the lawsuit. Shame on them. They should never work in HR again!

The lesson to the rest of us, if you have not learned it before now, is that when you are going to mix races and sexes in areas where they are not traditionally mixed you had better be prepared for trouble. Training, response time, investigation, discipline all need to be planned for and instituted as quickly as possible. If you don't you will probably get what you deserve. In my opinion NASCAR is going to take a big hit, one that it definately deserves.

Sex and Guns: Challenges for Employers

Making the news here in the SE US, Georgia in particular, has been the story of an office romance that has caused the employer difficult times. Office romances have always been problematic for employers. This one, involving the head of The Department of Transportation and the Chairman of the Board that oversees the DOT, has ended poorly, with the DOT being the big loser. The Chairman resigned last week because of the relationship and the Head of the DOT has a hearing today on whether she should retain her position. So two talented people may be off the job and the DOT will be scrambling. They violated agency policy which prohibits that type of personal relationship.

Office romances cause employers headaches. The company may try to prohibit them but they can prevent them. After all people who work together all day long may have a tendency to form those relationships. Some are single, some are not. Some of these relationships are successful, many are not. The employer ends up with the burden of monitoring these relationships because of the liabiltiy that failed relationships may bring in the area of sexual harassment. You even have to monitor people around the couple in question because they may find their behavior to create a hostile environment. This is particularly the case when the pair involved are in a "superior-subordinate" relationship as in the DOT case. So what needs to be done? Ban them? Fire people involved? Require one to quit? (Have to be careful here about sexual discrimination.) Give me some feedback. Take the poll to the left.

So much for the sex part of today's post. Now to the guns post. Florida just passed and signed into law a gun rights law that allows employees to carry guns in their cars. Employers cannot prohibit it. Georgia has passed a similar law, though it has not yet been signed into law. Employers are encouraging the Governor to veto this law. The Georgia law does have some allowance for prohibiting guns on company property as long as the employer owns the parking lot. To see a good post on the Florida law read Kris Dunn's post at HR Capitalist entitled Dealing With Employees Who Are "Strapped" - Guns in Cars...

Want To Make A Change In HR? Speak Up!

A favorite author of mine, someone I consider an unofficial mentor, Harvey Mackay, wrote a weekly newsletter entitled "Find the courage to speak up and face challenges." He was discussing worklife in general and had a number of good quotes. But it got me to thinking about the application to the field of human resources.

If you get together a group of HR people quite often they sit around bitching and moaning about how bad things are in their job, their company or in their field (actually an activity common to groups of employees in general.) They gripe about management not listening to them, not having "their place at the table", not being proactive, laws being passed that are ridiculous or difficult to work with, etc. When asked why they are still there, or why management doesn't listen to them, or what they did about the law being passed what you hear is mostly excuses. Typically the gripers don't do or say anything about the situation.

Well if you find yourself in that group pay attention to Mackay's words, from a story he relates, "...That inspired him to speak up whenever something didn't work. He says it was the beginning of his realization that you have to make up your mind to speak up if you really want to change things." He further advises "Chances are, others share your concern. It takes courage to speak up—perhaps there's a fear of retaliation, concern about being labeled a complainer, or a reluctance to rock the boat. Stay calm, be logical and present your case in a clear and positive way. No whining! Waiting to see if things get better on their own really isn't a reasonable strategy."

If management doesn't listen to you, ask why. Want a place at the table? Ask what has to be done to get there. Don't like a law that is pending? Write your federal or state representative and express your informed, professional opinion. Not allowed to be proactive? Ignore it an do something about it. Courage!

In HR, when we deal with a sexual harassment situation we often ask the "victim" if they have said something to the harasser. We encourage people to do so, to stand up and say something. Yet quite often we do not stand up for ourselves. We adopt a victim mentality about HR not changing.

It is not hard to find examples of people exhibiting that courage. Find someone and use them as an example. One of my favorite bloggers, Kris Dunn of The HR Capitalist likes to rock the boat. Read him for a dose of courage or guidance on how to address something.

Poking the beast with a sharp stick to see if it is awake can be exhilarating every once in awhile! Give it a try. LOL