sexual harrassment question

aliciac

We have an employee who stares inappropriately at female co-workers. Before I was in HR at this company I worked in the same store as this person and hated that he would always stare, and it is definately at the chest that he is staring. He isn't subtle about it and other co-workers have even noticed (males). The problem is that I never said anything because I would have been just as uncomfortable to talk about it as I was to just deal with it. Now I'm the HR person, and my sister works for the company. She is very pretty and is being very stared at constantly by this person. She is going to talk to her manager (my old manager) about it today and mention the fact that it has happened to other people (and she will likely mention me). We're a smaller company and I'm the only HR person. How do I handle this when it reaches my desk? I find this person to be very creepy and I'll have been mentioned as one of his 'victims' I don't think that I can look at it objectively. What should I do?

Gillian3

Don't wait for a complaint or a lawsuit. Go talk to the guy about the perceptions that exist and the problems that will occur when a complaint is made. Give him an opportunity to correct the behavior.

aliciac

Should this be something that I do, or should the first 'warning' be from his manager?

Gillian3

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-22-05 AT 12:02PM (CST)[/font][br][br]I think that you should, that way you can give him an opportunity to change his behavior without creating a big deal from his manager. Hopefully, he will appreciate the observation and they low key way you deal with it. If he doesn't respond, then consider going to the manager.

System

But there IS a complaint. Your sister has complained to you. It doesn't matter how formal or informal, you have knowledge of the complaint. I trust you have a sexual harassment policy that directs employees to contact his/her supervisor or HR. Your supervisor should be trained to interview your sister and get a written statement. You should meet with the offending male and counsel him. He may not even know that his looks are offensive, but nevertheless, he needs to be told that it is. Caution everyone about the confidentiality of the issue. Handle it quickly; like today.

TN HR

You should recuse yourself from this. Hire a third-party investigator to handle it starting now, don't wait. Deal with it swiftly.

zen

I assume that you may be concerned that being named as a person who has been on the receiving end of his stares, that you may be asked why you didn't complain about his behavior when it was directed at you. Now that you are in a position of managing the human rescources for your company and protecting the company from Title VII complaints, you may feel that you will be blamed for allowing the behavior to continue and thus allowing the company to be placed in a liability situation.

You may want to have your company attorney conduct the investigation into the harassment complaint, but let that attorney know ahead of time what is going on on your side of this particular fence. Explain to the attorney that you don't feel you could objectively investigate and that you want to protect your company from any further claim that may be made from the alleged harasser that he was treated unfairly by HR. I wouldn't hold back any information and I would make the call today.

aliciac

Yes, I am worried about being blamed for not saying something before.
My sister has already spoken to her manager and he is moving on it from there. I know (because she's my sister) that all she wants is for the behaivior to stop, she isn't going to sue, nor does she want this person to be fired. I'm hoping this ends up being a lot smaller of a deal than I making it in my head.
Thank you all for your good advice, I'll keep you posted as to what happens in the next day or so.

LivindonSouth

If I understand correctly, he was staring at you before you got the HR job. You had no absolute obligation to do anything, although you had a right and an avenue I presume. It is typical for persons treated like you were to not come forward and there is nothing wrong with that. One of the behavioral objectives of someone like him is to intimidate and it worked on lots of you probably. You just wanted to move on and have it end.

There will be no recrimination for your not having come forward back then. Nor should there be. If anyone should ask you why you did not complain, your only answer need be, "I just did not feel comfortable doing it." Any trained and experienced investigator has encountered a hundred people who could have come forward but for good reasons (to them at the time) did not. You should not feel the least bit of grief or guilt over that!

LivindonSouth

All the good answers are in the first five posts. But, let me go ahead and fast forward about 15 posts where I would normally say something about an appropriate assembly of uncles and brothers. The guy knows perfectly well what he's doing. Sometimes a more direct 'counseling' approach needs to be off to the side as a 'plan B'. I don't condone violence, mind you, but a little gentle persuasion might be a beginning.

zen

I did not say that she is responsible for allowing this behavior or situation to continue; nor did I say that she had done anything wrong. I stated what I thought she was feeling and trying to convey to us.

I have been in similar circumstances - the first paragraph of my post was a result of empathy and an attempt to clarify her possible point of view -the second paragraph was the advice given to me when I was faced with a similar issue. Sorry if my post was confusing.

Not everyone has an assembly of brothers, uncles and cousins who would normally educate (or influence in a non-violent manner) a jerk like this on the correct way to address a lady.

LivindonSouth

I was referring to post number 8 in which I sensed the poster felt that she might be called to task for not having reported earlier.

zen

It's cool. I just hoped that ya'll didn't think I was taking her to task.

LivindonSouth

They all know that I am the only one you take to task. But as soon as you let me out of the woodshed, just like with my daddy, I do it all over again. x:-)

aliciac

I'm glad to hear that you folks don't think I would get into any trouble, I was a bit worried about that being that I'm in HR right now.
The store manager was told about the situation yesterday by my sister as I mentioned. He spoke with the offender who was apparently completely unaware that staring at people like that was offensive. He was told that a customer had complained about it and not an employee, and that if there is an additional complaint he will be futher disciplined up to and including termination.
So far so good though, he is actually looking away from females at the moment.

lorrie

Not too long ago a female employee came to me with the same sort of complaint about a new male employee. I called him in, with his supervisor present, and told him that a female employee complained of being uncomfortable about the way he stares at her. He pleaded ignorant (I haven't been staring) and I said, Well, something about the way you are looking at the females is making them uncomfortable, so whether you are doing it on purpose or not, be aware of it and stop it. If I get further complaints, then we will have a full investigation and there will be consequences up to and including termination.

In this case, that conversation seemed to make a difference and there were no more problems. I hope it works out that way in your case.

LivindonSouth

When I encounter a man who professes to be that ignorant of proper bahavior, at some point in the conversation I will tell him "You treat women here like you would expect your mother or your sister to be treated". It's amazing that people grow to be adults and profess to have no idea that staring at people is offensive.

aliciac

I agree, and the way he does it is so insanely obvious. Other employees have pulled myself and my sister aside and said they noticed how obvious his staring is. He has to know he's doing it because as he walks past a female he keeps his eyes fixed on her as he walks past which of course causes his head to turn as he gets past where the female is. His staring is also paired with the fact that he is generally not freindly, my sister has worked here for 2 months now and he stares at her every day every time he walks past her and has never once said good morning or even introduced himself to her. It's just creepy, but hopefully he is now been made aware that it's not appropriate and won't continue the behavior. We're going to start a new round of sexual harrassment training next month, so hopefully that will help it sink in a bit more as well.

HRinFL

Why would the manager say that a customer complained? I can't understand why the manager did not just say that he had received a complaint from a female co-worker and leave it at that? This guy basically admitted to staring at women, although he payed dumb and said he did not know it was offensive, so there was no need to disclose who the complaint came from. I just never think it is a good idea to be deceptive about where a complaint came from.

aliciac

I'm not exactly sure why he did it that way. He could have easily just said, "There has been a complaint" and left it at that, if he had said that it was 'a female co-worker' that would have narrowed it down considerably since I am no longer on the same floor as he is and now the only female employees are my sister (attrractive and 24 years old) and a sales lady who is in her 50's and overweight, so he would have known exactly who the complaint came from and I'm sure the manager didn't want to make the situation more uncomfortable for her.

WT

In this case you have personal knowledge which is very helpful in any HR investigation. However, I notice a very strong strain through the string of comments that anyone so accused must be guilty and must know he is guilty. No matter what the accusation is, we should always try to get at and get out the facts. We should not do it from a viewpoint that the person is certainly guilty. I have seen a good many investigations over the years and when the facts are all out on the table, the final picture is often quite different than the picture painted when the issue first came to my office. I thought that the concept of threatening somebody until they confess or punishing somebody whether there was any evidence at all went out about a thousand years ago.

aliciac

I agree, and we certainly didn't threaten him, we just let him know that a complaint had been made regarding the way he stares at women (both customers and employees) and he seems to have corrected his behavior for now.

WT

I was thinking more on the comments of male relatives coming in, the person knows what he is doing, etc. Sometimes the attitude of HR comes out in the message and is very crucial. We also must understand the incredible variation of ethics, standards, and upbringing that come to work together every day. Thus, what is totally acceptable around one kitchen table is absolutely taboo at another. Therefore, (you need to change, not necessarily because you are a bad person or evil, but because you are upsetting co-workers and disrupting the workplace). People can change with coaching and people do have habits arrived at over the years that they may not even think about. Further, the coaching needs to be geared to the individual. Some employees need to be hit pretty hard before they even pay any attention, others will take it to heart and remember it for the rest of their lives. We have a tendency to be harder on and more direct with men because, "they can take it". This may not necessarily be true. I have been in the business long enough that I have had employees (in those rare candid moments when they were being very open with me) tell me about issues that bothered them. Such things often consist of comments, coaching, reviews or discipline to include comments I may have made years and years ago. We need to do our jobs and HR has its unpleasant aspects, but even the person "in the wrong" is a human being. The fact that we can cause sleepless nights and bitter memories by our words should make us choose them with care.