Sex Harassment Can O' Worms?

SamanthaQ · December 2004

I need some advice or opinions on your experience. We have an e-mail policy and a sexual harassment policy. Both of which describe what is innapropriate in terms of sexual content/harassment. We also just had EVERYONE trained in October on Harassment.

Yesterday I find an e-mail that has been circulating (forwarded several times inside the company and even to oustiders) of an innapropriate animated picture. Most of the employees forwarding it don't have disciplinary issues. I was thinking written warning for this first offense. Now I'm concerned that they may ask "what about the other e-mail so and so sent around last week or last month, etc..?". i.e. will I be getting all kinds of reports now and how should I handle that - my first thought is that I have to investigate all of it if they bring up past issues as well.

I will say that we don't monitor employees e-mail consistently (however it is written in our policy that we can and that all communication by e-mail is to be considered business property). This e-mail happened to be sent to HR (not a bright move I might add) Any advice on how to handle the in-pouring of "other" complaints I think I'll get?

marc · December 2004

We had a similar situation. Our Exec Dir decided to give a final pass to all involved. A bit more training was given, this time with heavy emphasis that most of the lawsuits in this area rely heavily on internal electronic documentation to hang the company.

Then a graphic demonstration how the company's masthead accompanies each email in it's journey around the cyberworld - being displayed prominently everywhere it is sent.

We had demonstrated this before - but rather than write the whole company up, we went this route. Less than one week later we wrote up a highly placed EE. That write up got a lot of play in-house and incidents of this sort diminished to near zero.

SamanthaQ · December 2004

We've been discussing this further and checking e-mails to see who is forwarding this stuff on...we've have about 10 people that have spread it through our company.

We're thinking about pulling them all together presenting a written memo on why forwarding this type of e-mail is innapropriate and putting the memo regarding the meeting in their file. I'm a little uneasy with a group meeting but I think that's where it's headed.

Thanks Marc for the insight on how the company name can travel to the outside world...I don't think they think about that. You can bet everyone will be on guard after this is over!

SMace · December 2004

I would NOT do it as a group. Do it individually.

Don D · December 2004

I think the point of a company's sexual harassment policy is not so much to correct and monitor behavior as it is to protect the company and ensure we don't invite liability. Giving employees a pass and wiping the slate clean does neither. If these people were aware of your policy and had training and still violated the policy, they should be disciplined appropriately.

Discipline reveals to an investigative agency that the company took it seriously and reacted appropriately, or that they at least reacted. That goes a long way in absolving the company. Deciding to 'wipe everybody's slate clean and start over' isn't going to be very convincing to an investigator or a hearing official; in fact it will send the message that the employer did not really take its own policy seriously, since it turned a blind eye.

As to the issue of what might come out of the woodwork should you investigate and discipline, I would say 'what will be will be'. Deal with it as it rolls out. The worst possible reason to not investigate is because of what you fear you might find out.

jmcaa · December 2004

If you have a small company, maybe an employee meeting of everyone would be the route to go. Using the circulating e-mail as an example of what is inappropriate, I would make the point that any inappropriate e-mail circulated throughout the company or outside the company using company property (i.e. computers, etc.) will be disciplined.

We also have a policy, but I still receive some e-mail from a higher up that I sometimes consider inappropriate. Things like this happen, especially when your company workers are more like extended family members.

But, I believe if you use the circulating e-mail as an example of what is inappropriate you may get better results from your employees.

Any incidents after that meeting, I would use discipline procedures.

SamanthaQ · December 2004

Thanks for the advice - we did decide on individual meetings. The first one didn't go well. The employee forwarded the innapropriate e-mail to her home e-mail address because a manager told her it was okay to do that. She wants the disciplinary action removed from her file because the manager told her it was okay to handle it this way and she never forwarded the e-mail to anyone else. I think forwarding it home still has the company name on it and who knows where it goes from there? However I do want to show support for the manager as well.....??

dchr9203 · December 2004

I say if you have a clearly written and communicated policy, then let her take responsibilty for her own actions. If I knew the policy said not to, and my manager said to, then I have to choose to follow the policy or listen to my manager. She chose to disobey the policy, period.

Sex Harassment Can O' Worms?

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