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1. FEATURE STORY:
SEXUAL HARASSMENT OFTEN STARTS WITH
INAPPROPRIATE COMMENTS

According to the Novations Group's annual workplace ridicule survey, sexually offensive remarks were heard more often in 2007 than in 2006. Specifically, 42% of the 546 male and female employees surveyed reported hearing sexually offensive comments in the workplace, up from 34% in 2006.

While a sexually inappropriate remark here or there won't generally rise to the level of a hostile environment, such comments are often a precursor to a viable sex harassment claim. Here are two examples.

1. A male employee tells a female co-worker he finds attractive what he'd like to do to her if they were alone. He never touches her, but his comments become more frequent and more graphic.

2. A female employee corners a male colleague and propositions him. Whenever possible thereafter, she brushes against him, gives him a hug, or massages his shoulders.

Too many supervisors dismiss isolated comments until it's too late — until those comments become anything but isolated or the aggressor acts on his/her words. That's why it's imperative that your supervisors immediately discipline employees for:

• making verbal advances or propositions of a sexual nature;

• making graphic verbal commentaries about an individual's body;

• making sexually derogatory comments, epithets, slurs, and jokes; and

• using sexually derogatory words to describe an individual.

Stress to them that they must take disciplinary action even if the complaining employee does not feel physically threatened by the remarks; humiliation is an equal consideration, ruled the 11th Circuit. In the case before it, an executive allegedly "mortified" and "embarrassed" a female employee by failing to dispel rumors that they were a couple; telling people at a company event that she was not his date, but that he wished she were; and publicly offering her and her boyfriend $1 million if she would spend the night with him.

To learn what else they need to do to prevent sexual harassment from occurring in their departments, enroll your supervisors in AHI's Preventing Sexual Harassment Training Course, Supervisor Edition web conference, to be presented live on Wednesday, March 19.

2. CATHIE'S CORNER:
YOU DON’T ALWAYS HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of communication when there are layoffs going on. But there was one aspect I neglected to mention, and that is under what circumstances you should be keeping quiet.

I've been fielding a lot of questions this week from an employee who will be laid off when her department has a reduction-in-force (RIF) — next September. She doesn't quite understand that some of the final decisions will not be made until several months from now, and that right now the only answers she can be given are tentative ones.

The problem is that she is very persistent and sees the refusal on the part of HR or her manager to give her definite and binding answers right now as proof that there is what she calls "dirty work" involved.

It would be easy to simply quiet her down by giving her answers based on the information that is available today. But if those answers do not hold, which, in an RIF the size of this one, is quite possible, that would only create more difficulties, as she would see it as having been lied to. So, as difficult as it can be, the best answer that her manager can give her right now is no answer.

The only answer that I think should be given when the answer is not yet available, is that you will make sure your employees get the information as soon as the answers are clear. I have had some success with explaining that I do not have definite answers yet and I do not want to confuse the issue by giving information that might not be correct; so while I understand the employee's concern, I must hold off responding until I know that my answers are final.

Don't get me wrong. I still believe what I said before, that your very best way of controlling problems is to communicate. But if the information you communicate doesn't prove to be accurate, you lose your credibility. In the case of the employee above, there are still several months before anything will be finalized, so it will help neither the employer or the employee to give her information now that may prove inaccurate later.

Most employees will understand, appreciate your honesty, and be willing to wait until you have the final information. Occasionally, you will get one who does not understand that decisions about benefits, severance, outsourcing, etc., often go through many iterations before they are finalized. But they are generally the exception, rather than the rule, thankfully.

Sad as it is, few of us will ever escape having to deal with layoffs from one side of the desk or the other, maybe both. The watchword is communication, no question about that. But knowing when and what to communicate can make the difference between an easy process and a difficult one.

Catherine Bannon is an HR consultant in Marshfield, MA (catherine.bannon@gmail.com). Bannon worked for 10 years in HR management before starting her consulting practice.

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