Workplace Harassment

Answer:

As a proficient Delaware County Business Lawyer, I get questions all the time from clients about harassment in the workplace.

Harassment in the workplace in Pennsylvania is a very serious condition that can take place in several different ways. It can be based on gender, age, or another particular bullying conduct.

The best way for you as an employer to deal with harassment is to have a process and the process that is clearly laid out in their employee handbook. The policy should be known to all individuals in your company. They should know what behaviors can put them at risk of a harassment charge, and what to do if they experience it themselves. You must educate employees about what harassment is and how to report it. It’s also important to encourage employees to report harassment when it happens.

As a knowledgeable Delaware County Employment Lawyer, a lot of the times an employee will say, “I’m afraid because it came from a supervisor,” or, “I’m afraid because it may affect my job.”

There are two reasons it’s important for them to report the harassment:
1. You want the improper conduct to stop.

2. You don’t want the conduct to get worse and end up in litigation, where the victim says you were aware of the conduct but didn’t do anything about it.

To encourage reporting, it’s important to establish a process that is:
1. Confidential
2. Reported to somebody who is not involved in the harassment.

This can be difficult when the individual is a supervisor or the owner of the company.

To create a safe reporting process, appoint a neutral party who has some involvement with employees and is a supervisor of some kind — it could be your HR representative, for example — that employees can go to confidentially and say, “Joe is harassing me.”

It could be bullying conduct, sexual harassment in the terms of the way in which the employee is spoken to, inappropriate requests, or statements made to the employee.

That reporting process then takes a separate course of action. It becomes an obligation to investigate it, which means that:
1. It’s confidential
2. You investigate it by talking to the one who makes the complaint and then any witnesses that individual says also know about this. They overheard it, saw it, or anything of that nature that would support the claim.

Once you’ve done the investigation, and the key from your point of view is to document the investigation in a separate file and say I’ve investigated it and I’ve found from this investigation that the merits are true. As a result of this, I then must take steps to discipline the offending employee. If you fail to do so, you’re going to be subject to further litigation by the recipient of the harassment.

What he or she is going to say is, “You’ve made my workplace uncomfortable. I cannot come to work every day. I am emotionally upset, and I am going to see my psychologist or my doctor because I’ve had certain symptoms associated with this and I really can’t come to work anymore.”

If this happens, the harassed employee is going to make a claim that says you should pay them for when they can’t work. At that point, you’ll need a remedy that deals with the offender and supports the individual who has been hurt.

It’s in your best interest to do this because once somebody gets bullied or harassed, it usually spreads through the workplace. Everyone will know about how the person was treated. If you didn’t handle the situation well, it will make for an unhappy workplace.

Deal with it. It’s unpleasant but having a procedure in place protects people from harassment and provides a way to deal with it if it does happen. Report it, deal with it, and take care of it.

This educational blog was brought to you by experienced Employment Attorney Walter J. Timby. Our law firm proudly represents clients throughout Delaware County, as well as Pennsylvania, the greater Philadelphia area, and New Jersey.

If you have any questions about how handle harassment complaints in the workplace, please contact our Delaware County Business Attorneys for a free case evaluation. Let our skills work for you.