What would you do if one of your Staff did this at work?

At EEO Specialists we get to hear all sorts of inappropriate things staff say and do to each other.

Here’s a few of my ‘favourites’-

• George emailed all of the employees of a health practice a joke, in which the punch line alluded to oral sex.
• A senior male manager sent multiple emails to a junior female employee he supervised about her appearance, saying she was very attractive and ‘special’ to him, amongst other comments.
• Mary, a health fanatic, walked up to another female colleague and snatched a biscuit out of her mouth saying she didn’t need to eat it and later prepared and gave her (unsolicited) an exercise and diet regime.
• Mark, a maintenance guy, sent a text message to a male work colleague which had a picture of 2 naked men from the waist down and in the subject heading it said, “Don’t be gay just because it’s Friday!”

These are just a few of the real stories we hear in our work (real names have been changed).

Do you feel confident that if one of your managers or supervisors witnessed or read one of these behaviours they would know how to handle it appropriately?

Not only are the above actions inappropriate but the other problem we see are people in a position of authority who either ignore or badly handle the situation, thereby making it worse.

The result is that the liability for the mismanagement of the problem usually falls on the shoulders of the employer.

If a manager knew the 3 step process to identifying and managing complaints then the result would be a lot of quickly and successfully resolved problems.

Did you know that under Equal Opportunity Legislation an Employer would be responsible for all of these people’s behaviours unless it could show, amongst other things that it had provided regular training to its employees about what their rights and responsibilities were in relation to harassment, discrimination and bullying?
Zulu Labs have developed, in conjunction with EEO Specialists, a series of on-line modules that tick off the training requirement for employers.

This post was provided to us by our content Partner – EEO Specialists. To view our modules click here.