Sexual harassment includes a request for sexual favors, verbal or physical harassment of any sexual nature and unwelcome sexual advances. The victim and the harasser may be of either gender with the harasser and not necessarily a co-worker or supervisor but a client. Sexual harassment may not necessarily be of a sexual nature and may include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. The victim should categorically tell the harasser to stop the harassment and then take the complaint to the body mandated to deal with such complaints in the organization for action to be taken. EEOC is mandated to look into the allegations with facts thereof being provided. According to Title VII, it is against the law for one to retaliate if a complaint of sexual harassment is filed against them (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2016).
These cases have been quite rampant in this day and age. The level of society’s perverseness has increased, and people have no regard for upholding morals, and this has been reflected in our workplace, streets, and society at large. Sexual harassment creates a hostile working environment which impacts in a negative way the services rendered by the employees in the organization, and this may transcend to the negative profitability of the organization. It is, therefore, necessary to create measures to curb sexual harassment so as to promote fairness in the workplace.
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Reason for Choosing Sexual Harassment as a Topic
The reason for choosing this topic has been necessitated by the rising number of sexual harassment cases reported in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC has the mandate to investigate any discrimination charges but in this case sexual harassment. The agency upon receiving the complaint tries to mediate with the employer to solve the situation a forehand. However, if such efforts become futile, the agency then conducts an investigation on whether to sue as an agency or for the complainant to sue by herself. Less than 8% of cases are filed where mediation has failed. There has been an ethical concern over sexual harassment cases in the country. There have been plenty of complaints that have filed against the franchise and corporate-owned restaurants in the country with EEOC. According to EEOC’s website, the number of sexual harassment cases reported has reduced since 2008 from15, 889 to11, 364 (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission , 2016).
In one example Cortez Maria who was an employee of McDonald in Flint, Michigan. She was complaining to the management about her shift manager sexually harassing her. She claimed that he could try to grab her and rub his genitalia against her body coupled with some verbal sexual comments. She, however, later on, quit her job when no action was taken against the perpetrator. Through Fight for $15 workers in McDonald demanded that their training manuals have zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment. The franchise restaurant line has been notorious with sexual harassment cases filed against it having in 2012 agreed to pay $1 million to settle sexual harassment claims. Preceding the award it had been claimed that male workers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin made their female counterparts kiss them forcefully and touched their private parts too (Patton ,2016).
Surprising thing/things about Sexual Harassment
What really surprised me about sexual harassment is that even when one talks offensively about the others sexual orientation or insinuates thereof the aforementioned then that is automatically considered as sexual harassment. Another thing that surprised me was the fact that sexual harassment has been so common against women in the workplace prompting women to grow resistant against and brand it as bother from their male counterparts according to a new study conducted by Michigan State University researchers(Michigan State University, 2011).
How Knowledge of Sexual Harassment will help in my Career
The knowledge of sexual harassment will help me in my career as a future human resource manager. Being in the department that directly deals with the employees I have to know all about the ethical requirements of the company. Knowledge of sexual harassment, in particular, will aid me in dealing with such cases if they arise and on how to avert them. This is because if they arise, they may affect the company’s reputation through lawsuits and negative publicity which may, in turn, lead to low-profit margins for the company. This then could, in the long run, lead to the collapse of the company.
Therefore knowledge on this topic of ethics will help me put into place proper and adequate human resource policies to prevent such cases. This, in turn, goes down to the employees and the company is assured of long-term loyalty and productivity from its employees (Ingram, 2016). It is actually very important for the company’s management to do away with cases of sexual harassment in the workplace through communication that sexual harassment shall not be tolerated and ensure they train the employees on sexual harassment. The management should also establish a complaint procedural process where the stern action is to be taken when an employee files a complaint (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2016).
Review of Garry Dessler’s Fundamental of Human Resource Management in regards to Sexual Harassment in the Work Place
Gary Dessler in his book Fundamentals of Human Resource Management discusses the issue of sexual harassment on page 32. He discusses how essential it is for an institution to have policies that pronounce themselves as against the vice of sexual harassment. He further notes that when the company or institution is confronted with that such a situation where sexual harassment has been observed then the company or institution should move swiftly to deal with the incident by addressing the complaint or stopping the conduct from occurring again. This he notes will aid the company to remain more stable through prudent human resource management unlike not dealing with the situation which may be quite catastrophic for the institution. Garry also touches on how managers in focusing on inclusion may help diversify the workforce and prevent cases of sexual harassment (Dessler, 2016).
Importance of Sexual Harassment in Business and Human Resource Courses
Sexual harassment is a very important topic to study in my human resource course and other business courses because it has equipped me with knowledge of man management when confronted with a sexual harassment complaint and ways of averting such cases as a future human resource manager. One is able to learn on the courses that they can train the company employees so they can get the knowledge required to shun sexual harassment practices and the policies that can be put into place for strict adherence by the employees to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is rampant and needs to be tamed as it may lead to the collapse of the company. Sexual harassment also may affect anyone of either gender, but as discussed earlier the female gender has been the most affected by the vice. It is therefore very important for a human resource manager of a company to employ various mechanisms such as employee training and policy framework on sexual harassment to help deter such practices in the workplace.
References
Dessler, G. (2016). Fundamentals of Human Resource Management (4thed). Florida: Florida International University .
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2016). Sexual Harassment . Retrieved from https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/fs-sex.cfm
Ingram, D. (2016). The Importance of Ethics in Human Resources . Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-ethics-human-resources-12780.html
Michigan State University (2011). Study finds surprising gender differences related to sexual harassment . Retrieved from http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2011-03-gender-differences-sexual.html
Patton, L. (2016). McDonald’s Workers File EEOC Sexual Harassment Complaints . Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016--10-05mcdonald-s-workers-file-eeoc-complaints-over-sexual-harassment
