Every employer in California or anywhere in the U.S. has a duty to create a workplace that is free from any form of sexual harassment. When you are not clinical enough to get rid of any traces of sexual harassment, you will end up paying a very high price. It will affect your employee productivity, lower their morale, and may result in lawsuits. But what is sexual harassment?
Sexual harassment is any sexual advances or conduct that are not welcome and end up creating a hostile, intimidating, and offensive working environment. You may consider it to be anything of sexual nature that makes one of the employees uncomfortable. Anyone can be the harasser or the victim, be it a manager or a coworker. Sometimes your employee may become the victim of harassment from a client or non-employee.
The act of sexual harassment is not only to one gender. Anyone can get harassed regardless of their status or gender. It may also happen between people of the same sex. If you want to destroy the culture of sexual harassment in your workplace, you should ensure that all your employees adapt to a clear sexual harassment policy that details the disciplinary action against such acts in your business environment.
You may as well train your employees at least once per year about sexual harassment to foster a workplace free from it. The laws in California require you to train your supervisors for at least 2 hours every two years.
This article is meant to only educate on what you can do to get rid of sexual harassment at your workplace. It is by no means legal advice.
