How Employers and Employees Should Handle on-the-Job Harassment

A partner in the law firm of Boynton Waldron in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Phil Pettis focuses on several areas of litigation. Phil Pettis is experienced in claims of harassment in the workplace.

Federal law defines harassment as misconduct toward persons on the basis of skin color, gender, disability, or other conditions. It is illegal when it creates a hostile work environment, creates conditions where accepting harassment is a condition of employment, or results in the punishment of persons who report discrimination.

Employers should have well-defined procedures for dealing with harassment claims. To prevent being held legally responsible for an employees’ inappropriate behavior, they must prove they made a reasonable effort to prevent or stop that behavior or prove that the alleged perpetrator ignored corrective directives.

Unless they are in a physically abusive situation, workers should first meet privately with the offending party and secure a promise for that person to stop harmful behavior. The next step should be alerting one’s immediate manager, unless he or she is the one causing the offense. (More than one person should be available to handle reports in that situation.) If doing so does not achieve the desired result, the employee should go to the human resources (HR) department or upper management.

If the problem cannot be resolved in-house, the complainant may take the case to his or her state’s human rights commission or the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For further information, contact this agency at www.eeoc.gov.