Harassment Prevention Part 3

there are other types of harassment other than just a

boss to a subordinate.

While that is the kind that you hear about the

most that springs to mind when talking about harassment, there

are also other things, uh, that we can prevent at

work. The first one is third party harassment.

Remember at the beginning of the presentation, I mentioned that

you may be making a joke to somebody that you

think is like minded to yourself, and therefore it wouldn't

be harassment because you're not bothering anybody else.

It's just the two of you.

However. Third party harassment is when you are not in

a conversation with somebody but you over here, or somehow

become aware of a conversation that went on that you

are not involved in.

But that is, ah, harassing conversation or discriminatory conversation toward

you. Um, obviously we're in a remote work environment, so

this would most typically take place if there was some

kind of conversation or something else that were going on

in a group meeting or a slap conversation thing that

you have to keep in mind is that even if

you're speaking with somebody where you think this person and

I are on the same page.

We think the same about this.

You may find yourself in a situation where somebody has

overheard and doesn't enjoy that to the same level that

you dio.

The other thing that you have to keep in mind

is that you really have no way of knowing whether

that second person is enjoying your jokes or not.

So if you are telling jokes that are off color

or uh, more on the border of what is or

isn't appropriate, it's best to just not tell jokes like

that. Second is, um, that we have a responsibility as

a company to prevent harassment of our staff by those

who are not at the company but who are working

with us.

Um, in the course of regular business, this most typically

would come into play with vendors or others who are

connecting with our company to provide service is, but we

do not direct their work.

If we have a situation like that, we have the

responsibility to mitigate that situation as best as possible.

While we don't have full control over that employees, what

we may do in that situation is remove a staff

member from working with that vendor directly request to the

vendor that we get a new person put on our

account or something else like that which will end the

relationship. Um, while still, you know, recognizing that we don't

have the ability Thio necessarily do on investigation and make

a change the way we could with somebody inside our

company. And then the final thing is that there's actually

protections in place for those who are not being harassed.

There's kind of an interesting court case that arose to

put this in place.

And this came out of California, where there was a

woman's prison and the warden of that prison was a

male and the prison guards were females.

The warden was having relationships with several of his female

prison guards, and he was giving those women priority on

the best shifts and the best work and other things.

And so people came forward and we're not able themselves

to say that they were being harassed, but they because

they were not in thes quid pro quo relationships with

the warden, they were not granted the priority shifts and

job duties and all of that the women who were

having the relationship said This isn't harassment.

We feel great.

We're enjoying this.

And so it was those who were not being harassed.

That brought a lawsuit.

The warden actually used the excuse that perhaps he should

start dating the other female guards in order to give

them an opportunity as well.

That was not particularly well received in the court.

Um so what, instead was put into place is that

there are protections for those who are getting a negative,

um, work outcome, because they are not being harassed.

But because other people are eso, it's also illegal to

discriminate against those who you are not, uh, inviting into,

ah, harassing situation.

Yeah, So I used to hear at my old job

all the time.

What about free speech?

And I think that here at this at the dough,

we have a good understanding of why free speech doesn't

particularly apply in the workplace.

But I'm going to talk about it anyway.

Free speech, as we all know, is what prevents the

government from prior restraint against the kinds of things that

people are going to say.

People, um, always think, How is it that I am

not allowed to say what I want about you know,

any gender or disability or anything else in the workplace

because I have a right to free speech.

Well, you don't have a right to free speech at

work work.

We get to tell you that you can't say things

that are not appropriate.

Uh, even if they are, how important held beliefs.

There was a case at Hewlett Packard many years ago.

Hewlett Packard put together a, um, diversity and inclusion program

where they included, um, same sex couples on posters where

they were just kind of like promoting diversity and inclusion

and including that there was a gentleman at Hewlett Packard

who made his own posters.

He waas very religious, and he did not think that

those kinds of relationships were okay.

And so he made posters that said his view on

what be diversity program was at at HP, and he

was called in and said, They said, You can't do

that anymore.

You need to stop immediately And he said, Well, but

these This is what I believe and this is what

I want to talk about and they said, You can't

do it at work, at work you do not have

the right to discuss your beliefs even if they are

strongly held if they are against what is deemed to

be appropriate in the workplace And certainly, in that case,

where they were discriminatory to a protected class of people

based on their sexual orientation, So there are no rights

in that way.

Um, but there's always the question of what about my

rights. So, uh, many years ago, there waas case in

Orange County with firefighters and the male firefighter fighters were

used to looking at Hustler magazine while on their breaks

for work.

And they said, This is my break, and I should

have the right to look at what I want.

Well, as more female firefighters were coming into the workplace,

they didn't like that very much.

So they brought it.

Uh, they brought a lawsuit saying that they should not

be subjected.

Thio, um, their co workers looking at Hustler magazine while

they were at work.

In their case, they actually did work for the government

since they worked for the county of San Diego.

I'm sorry.

The county of Orange County, Um and so they worked

for the government where there is a free speech law

in place.

However, even in that case with the court said, was

that there has to be a balancing of rights and

certainly your free speech, right to look at what you

want to, um, what magazines you want.

Thio cannot overcome somebody else's civil right to be in

a workplace that is free from harassment, that it's safe

and that feels comfortable.

And so the phrase the balancing of rights has become

a very important part of, um, sexual harassment law and

harassment law, but along with many other places where it

may be true that one person does have the right

to say or do what they would like to dio.

But what it's doing is bringing down the more important

civil rights of other people or groups of people.

I just wanted to kind of talk about where we

go from here.

We all know that harassment, discrimination and retaliation is all

completely inappropriate, completely wrong, and we've never want to do

it at work.

But what is important to us at work and it

all comes down to communication.

In the eighties and nineties, there was a Siris of

lawsuits that came out that kind of got dumped.

The my boss is a jerk.

Lawsuits and people would, uh, sue their employer and say,

My boss was very hard on me.

They called names.

They they yelled, They made it uncomfortable for everybody.

But if the reason that the boss is doing it

is because the boss is a jerk and not because

ah person is in a particular protected class, it is

not until Eagle discrimination or harassment.

It's just the boss being a jerk.

However, what we know coming out of those lawsuits is

perhaps it's not illegal to be very hard on your

employees. It's not illegal to be difficulty, and it's not

illegal to be a jerk, but it isn't very effective.

Communication is the thing that is the most important coming

out of this, reminding people that they need to be

able to talk to people in ways that the message

is what's heard and not the way the message is

being portrayed.

If you get right up in somebody's face and start

yelling at them, the thing they're going to think about

is I wish this person wasn't in my face yelling

at me.

They're not going to be thinking about what you're saying

to them, which may be important feedback.

I really need you to do X y Z differently.

If you want people to hear what your feedback is,

you need to present it that to them in a

way that they are thinking about the message and not

the messaging.

That's how I like to end, uh, the conversation about

this because I think that ultimately people want to do

the right thing.

They don't want to discriminate against others.

They don't want Thio, uh, say things that are inappropriate

or offensive to others.

But they might end up saying the wrong thing and

giving the message in the wrong way, which will ultimately

lead to miscommunication and lead to the person not understanding

what it is that you want to dio.

Any time there is a communication breakdown, there's always the

possibility that it can feel like it's because there is

a discriminatory or otherwise a harassment issue in place.

So it's very important that we all keep that in

mind that if we can continue to communicate and continue

to keep open communication with our our coworkers, subordinates and

leadership staff.

Then, when there is a situation where a conversation has

gone badly, it's something that can be well rectified and

managed communication is always going to be the most important

part of any kind of workplace environment.

Harassment Prevention Part 3

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