In our Sexual Harassment Awareness training seminars your employees will learn and apply the important skills of handling sexual harassment issues and complaints. This hands on seminar thoroughly addresses the elements of how to prevent unacceptable behavior. The seminar includes a detailed overview of what sexual harassment is, explains legal definitions, discusses sexual harassment prevention, and shows how to handle sexual harassment complaints and maintain a positive work environment.
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Sexual Harassment Training:
Sexual Harassment Seminar - Managing Office Affairs Between Unequals
As Tina Turner sang in her now famous rant against the confusion between lust and love, managers need to be really clear that any office tryst is about power, control, boredom, and irresponsible, performance-killing behaviours. And it's performance killing behaviours by both the people having the affair and their co-workers. Gossip, dilly-dallying accusations of favoritism, or claims of sexual harassment over the intrigue runs rampant in these situations.
The image: Handling office affairs between unequals (i.e. a supervisor and direct report) is like putting your hand in a bag of snakes.
Managers Operating Principle (MOP): An office affair between unequals has nothing to do with love. You must only concern yourself with the clear, behavioural impacts on people's performance. Make sure your company has a very clear policy in place. Without a policy you, as the manager, are likely to get caught in the cross-fire.
The Context: Over the last twenty-five years more men and women are working together in close sweaty quarters. This, in combination with the fact that inter-gender appropriate behaviours have become fuzzier and more sexually charged. The atmosphere is expectant with lizard brain pheromones wafting through the HVAC system.
Men are more likely to be the most confused in this sexual charged arena as we men are not very good at separating out what our short-term pleasure seeking lizard brain wants to do and what our more rational cerebral cortex inform us about what is most prudent fro our long term survival. The news is ripe with examples of men who have let their little head lead their big head into trouble.
What's a manager to do?
- Confront the person who is having an affair with the lower level employee. Do this only with another person with you in the room, preferably from HR. Outline the company policy if there is one. If there is no policy on affairs. Strategize with key people to prepare a plan.
- Open the confrontation with "I notice that you are having an affair with..." Then do not say another word until the person responds.
- After the person responds say "This is not acceptable (if policy in place - show the person the policy), so... "I'd like to know what you intend to do." More silence on your part. If you have no policy, start a negotiation by outlining the impact of the affair and ask the person what s/he is going to do about it.
- Whatever the outcome ask the person to write out her/his understanding of what has been agreed on and give it to you the next morning, first thing.
- Take that to HR and figure out what to do next.
This process is very uncomfortable for everyone involved. Stay the course or pay the price.
Source: Dr. Jim Sellner link
