In the United States, employment laws prohibit any kind of harassment in the workplace, and that includes sexual harassment. Your employer has the legal responsibility of ensuring that the workplace environment is safe for all employees and is obliged to take immediate action in case of harassment.
Unfortunately, many employers may not be as proactive as they ought to be about following the law, and some employees may face sexual harassment in the workplace. The hostile, intimidating effect generated by such behavior can negatively affect your morale, work performance, and career. However, with the law on your side, there is no need for you to continue to tolerate such behavior. After informing your manager and your company’s HR department, you can get legal advice from a competent lawyer. You can ask family and friends to recommend one or search online for a “sexual harassment lawyer near me” and get legal representation.
Acts of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
The main reason to look up “sexual harassment lawyer near me” and seek legal advice is that sexual harassment can sometimes be difficult to define. There can be different opinions about what constitutes such behavior, and people can claim they were only trying to be friendly, not harassing. However, if you find their behavior objectionable, offensive, unwanted, or threatening, and they continue with it despite being told not to, the chances are strong that it meets the standard of sexual harassment.
The following types of unwelcome behaviors can generally come under sexual harassment:
• Making lewd, suggestive, and creepy jokes, remarks, and compliments
• Making unwanted advances and persistent requests for dates
• Getting repeatedly into another person’s personal space
• Subjecting someone to uninvited touches, grabs, or kisses
• Asking sexual favors in return for advancing career
• Deliberately sabotaging work for refusing sexual advances
• Sending pornographic messages, photographs, and videos
• Spreading offensive and damaging rumors
• Taking photographs without permission or knowledge
• Staring obscenely and especially at private parts
How to Handle Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
You can take the following steps to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace:
. Assess if the unwanted and offensive behavior makes you feel intimidated and unsafe. In which case, it might come under the legal definition of sexual harassment.
. Keep an accurate record of the harassment and note down what the perpetrator said to you, when and where they said it, and if anyone witnessed their behavior. You should also save as evidence any offensive messages, emails, photographs, and videos they sent you.
. Inform the perpetrator in no uncertain terms and preferably in the presence of witnesses that you find their behavior objectionable and would like them to stop harassing you. By speaking up for yourself, you can let them and everyone else know that they are not allowed to cross your boundaries. Many harassers may back off when confronted in this manner.
. If they persist in harassing you, inform your manager and have them intervene. If that fails to resolve the situation, check your company’s employee handbook for its guidelines against sexual harassment. By law, companies with 15 or more employees are obliged to take appropriate action to protect you from sexual harassment. However, you should file a report as per your company’s complaint policy with the HR department within 180 or 300 days after the incident.
You will need to provide the HR department with factual evidence to support your claim. They will investigate the matter and, if your case is solid, they will have to take action against the perpetrator. That can range from issuing warnings to transferring them to another department to firing them from the company.
. If your employer fails to take action, you can file a complaint with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), have them investigate the matter, and get a reasonable settlement for you from your employer.
. You can search online for a “sexual harassment lawyer near me” and hire a competent lawyer to represent you in a lawsuit against your employer for failing to safeguard your legal workplace rights. The lawyer will attempt to get an appropriate settlement from your company or file a legal case and get you justice through the court system.
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