Sexual harassment

Educating managers on sexual harassment Unsolicited sexual advances as well as any form of verbal or physical conduct of sexual nature committed in a workplace is unlawful and should never be tolerated in any workplace environment. It is unfortunate that sexual harassment is still a major issue in our workplaces despite the much-touted effort by the Government agencies as well as civil right movements to address this issue. Sexual harassment is a major liability to any organization and, thus the need to train managers on key facts about it and ways of preventing it in order to promote a safe, secure, respectful and productive workplace for all the employees irrespective of their sexual orientation (Paludi, & Carmen, 33). A program to training managers on sexual harassment should undoubtedly take into consideration a wide a number of issues key among them being (i) What is considered sexual harassment (ii) Reasons for concern (iii) Workplace gender based antidiscrimination laws. Managers just like any other employee often find themselves involved in sexual harassment cases in different ways, which may include being a witness of the act, victim of the act or as a perpetrator. Lack of adequate knowledge about what constitute a sexual harassment especially verbal, non-verbal and physical conducts may prevent them from taking appropriate action against the unlawful act. Thus, the need to educate manger on what acts constitute sexual harassment, workplace gender based antidiscrimination laws and most importantly reasons for concern.
Other areas that should be of great focus in a training program for managers about sexual harassment include (iv) Types of sexual harassment (v) Consensual relationships (vi) How to tell if a conduct is inappropriate (vii) Retaliation and Sexual Harassment (viii) Documenting employee actions. It is vital that the training outline contain subjects that touch on types of sexual harassment, consensual relationships at workplace and retaliation in case of alleged discrimination. For instance, there are two notable types of sexual harassments, which include Quid pro quo and Hostile environment. A fellow employee or supervisor may ask an employee for sexual favour in exchange for promotion, reward or wage increase, which may constitute Quid pro quo type of harassment (Orlov & Michael, 49). The training manual also need to take into consideration issues that pertain to (ix) Liability for supervisor misconduct (x) Setting the right tone (xi) Responding to subordinate complaints (xii) Assisting with the investigation (xiii) Preventing retaliation.
Works cited
Orlov, Darlene, and Michael T. Roumell. What Every Manager Needs to Know About Sexual Harassment. New York: American Management Association, 2005. Print.
Paludi, Michele, and Carmen A. Paludi. Academic and Workplace Sexual Harassment: A Handbook of Cultural, Social Science, Management, and Legal Perspectives. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Print.