Sexual Harassment

From the HR593_SH_007 the employee has alleged that her co-worker and supervisor subjected her to sexual harassment on employer's premises; she alleged that the co-worker made comments that made her very uncomfortable about her chest, and even told him to stop. She also found her photo in a bathing suit as his screen saver and a file with her name on it that had an altered photo exposing her upper part of the body. Her supervisor told her she had to travel and share a room with him where she would be transferred to another division as a promotion if she would show him her "amazing breasts". Then the employee has a legal viable claim for quid pro quo and/or hostile environment sexual harassment (Douglas, 2009).

The legal factor for the claim in this case is sexual harassment that includes pressure to provide sexual favors, and offensive, intimidating comments. To be specific, verbal harassment, which in this scenario is seen through suggestive comments about an individual's clothing, body, and/or sexual activities; comments of a sexual nature about weight, body shape, size, or figure; sexual favors: Persistent pressure for dates, unwanted sexual advances that condition an employment benefit upon an exchange of sexual favors. Visual: Posters, drawings, pictures, screensavers or emails of a sexual nature (Douglas, 2009). The outcome might be the employee winning the law suit.

If presented with the scenario as a learning tool as example of exploration of policies and procedures to avoid sexual harassment liability for our organization, it should get a policy that communicates that the company is taking a "zero tolerance" approach toward sexual harassment. Have an attorney review it, and make sure it gets out to all the employees either through the employee handbook or in memo form. Have the employees sign it to acknowledge that they received and read the policy. The policy should be verbally communicated to all new employees, and can even be posted in the workplace (Douglas, 2009).

The organization should have complaint modus operandi and charges. The policy must entail information regarding how to file a complaint by providing model complaint forms; where to file a complaint and finally identification of various personalities or staffs designated to receive complaints. What happens during and after the investigations must be entailed and explained by the policy through identification of those required in making the final determination whether sexual harassment arose; what the feasible fines are, and whoever compels charges for sexual harassment. The organization should also have same-sex harassment treatment, and men reporting harassment, the same as you would for a woman reporting her male supervisor being sexually inappropriate.

It is the responsibility of the organization to inform all employees that it is their obligation to report sexual harassment that they experience or witness (Douglas, 2009). The organization should also organize to conduct training and retraining that explains sexual harassment and its impact on the workplace environment are essential for preventing harassment and should be provided on an ongoing basis, even if it is only composed of reading material or watching a video, something is better than no training at all.

Conducting of yearly meetings with the organizations supervisors to review the sexual harassment policy, this is to make sure that they understand that an employee does not need to suffer negative consequences in order to make a claim of sexual harassment. The supervisor should be directed to always inform upper management of any sexual harassment complaints he or she receives from employees.

In conclusion, it is therefore evident that these policies and procedures are important to organizations as they enable them to avoid sexual harassment lawsuits and put in place a safe working environment for the employees and even better professional working relationship between employers and employees.