Harassment in Columbia MO businesses. How to prevent it.
Instances of harassment in Columbia, MO businesses frequently evolve from factors specific to towns like Columbia. Knowing what these factors are can help to avoid costly lawsuits.
Now, to get started, Harassment is normally considered any improper conduct directed at a co-worker that is taken as disturbing, offensive, or upsetting by the perceiving employee and would also be perceived the same way by a “reasonable person.” The harassment activity can be in the form of comments or acts that intimidate, threaten, demean, cause embarrassment or cause humiliation.
The harassment must be so persistent that the employee is unable to do his or her job dues without interference, for an employee lawsuit to hold up.
Certain types of workplace harassment can escalate to a hostile work environment.
Columbia has some unique aspects about it that can contribute to more frequent occurrences of harassment.
Small Town Charm – Buy not being in a large metroplex area, like St. Louis or New York, there are fewer businesses with large human resource departments geared to educate and train the staff about HR issues like harassment.
College Workforce – The college students working full, or part-time, at your business generally have less experience in the workplace than other kinds of employees. This puts them in many first-time situations where they can draw on their years of corporate experience and training to react appropriately. For example, your grad student part-time employee overseeing the summer interns might not know how to handle worker complaints appropriately and legally.
Columbia’s night life – Columbia has a higher than average number of places to entertain and consume alcohol. When your employees go in a group to places to socialize, it can create situations where some employees, including senior executives, act differently because they feel they are “off the clock.” This can create very complicated situations with other employees both at the event, and back in the office the next day.
To steer clear of these needless risks, as a business owner try to:
Create a written company harassment policy and review it with your staff at least once a year. Also, include it in the new employee training process.
Make it clear and use lots of examples in the training. Talk about what kinds of things could be considered harassment and how people should report it. Harassment can include things like references to an employee’s sex, race national origin, religion and other topics like the person’s age, veteran status or disability (both physical and mental).
Make sure you have a documented process for how to handle complaints quickly.
As a local business service company in Columbia, MO, Moresource strives to provide informative resources relevant to business owners and c-level executives. We provide help with human resource outsourcing, payroll and risk management, along with our other core services.