Discipline for Sexual Harassment Not Good Enough to Reduce Risk

If you are not referring employees to your company EAP after they have been reprimanded for sexual harassment, you don't have an expert to help you prevent a future occurrence of sexual harassment. So, good luck if you did not fire the employee or it was not serious enough. The disciplinary action may not stop an employee with a sexual addiction. You have no deterrence.

A firm management response often prevents a second offense of sexual harassment by an employee. But if an employee has difficulty with the control of impulsive behavior or a long history of personal issues that contribute to inappropriate behavior, something more may be needed. EAPs help employees examine any contributing factors to sexual harassment behavior. Sometimes the only factors are problematic social skills. In other situations, more complex issues may contribute to an employee’s inability to control behavior. For one employee, education and awareness may be the intervention of choice. For another, professional counseling or intensive treatment may be needed for a variety of treatable health issues that can lead to behavior problems in the workplace. EAPs discover that many employees are willing to accept such help with an incalculable cost-benefit to the organization.

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DOT Training and Reasonable Suspicion Tip 10: “But we’re friends!”

Here is another tip for you to consider in your DOT Training for Supervisors.
If you are friends with your employee, you will face a challenge in recommending a drug test.

If you socialize and drink with your employee, this challenge is made even more difficult—something to think about if you currently engaged in this behavior.

Consider this: Most supervisors will put their own job security ahead of such friendships when drinking or drug use facilitates a crisis at work.

Don’t accept guilt trips or appeals to loyalty. Testing will not hurt a true friendship, and it may prevent a crisis that forces you to make a choice.

The next time someone makes this kind of appeal to you, ask yourself what kind of example it sets to other employees if word gets out.

At the very least, you’ll be viewed as an unscrupulous supervisor who plays favorites.

If your employee persists in demanding special treatment, explain the negative repercussions you face by breaking the rules. A true friend will understand the terrible spot this puts you in and should be unwilling to put you at risk.

You don’t have to wait until this happens to head off an uncomfortable situation. Be clear with all subordinates that you only wear the “boss hat” while at work and that no special favors should be expected.

DOT Training and Reasonable Suspicion Tip 9: “Let’s keep it between ourselves.”

Here is another tip for you to consider in your DOT Training for Supervisors.
Don’t become your employee’s confidant. It’s an inappropriate mixing of roles, and it comes back you haunt you. If you’re the type of supervisor who seeks approval, you’re vulnerable to this sort of manipulation.

This excuse trap may be particularly difficult for the supervisor who perceives being a confidant as a way to be liked by an employee with significant influence

Once you assume the role of confidant, you it may be difficult to extricate yourself from it. You may find yourself being asked to keep more secrets, bend additional rules, or find yourself further entwined with your employee’s personal life and problems.

The leverage gained by keeping an employee’s secrets is largely an illusion. In reality, you’ve elevated your employee’s ability to defy your wishes. After all, you broke the rules, too, by helping him keep his infraction a secret.

Don’t put yourself in a position to be harmed by aiding a cover up. Be empathetic, but stay neutral and play it by the book.

DOT Training and Reasonable Suspicion Tip 8: “Let’s wait and see.”

Here is another tip for you to consider in your DOT Training for Supervisors.
Asking for a “wait and see” approach is usually an employee’s way of asking for a 2nd chance. It basically promises that the offending behavior won’t occur again if only you’ll overlook it just this once.

It seems reasonable. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, right? What if it was one isolated screw up? You wouldn’t want to mess with someone’s job over a simple mistake, would you?

Well, there’s a problem with that. If you decide to “wait and see if it happens again” before acting on your drug testing policy, chances are you’re simply procrastinating. You’re also enabling. If injury or death on the job—or off the job—occurs, you’ll be sick with regret over why you didn’t act when you had the chance. And that may be the least of your problems. You may have also exposed you and your employer to severe legal consequences.

There’s no upside here for you. You have no guarantee from your employee that this won’t happen again. All you have are the panicked reassurances of someone who is right now very afraid of being punished. Now is not the time to put yourself in a bad spot. Right now your job is to determine whether your employee is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. That’s it. The issue of 2nd chances is one that can be decided upon later.

DOT Training and Reasonable Suspicion Tip 7: “It’s okay, I’m back in treatment.”

Here is another tip for you to consider in your DOT Training for Supervisors .
Employees with unmanaged or untreated alcohol or drug problems frequently know more about their problem than others around them. They know exactly what they should be doing to treat their illness—but don’t.

Motivational presentations and demonstrations of sudden insight are usually manipulative in nature. They can sway unwitting supervisors from acting on the drug testing policy. Be aware that anyone who has an untreated alcohol or drug problem is desperate to avoid confronting the problem. The need to use and the short term pain of withdrawal are so overwhelming that the substance abuser will resort to actions that seem far out of character.

It doesn’t matter whether a substance abuser has never had treatment or is currently relapsing. The behavioral patterns are the same. One unfortunate side effect of treatment is that it sometimes teaches relapsed substance abusers how to “fake it” by saying the right things to convince others that there isn’t a problem.

Being in treatment doesn’t give anyone a free pass. Most drug and alcohol treatments emphasize the substance abuser’s responsibility in regaining lost trust and credibility. If you suspect an employee is under the influence of drugs and alcohol, then document and test to confirm whether or not your observations are correct. It’s the only way to be sure.

DOT Training and Reasonable Suspicion Tip 6: “Who me?! Do I look drunk to you?”

Here is another tip for you to consider in your DOT Training for Supervisors.
Maybe you can’t walk straight when you’re intoxicated, but plenty of other people can. And one of them might be your employee. An employee may be “plastered” but not show it. The only indication of intoxication may be alcohol on the breath.

Alcoholics and drug addicts who drink, characteristically has high tolerance—the ability to consume large quantities of alcohol or drugs and not appear intoxicated. An alcoholic employee with alcohol on his breath could be two to three times over the “legal” limit, but could appear unaffected.

By letting yourself be talked out of documenting and testing for intoxication, you’re being manipulated.

If you’re worried about insufficient documentation, don’t forget that if you smell alcohol, then you have sufficient reasonable suspicion to refer to testing. You’re organization’s drug testing policy is written to protect you and the organization, even if there is a false test later. So don’t back off. Even if you turn out to be wrong, you were right. You made the right call.

DOT Training and Reasonable Suspicion Tip 5: “You’ll ruin my career.”

Here is another tip for you to consider in your DOT Training for Supervisors.
Manipulation is at hand, and ploy is “fear of lawsuit” and “guilt”.

Your employee can’t see the future and neither can you. Second, even if you could know all possible outcomes of documenting your suspicions and scheduling an alcohol test, you do your employee no favors by giving into manipulation. An employee knows they are manipulating in the “you’ll ruin my career” threat.

Allowing an employee to convince you that a drug test will be harmful to his or her career and life is called enabling. Enabling is behavior that appears compassionate on its face, but ultimately harms the substance abuser by allowing destructive behaviors to continue without consequence. “If you remove the pain, you are buying the next drink.”

Remember this: Whatever negative consequences follow, they are a direct result of your employee’s alcohol or drug affected decisions and actions. You are not the cause of his/her problems. In fact, your intervention to help solve problems makes the underlying problem worse.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be empathetic and compassionate. Most companies have policies that support employees getting treatment and remaining employed. Do everything in your power to make these policies work for your employee. Even if your company does not provide help with substance abuse and fires for one positive test, it still saves lives—the employee’s life and others.