My Female Employees Don't Mind Sexual Harassment

A supervisor recently told me that his female employees love the attention that many other women in the workplace would consider sexual harassment. The women in the workplace are young, and they also dish it out themselves. So is it a problem? He thought the media was make too much out of the whole sexual harassment thing.

This supervisor is missing the point, I think. It's true that many workplace behaviors that constitute sexual harassment either by definition or perception by female employees goes unannounced and without formal complaint, but this doesn't mean a charge against the employer won't come tomorrow. There's the rub.

The attention given to this problem legitimatizes the lodging of complaints by employees who have not come forward. And there lies one of the most important reasons to have policy and a complaint procedure in place. There are reasons many employees don't complain. Here are just a few. Which one's do you think are being impacted by recent media and court actions?

The employee doesn't feel he or she will be believed.
They fear some subtle or overt punishment by the employer or supervisor.
They don't trust that management will take action or will listen with an eye toward objectivity.
They don't want to "cause problems."
They may be accused of "wanting it" or "bringing it on."
They cannot provide a accurate accounting of the incident(s).

Often a charge against the employer will not emerge until an employee is terminated for some reason, regardless of the legitimacy of the discharge action. In other words, once a job is lost, many of these reasons in the eye of the victim disappear as roadblocks to lodging complaints.

Okay so the employees aren't complaining. Let's go so far as to say they love it. Are you offended personally? What about the behavior and its affect on the corporate mission? It's values? Any problems there. Of course there is.

You don't need a female worker's complaint to take action. Sexual harassment is not based upon the victim's motivation to file a complaint.

What If My Supervisor Is the "Troubled Employee"

If your company is of any appreciable size, you may have an employee assistance program. Regardless of what the insurance company's brochure says, the primary purpose of an EAP is a management tool to help the organization deal with at-risk troubled employees whose personal problems may affect job performance.

They get help by way of self-referral for their own reasons, or the supervisor makes a referral to the EAP based upon job performance. Your EAP is not an employee benefit like a free gym membership. It is much more profound than to call it a benefit. It is a programmatic approach for dealing with behavioral risk with an established "core technology" of elements that make an EAP an EAP. So, all of that said, what do you do in the situation where your boss is the troubled employee?

As a supervisor, you can't make a supervisor referral. So, now what?!

This question, often raised by supervisors during training, is not as difficult to answer as it may at first appear.

Assuming your supervisor is a troubled employee, it is likely that his or her performance, conduct, or attitude on the job is affecting you personally.

This means that contacting the EAP to help you resolve your problem with the supervisor's behavior is appropriate. The stress of a dysfunctional supervisor may be problem-solved many ways, depending on the circumstances.

This could include modifying the way you handle the stress to actually seeking organizational support in order to deal with a real problem. You may be able to discover creative solutions with the EAP counselor. Regardless, just as it would be appropriate to seek EAP assistance for ongoing conflicts with a co-worker, it is appropriate to seek assistance from the EAP if you are negatively affected by the behavior of a supervisor. This is always the best alternative to trying to "refer" your supervisor. So the surprise answer is that there is no one answer that fits all situation. However, the shortest route to discovering the most workable answer is to consult with the EAP expertyourself.

DOT Compliance Training: Functional Alcoholic

Alcoholics in late stage addiction can still draw a paycheck, drive fork lifts, keep the books, and lead Boy Scout Troops. Until they have an accident or disturb your life in some way, you may be prone to using the term "functional alcoholic" to describe their drinking patterns. Stop using this enabling phrase. Have you heard anyone use the term "functional cancer". Of course not. That's because cancer is an "accepted" disease. We are still fooling around with alcoholism, but there are very understandable reasons for it. Centuries of misinformation dominate this problem, but in business and industry and in DOT drug and alcohol training we see supervisors and employees keeping these ill employees at risk for some of the worst calamities. From train wrecks to fender benders, enabling keeps alcoholics sick. The term functional alcoholic does have more precise meaning. It means "the drinking problem doesn't bother me." Actually, it really means the drinking doesn't bother you, "yet". If you do training with supervisors, this is a critical topic to include in DOT or Employee Assistance Compliance Training for Alcohol and Drug Education.

Reasonable Suspicion Training Didn't Help this Supervisor

I understand from one of my readers that she has, what she describes as a dedicated employee who is seeing a psychiatrist for depression, she also says this employee has an alcohol problem. Not suprising, she also says he has unpredictable patterns of absenteeism. The company has an EAP and their is a reasonable suspicion training program for alcohol and drug education of supervisors, but the question is, why use it or make a referral if he is obviously is seeing psychiatrist?

I know many of you will not believe this, but for some supervisors I have met, this makes perfect sense -- not to make a referral to the EAP. They have not referred such employees, despite their DOT supervisor training for reasonable suspicion because they believed, even with alcohol on the breath that the employee was in good hands with Dr. Freddy Freud.

Straight up, please refer these employees to your EAP. Persistent job problems are the proper basis for a supervisory referral not the workplace alcohol problem!

In this case it is absenteeism and refer for reasonable suspicion, too in accordance with your organizations drug free workplace policy. Often, employees seek help for personal problems they have themselves improperly diagnosed, like depression. Did you know that alcohol is a depressant? So, wallah!

Do you know that many depressed employees hope to heaven that a psychiatrist will call their alcoholism "a symptom" of depression? And guess why this is such a wonderful thing to the alcoholic? It holds out the possibility that he or she can one day drink normally again.

Believe me, there are many psychiatrists who want the patient to believe exactly this. And can you can guess why? Precisely. Can you say "ongoing" paying patient? So employees will seek help from the wrong source, or one which inadequately treats their problem.

A psychiatrist, without recommending alcoholism treatment, will be unable to successfully treat the illness because much more is needed than what the physician can offer. It is likely that this employee believes you are a sympathetic supervisor willing to wait. Wow, I can smell the risk from here. This is why the employees is willing an trusting, and desireous of sharing the nature of his problems with you without correcting the absenteeism. If you have not tried the EAP yet, and the threat of termination, as a motivator, you are overdue and over-ripe like a banana for a supervisory referral.

I hope you consider more reasonable suspicion training and more effecive dot supervisor training in the near future.

Workplace Violence Prevention Training

If you are suddenly focused on workplace violence prevention training for your supervisors or employees, let me give you a few tips that will maximize your loss prevention goals and increase the likelihood that your training will actually stop a worker from shooting up the place. Sorry to be so blunt, but this may be the most important and helpful blog note that I have ever made. I want more employers to stop missing the boat on this subject.

Most workplace violence prevention training provides adequate information to employees about signs and symptoms of workplace violence - what to look for, what to do, what not to do, how to escape, and more. Great stuff. Gotta have it. No arguments. However, here is where the "model" break down: A lack of education, training, and awareness about prevention, stopping, or intervening with behaviors on the job that provoke violence.

There are many things to discuss in this regard, but let me name only a few. In future posts, I will dive into workplace violence prevention training specifics so you can more clearly see my points.

The following workplace violence prevention and education training topics can reduce risk, increase morale, and help employees avoid conflict.

1. Training and Education in Maintaining a Respectful Workplace
2. Training and Education in Avoiding Workplace Harassment
3. Training and Education in Valuing Diversity in the Workplace
4. Training and Education in Resolving Coworker Conflicts
5. Training and Education in Improving Assertiveness Skills

I bet after reading the above, you see where I am heading. These topics relate to preventing workplace violence at many levels and they should be included in your workplace violence prevention training objectives. Remember, I will be back soon to discuss each one.

Good Faith and Fair Dealing

Supervisors are vulnerable to becoming "wrapped up" in their contentious relationships with employees. Are you so prone? If so, someday you may take actions against your employee nemisis in a moment or two of lost awareness only to find yourself and your employer sued in part because your failure to participate in good faith and fair dealing with your employee. What is this doctrine of relationship management?

The "good faith and fair dealing obligation" of employers is an important concept to understand in preventing actions by employees that can lead to expensive lawsuits.

It is an obscure principle, but this obligation on the part of employers has a very wide range of interpretations. And it has become a more common foundation or element upon which employee lawsuits have been based.

Its underlying principles should be understood by supervisors, because they can be easy to violate, even unintentionally. Management activity that can elicit action from employees based on the good faith and fair dealing exception include:

Distorting, falsifying, altering, or destroying performance appraisal records.

Malicious supervision including harassment, abusive behavior, and inadequate training.

Arbitrary and capricious demotion or creation of excessive assignments in an attempt to provoke resignation.

Retalitory termination.

Any other malicious conduct on the part of the employer that tends to unnecessarily create an adverse effect upon the worker's right to reasonable employment conditions.

Now you have a clear rationale for staying on the "rational" side of the contest you have with your employee. Have a supervisor, HR, or management confidant to keep you unemotional and on the straight and narrow when managing a troubled employee or chronically unproductive worker.

Good documentation. Bad Documentation

Okay, test your skills. Yes or no? The following is an example of useful and correctly written documentation: "Tom S. arrived twenty minutes late to work today and was witnessed, by several employees, damaging another vehicle while trying to park his car. He was heard yelling obscenities from within car. When I met with him immediately after the incident, I could smell alcohol on his breath." .... Yes. This is an example of documentation that is specific and clear. There are no subjective or opinionated comments or conclusions about the employee's condition. It is written in a factual, unemotional way, with attention to that which can be sensed--in this case what can be seen, heard, and smelled.

Okay, try this one: "Tom Smith arrived at work late with reports by others of being drunk. He scraped a car in the parking lot and when confronted by me, after the incident, became defensive and acted immature showing that he had something to hide and to get others to "back off". He denied he was drunk, but admitted he had been drinking before midnight, which is when he stated his last drink occurred."

This documentation lacks specific details and instead appears to be conjecture; it would be difficult to defend. It would not support a disciplinary action or a reasonable-suspicion drug test.

To really get a grip on performance documentation, have your supervisors able to quickly access instructions on this document by using your companies internal web site or a special section for supervisors where supervisory skills can be found and learned quickly. This is very easy to do with a product such as the 14 Vital Skll for Supervisors Training Online Flash course. The author lets you view it completely free.