Preventing and Handling Harassment

April 13, 2006

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The best way to reduce your liability should harassment ever occur is to have policies and procedures in place that show that you did everything you could to prevent harassment from occurring. As an added bonus, having a policy against harassment will help you deal more effectively with any complaints you get from employees. Here's a "top ten" list of the essentials for preventing and dealing with harassment:

Establish an effective complaint procedure and encourage employees to feel comfortable coming to you with any problems they face at work, including any harassment that might occur.
Create and communicate your anti-harassment policy.
Treat any incident as if it is a court case from the moment it is reported (most importantly, notify your attorney right away).
Quickly investigate any claims that might occur.
Don't take any action that can be seen as harming the person making the complaint. For example, don't transfer the complaining party to a worse location in order to separate the parties.
Do whatever is necessary to stop the harassment immediately.
Restore any job benefits that were lost due to the harassment.
Discipline the person who committed the harassment. If disciplinary action of the harasser is not considered appropriate, document the reasons why.
Take action to correct past discrimination based on the harassing conduct, if appropriate.
Painstakingly document the investigation and the steps you took to remedy the situation.