“Zero Tolerance” – is it an ambiguous term, we asked recently? Is it a synonym for “non-thinking,” as one reader suggested?
Should it be reserved for serious violations? Does “one size not fit all?”
New Racial Harassment Case
On October 4th, we posted about a new EEOC Title VII race and national origin harassment lawsuit
The “Broken Windows” Theory was a topic we wrote about a lot. We wondered if it could be applied to the workplace.
Is it back in the criminal justice arena?
Last February we asked: what if employers (who, hopefully, adhere to a well-publicized “zero-tolerance” policy towards sexual harassment, or any kind of harassment for
A reader, Tony Vogele, in response to our post about sexual banter leading (or not leading) to sexual harassment, said that “The best rule is probably, ‘don’t say anything in the workplace you wouldn’t say to your mother or first grade teacher.’ While it might sound overly strict, the cost-benefit analysis says it
The title of this post expresses in sound-bite form an excellent and thoughtful comment, informed by experience, which we received from a reader who is a long-time HR professional. Anthony J. Zagarino, PHR, a Human Resources Training & Development Manager in New Jersey wrote the following, which could be a great short primer on
Just this week we did a post called Can Sexual “Banter” Morph Into Sexual Harassment? The Stakes Are High, and discussed whether the “Broken Windows” theory could/should have any application.
We wondered where the line should be drawn between banter and harassment. Yvonne T. Zertuche, a Houston Development Executive, thought that “this is
At what point does sexual banter, teasing or “roughhousing” become sexual harassment sufficient to qualify as a hostile work environment? And does a work environment which permits or turns a blind eye to sexual banter inevitably become a hostile work environment? A recent case led us to (re)examine this issue.
We did a post on
Participating in sexual banter that was the norm in the “sexualized environment” of Sleep Country mattress stores in British Columbia cost an employee her sexual
harassment claim. The company claimed that all of its stores where this employee worked had a “sexualized environment” where “crude banter was the norm,” and the employee herself admitted that
Last February we asked: what if employers (who, hopefully, adhere to a well-publicized “zero-tolerance” policy towards sexual harassment, or any kind of harassment for that matter), actively discouraged, showed disapproval or otherwise rebuked every stray or trivial unwanted comment or act that did not rise to a legally-actionable level? Would this cause a decrease