Protecting Employees: Legal Basis for Workplace Harassment Policies

This presentation focuses on the legal foundation for safeguarding employees against workplace harassment, including physical, sexual, and psychological forms of harassment. It highlights the importance of a public anti-harassment policy, outlining reporting procedures, and establishing offices to handle harassment cases, as exemplified by the Java Corp case. The presentation emphasizes that an effective policy protects the organization from legal issues and promotes a safe work environment, increasing employee morale, retention, and productivity. It underscores how a well-defined policy contributes to a healthy and productive workplace, protecting the organization's reputation and fostering a culture of respect and safety. The presentation also references key legal aspects, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and provides references to relevant research.

PRESENTATION FOR THE
UPPER MANAGEMENT
Legal basis for protecting employees from
harassment
To protect human dignity.
It is illegal to harass employees under law.

Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission
 Harassment in the workplace is illegal.
 It is a form of employment discrimination.
 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
protects employees against harassment
(Johnson, & Cates, 2016).

Types of workplace harassment
 Physical harassment- can involve threats on
one’s life.
 Sexual harassment- inappropriate touches or
unwanted sexual advances.
 Personal harassment- it involves bullying of
another employee.
 Discriminatory harassment- it can be racial,
sex or religious
 Psychological harassment- includes belittling
an employee (Lippel, Vézina, Bourbonnais, &
Funes, 2016). .

QUID PRO QUI
 Withholding benefits
 Threatening termination
 Changing evaluation to confirm if an
employee is willing to engage in a sexual
act.

Hostile environment
 A hostile work environment is
characterized by the following:
 Belittlement
 Intimidation
 Sexual innuendos or references
 Sex, racial or religious discrimination

Harassments to consider
 In the anti-harassment workplace policy
in the case of Java Corp, the following
harassments are also likely to happen:
 Physical
 Psychological
 Discriminatory.

Protecting Java Corps
 For Java Corp to be legally protected in
the case of harassment, it must make its
policy public.
 The anti-harassment policy should be
public to all employees.
 The organization should have in place
offices responsible for handling
harassment.
 Java Corp should hire a resident lawyer to
handle harassment cases.

Reporting procedures
 The reporting procedures are simple and
confidential.
 A person who feels harassed should
freely report the incident.
 No bias should be placed against the
victim.
 Reporting procedures are easy.

Organizational benefits for anti-
harassment policy’s approach
 Java Corp will have a safe and healthy
work environment.
 Organization will save time on litigating
harassment cases.
 Organization will have a legally-protected
procedure of punishing perpetrators of
harassment.
 Increased productivity (Pastorek,
Contacos-Sawyer, & Thomas, 2015)
 Increased tolerance.

Impact of policy on organization
are as follows:
 On reputation, the policy seeks to protect the
corporate image of the organization.
 Employee morale will be high because
employees will be safety and comfortable at
work (Sheridan, Zolobczuk, Huynh, & Lee,
2017).
 Employee retention will be high because the
policy will create a work health and safety
that will motivate employees to stay.
 Productivity will shoot because work safety
and health created by the policy.

References
 Johnson, J. N., & Cates, S. (2016). The new age of sexual
harassment: are men the new victims of sexual
harassment?. International Journal of Management and Human
Resources, 4(1), 23-35.
 Lippel, K., Vézina, M., Bourbonnais, R., & Funes, A. (2016).
Workplace psychological harassment: gendered exposures and
implications for policy. International journal of law and
psychiatry, 46, 74-87.
 Pastorek, S., Contacos-Sawyer, J., & Thomas, B. (2015, July).
Creating a no-tolerance policy for workplace bullying and
harassment. In Competition Forum (Vol. 13, No. 2, p. 232).
American Society for Competitiveness.
 Sheridan, D., Zolobczuk, J., Huynh, K., & Lee, D. L. (2017).
Workplace harassment and attitudes towards LGBT people:
differences across human service occupations in south
Florida. Florida public health review, 14(1), 1.