Protect your Business with Workplace Respect

Protect your Business with Workplace Respect

The last several months have brought an intense focus on sexual harassment and respect in the workplace.  Our clients are asking “What can we do to best protect our business and team members?”  If you and your company have not reviewed your company's harassment policy or if you have not trained your managers and your team in the past 18 months, we encourage you to review the following and contact us for more information.

A few important considerations:

·        In 2017 the EEOC received more than 84,000 charges alleging harassment and secured approximately $484 million for victims of workplace discrimination.  These numbers do not include claims brought through courts or agencies not involving the EEOC*.

·        Direct and indirect costs to employers are significant and can include: judgments to employees, legal costs associated with defending the charges, lost productivity, decreased job performance, increased turnover and reputational harm.  

·        Most employees - about 70% - do not report harassment to their employer.   Since employers are often held liable for harassment whether or not they knew about it, it's important that employees bring forth incidents so employers can take the timely action required to minimize liability and avoid employee lawsuits.  

·        In our experience, most accused harassers express genuine surprise that their behavior was perceived to be offensive.

·        Federal and state law provide a major incentive to employers who show they have taken steps to prevent harassment such as adopting a policy with specific components and training their employees.

Red Seat’s Respectful Workplace and Non-Harassment program has four components, tailored to your organization’s needs:

1.       Policy Development / Review to ensure essential elements are in place

2.       Communication Pieces to introduce your program to your organization

3.       All-Employee Training to underscore your commitment to workplace respect, define acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, and provide concrete steps employees should take if they experience or witness harassing behavior. 

4.       Management Training to train Managers on employer responsibilities and requirements and how to effectively identify and handle unacceptable or harassing behavior.

Let Red Seat help you protect your organization while cultivating a culture of respect.  Call us today to schedule a free introductory meeting to learn more about our Respectful Workplace program.

*EEOC Issues FY 2017 Performance Report, https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/11-15-17a.cfm