Male, don’t know. We’ve had the ocassional training on it. I don’t know of any claims of sexual harassment though so no idea how it would play out in practice.
We have terminated the #2 guy in the company, and two senior people on his team. The lowest of the three was having an improper relationship with a subordinate (classic quid pro quo situation). The other two were involved in the cover up and retaliation.
The reason I voted “Not taken seriously enough” is that the head of HR and Legal are still around, and this situation was going on for at least two years before action was taken. And only when we got a new CEO from Europe.
It’s an open secret that some vendors are closing deals with buyers from a horizontal position. It’s accepted as part of the industry culture.
I’ve been with my employer for nearly 10 years and the problem has never come up within the department, though knowing my bosses and theirs, it would get shut down in a hurry. In the scale of the entire hospital, a security guard was dismissed about 6 months back for inappropriate behavior according to the grapevine. And with our group’s interactions with him, I really don’t doubt it. His daily rounds always included chatting up our only female tech for a half hour or so.
I voted: I’m male, and I’d say my boss(es) DO NOT treat sexual harassment claims as seriously as is proper.
But, I work for myself, and when I went to my HR department and complained that I was harassing myself, I was told to accept it as part of the deal I made.
…
However, when I worked for giant corporations, workplace sexual harassment was unacceptable (as it should be). I always tried to get a good blend of both male and female designers on my team because I need people who think differently than I do. Many of the best ideas we came up with were first imagined by the female designers. I am pleased that none of my colleagues (male or female) were ever harassed as a member of my team.
Male here, and I picked that it’s properly handled at my company.
They seem to have a good balance between treating complaints seriously, and not making us all “walk on eggshells” (so to speak).
Recent cases:
The company has a hard and fast rule that “thou shalt not boink thine underlings” under any circumstances. A high-level exec was caught diddling someone lower on the food chain and was dismissed quickly (along with the explanation he was having a sexual relationship with an employee). We were surprised at how public it was.
A second level supervisor was reported for repeated comments about his female staffers’ weight, shape, and their need to diet and exercise. These were comments about looks, not health. After determining he had a habit of saying stuff like this, he was fired.
Without appropriate gravity the harasser and the victim would fly off into space.
There have been very clear guild lines for quite some time regarding harassment - in all it’s ugly manifestations - in the workplace. There are several reporting methods and a toll free number to report these and it is anonymous.
I would like to believe that this sort of behavior is exceedingly rare, but the oil patch still has a few “Bubba’s” out there who think that a comment like “Nice legs, honey” is a compliment. :mad: