I had to make the very difficult decision to report my boss to HR today. After making many sexually-charged comments to me and others, berating me and other employees in his office and in public, I decided it was time to talk to HR because all the other people he was berating were too scared to say something and were instead coming to me for help.
So, to those of you who’ve had to do this or who work in HR, what happens now? Should I start looking for a new job? Was this a huge mistake? Any recommendations?
It depends on the company. I’ve worked at places where management did the right thing, and at one place where people who complained were fired. Corporate waited awhile, but they were fired.
Document everything, and I mean everything - not only what your boss did and when but what you have done (write down what you talked about with HR, etc).
I had a female boss who kept making inappropriate comments to me and I finally had to speak to HR about it. They sat her down and had a conversation with her which I assume was polite but to the point (I like our HR guy and I saw part of the meeting through the glass door of a conference room in our area, no visual histrionics took place). I was rather nervous about what my interaction with her would be like after that but I didn’t notice any ill results.
A few weeks later she got canned (very rare at our firm) - on her initial 6 month review she was pretty much savaged by everyone; those of us who worked for her, her lateral equivalents and quite possibly the people above her.
Stay calm and collected and be extremely professional at all times. If your HR department doesn’t contact you to let you know what was done, follow up with them. Hope it all works out well!
Well covering the company’s butt should include disciplining people that violate the law or are the source of risk of the company being sued.
Question for the OP. Have you or any of your other co-workers told your boss that you don’t want to be spoken to in that way?
The only reason I ask, is that sexual comments are only considered harrassment if they are are “unwanted advances”. He could argue that he thought the comments were just flirtatious banter, but now he knows that they are unwanted, he will stop. If so, don’t necessarily expect the company to fire him.
I agree totally on reporting the guy for inappropriate sexual comments. Providing of course that you’ve told him in some way that you’re uncomfortable with them. The berating part isn’t something that you’re really going to have a leg to stand on. There’s no law against chewing someone out in public…it’s not very professional, but for all you know he was hired because he takes that line with his employees and has had good results with it. I’ve had bosses chew me out in front of everyone…that’s just part of working sometimes. Good Luck!
You bring a problem to Management, YOU become the problem.
Fortunately, sexual harassment is usually better dealt with, although equally fortunately for those accused, it isn’t a slam dunk guilty-until-proven-innocent like it sometimes used to be.
If harassment at work is a reoccurring problem for you, wear a digital voice recorder and document them. Assuming, of course, it is legal in your state to do so.
If you have emails on your company computer print them out and forward them to an offline account so you have them if you need them.
Staying completely professional at all times is really important. If anybody tries to talk to you about it I would tell them that they should speak with HR if they have any questions. Resist the temptation of venting to anyone at work.
It’s not a crime in Missouri to record a conversation without the other person’s consent as long as you are a party to it (ie., not recording a conversation between other people)… but you could still get sued.
I would start looking for another job just because in this economy everyone should.
First of good on you for reporting it. I have had to work with sexual harassment in two job, and frankly I have never seen it end well. My advice to you would’ve been FIRST to get a lawyer.
The problem is too often the person reporting it winds up harassed by others who liked the boss. Even if the boss is fired, the reporter is seen as a snitch and becomes a target for other bosses who will not be so stupid as to get caught. Or they’ll make the reporter’s life so miserable she’ll quit.
I recall one guy, and he wrote in an email to this kid, this girl who was just 19, he wrote “Go ahead and report me, even if they fire me, so what? They won’t say that on my reference and in a week I’ll have another job, and everyone here will hate you for getting me fired.” She reported it, he got fired on Thursday and on TUESDAY, just FIVE days later he was working in the same position at another hotel. He was out of work just two work days.
Everyone like him so they did indeed make this girl’s life miserable. She wound up quitting like six months later. If she had gotten a lawyer FIRST, she could’ve at least got some money compensation to make up for being forced out of the job at a later date.
The thing is once it gets around, and it will, your next boss will be weary you’ll try something like that with him and won’t want you around. And a boss can make your life misearable enough so you have to quit.
So while I say, AlWAY report sexual harassment. FIRST get a lawyer to go with you and report it and get some compensatin AND his dismissal. You might want to consider looking around for a lawyer now.
That’s not a bad idea, either - it’s completely wrong that you should have repercussions for reporting someone else’s bad behaviour, but it’s the world we live in.
If you cannot, start talking to the EEOC. Let you company know you are talking to the EEOC.
Document everything.
Start looking for a new job. It may not come to that, but your situation is unlikely to be comfortable long term regardless. You didn’t (you will come to realize) do this for yourself, you did this for the next person.