Handling a Hostile Work Environment
Handling a Hostile Work Environment
Question Group 2
NUID: 46166584
Handling a Hostile Work Environment
I have been presented with an issue within our company regarding a hostile work
environment situation. Complaints of hostile work environments can be brutally damaging to a
company. It is important that we take action immediately. In this report I will be informing you
on first the dilemma, different forms of hostile environments, state legal issues and other
consequences, diversity factors, and propose a few suggestions on how we can solve this
problem along with some steps we can take in the future to prevent this from happening again.
First I am going to present you with the problem our company is being faced with.
Unfortunately there has been a complaint of a hostile work environment by one of our
assembly workers. According to the victim, a female, she has been repetitively harassed by a
male superior working in the same department. He has been accused of making suggestive
gestures and crude sexual comments on a daily basis. Although our company hasn’t dealt with
this sort of situation before, it can happen in all kinds of work places. First of all, what is a
hostile environment? It can be classified as a form of harassment that can interrupt an
employee’s ability to perform their duties in the workplace [ CITATION Equ07 \l 1033 ]. This
assembly line worker feels unsafe and unproductive in their work area. This can cause many
problems for our company other than just the harassment itself. Harassment comes in many
forms and I want to specify exactly what form of harassment we are dealing with in our company
and expand on some other forms we need to avoid in the future.
A hostile work environment is a form of harassment. There are many types of harassment
issues that can appear in a work place. In this situation although it may appear that we aren’t
necessarily dealing with a “sexual” form of harassment, a hostile work environment is a form of
sexual harassment. Sexual harassment comes in two forms: Quid Pro Quo and Hostile
Environment. Quid Pro Quo is when an employee is asked for sexual favors in order to receive a
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Handling a Hostile Work Environment
raise, working leniency or any other benefit[ CITATION Mat14 \l 1033 ]. The situation we are
dealing with is more associated with a hostile environment and as I stated earlier is where an
individuals work safety or performance is threatened by another employee[ CITATION Mat14 \l
1033 ]. While the dilemma we are dealing with currently isn’t categorized as a Quid Pro Quo
form of sexual harassment, we should be aware of the consequences for that as well. In this
situation, after doing some investigating, the hostile work environment complaint involved one
of our employees being verbally harassed and accused by another assembly line worker doing
their job in the same area as the victim. When dealing with harassment, processes such as
arbitration or ombuds might be introduced. Arbitration is defined as: “A process that uses a
neutral third party to make a binding decision, thereby eliminating the necessity of using the
court system.” [ CITATION Mat14 \l 1033 ] Arbitration is commonly used for sexual harassment
situations. Another dispute handler, Ombuds can be used in sexual harassment cases as well.
Ombuds is defined as “ Individuals outside the normal chain of command that act as problem
solvers for both management and employees” [ CITATION Mat14 \l 1033 ]. Like arbitration,
Ombuds can be used to handle these disputes but have no control of the outcome like arbitration
does. Ombuds and mediators are similar, they both offer low cost, informal sources of
information, and ultimately provide a suggested settlement between parties. Arbitrations on the
other hand, have more formal strict guidelines and publicly announce their decision in the
end[ CITATION Mat14 \l 1033 ]. With complaints of sexual harassment come consequences.
There are several caveats that accompany a hostile work environment dilemma such as legal
issues, diversity and equality issues, lost productivity, turnover and a tarnished reputation.
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Handling a Hostile Work Environment
First, there are numerous legal issues that are presented with harassment; situations like
this directly violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, along with the possibility of
disobeying the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 as well as the American with
Disabilities Act of 1990[ CITATION Equ07 \l 1033 ]. The sexual orientation, position, or motive
of the harasser doesn’t effect the violation of Title VII. The harasser and harassed can be any
race, sex, or hold any title to be considered guilty or a victim of sexual harassment [ CITATION
Sex16 \l 1033 ]. A company must employ a minimum of 15 employees to be considered under
Title VII (which we qualify with 500 employees). An employer can then be held legally
responsible for these complaints if they knew about the situation and didn’t take action
immediately. The victim has a right to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity
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