10 Steps To Take If You’ve Been A Victim of Workplace Sexual Harassment

As a reminder, Federal and Ohio law make it unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person’s sex. Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general. Both victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex.

Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted). The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.

In the event you are a victim of workplace sexual harassment, the following tips should provide some general guidance with respect to what you should do. Please note that each factual scenario is different, so the following are general tips and should not be taken as legal advice to your specific situation. For more information, please contact an employment attorney at Bryant Legal, LLC to discuss in more detail so that we can immediately protect your rights.

Top 10 Tips To Do If You Are a Victim of Workplace Sexual Harassment:

(1) Do Not Ignore the Harassment

• Talking about sexual harassment can be uncomfortable, but speaking up about it with other employees who may also be experiencing similar conduct can empower you.

(2) Make it Clear to the Harasser that the Conduct is Unwelcome

• An essential element of a sexual harassment claim is that the conduct must be unwelcome. Harassers sometimes contend that their victims welcomed and enjoyed their words and actions. Although it can feel uncomfortable or even frightening to object, you must unequivocally tell the harasser to stop the behavior.

(3) Not All Offensive Behavior is Sexual Harassment under the law

• As mentioned above, whether certain behavior constitutes sexual harassment is considered on a case-by-case basis. Thus, it is especially important to talk to a lawyer who knows about sexual harassment law and how to deal with such behavior.

(4) Keep Careful Notes on what happened, but not on employer-owned equipment

• You should keep any notes, memos, letters, emails, textual messages, gifts, or other tangible evidence from the harasser. Be careful how and where you record your evidence. For example, communications using company equipment are not confidential and can be used against you. Other examples that can be used against you because it may contain person information is social media.

(5) Report and Oppose the Conduct Immediately

• Why? Your report does two important things. First, it puts your employer on notice that the sexual harassment occurred. Second, it provides your employer with an opportunity to correct the problem and make it stop. If it does not stop, you still have legal options, but consult with a sexual harassment attorney first.

(6) Human Resources is Not on Your Side – Anything you tell HR can be revealed to others in the company

• Do not assume that anything you tell them is going to be kept confidential. The HR department may report your complaint to their supervisors and to other managerial employees. Although Human Resources is ideally in place to help the company’s employees, often times it does not help. Rather, it makes a record against you to cover for the company. After all, the company also pays them as employees so HR employees have the company’s interest as the top priority.

(7) Do Not Quit Your Job

• Quitting your job provides an employer with the argument that you did not give it enough time to correct the problem. Quitting could also affect your ability to recover your lost wages and make it even harder to collect unemployment benefits (due to “job abandonment”).

(8) Retaliation is Unlawful

• You might have a stronger retaliation claim if you make a reasonable good faith complaint of harassment to your employer and your employer subsequently takes any “adverse action” against you because of the complaint.

(9) Keep Performing Your Job Well

• Making a complaint about sexual harassment does not give you permission to stop performing your job to the best of your ability or excuse you from the same standards you had to meet before the conduct started or you complained. After all, Ohio is an at-will state. Thus, if you stop performing your job well, your employer has a “business justification” for taking adverse action against you.

(10) Get Legal Advice from an attorney who knows about sexual harassment law as soon as you can

• Due to the fact that sexual harassment is a serious and often frightening experience, your rights need to be protected at every step of the way. Talk to an attorney who handles these matters and takes them just as seriously as you do. This is especially important if you are considering quitting your job.

For more information about your situation involving workplace sexual harassment, contact us today.