Harassment at WorkHarassment at Work can obviously be a big problem for everyone! That means that not only is the victim of Harassment suffering but the company could suffer greatly also if they have done nothing to protect their employees! If you are a Business Owner and do not have a Workplace Harassment Policy in place and are informing your employees of it, get ready for a law suit! Now I am not trying to scare you! I am only trying to make sure you understand the great risk you are placing your company in by doing nothing to protect your own employees! So I can hear you saying that you would stop Harassment as Work when you find out it is going on! The fact is that it doesn’t matter if you know about it or not if you haven’t provided a policy and informed your employees of not only their requirement to not harass anyone but also to inform potential victims of who they can report it to! There are a ton more requirements as well that all spell trouble for any employer that does not comply with the law there in California! Take as an example California Harassment Laws, such as, ab 1825, which forces companies in California to train their management staff annually! There are a ton more requirements as well that all spell trouble for any employer that does not comply with the law there in California! The bottom line on their new law is you better comply or you may be going out of business. Now that may be why California is getting ready to go bankrupt since they don’t make it easy on business owners. Now by no means am I endorsing any form of Harassment at Work! If you are not aware of what Harassment is then you should know that it can only be against a protected class, such as, race, religion, sex, age, national origin, and sexual preference. As an example if your employees, even without your knowledge, began badgering a person about their religion it most likely will fall into the category of Harassment at Work. Again, I want it make it clear even if you, as a business owner, are not knowledgeable about the Harassment going on. They only protection you would have is if you had a solid policy that prohibits Harassment at Work! Finally I would have all employees sign acknowledging that they have received a copy, read it, and understand it. My recommendation would be to produce an Employee Policy Manual that contains all your Federal and State required policies. Once you have this produced I would make sure that you issue a copy to everyone and go over it. Finally I would have all employees sign acknowledging that they have received a copy, read it, and understand it. I would make this a condition of employment upon hire, and annually thereafter. Now keep in mind that this would not cut it in the State of California since their new ab 1825 sexual harassment law came out at the end of 2005.
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