Real-Life Workplace Harassment Examples and Intent vs. Impact Defined in Business and at Work

In the great state of New York this coming October (as has been the trend in other states), all employers will be required to:

  • Have and communicate an anti-harassment policy;
  • Conduct annual (not one-time) anti-harassment training (live and interactive, with a subject-matter expert leading the training to allow time for employees to ask questions); and
  • Have available a form that employees can use to file a harassment complaint;

all within NYS Department of Labor requirements.

NYS DOL has not yet established these requirements; however, requirements or not, understanding what constitutes workplace harassment and especially the concept of intent vs. impact makes annual anti-harassment training vital for the safety of both employees and employers.

CNN’s recent article regarding a number of examples of the alleged sexual harassment actor Morgan Freeman inflicted on female colleagues and (mostly) subordinates reads like a harassment prevention and awareness training.

Taking the Spectrum of Workplace Harassment Behaviors that I use when conducting this training, and plotting the alleged and admitted examples of harassment inflicted by Freeman, Garrison Keillor, Andrea Ramsey and Harvey Weinstein, these examples plot (too) neatly on the spectrum of what are considered to be Workplace Harassment Behaviors – and on the more severe end of the Spectrum, these examples are also defined as criminal sexual assault and rape (which require workplace investigation and remediation as well as filing criminal charges):

 

 

 

Freeman’s response to these allegations has become all too typical of others accused and/or called out for the above behaviors:

“Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows I am not someone who would intentionally offend or knowingly make anyone feel uneasy. I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected — that was never my intent.”

Freeman clearly either has not attended workplace harassment prevention training, or he was not paying attention when the universally-accepted concept of intent vs. impact was explained:

An individual does not have to intend to harass another person; it is the impact on the other person that matters.

As I’ve described in earlier posts, in ensuring harassment intervention and prevention in the workplace, the very clear guidance is that all we can take action on is the impact on the person harmed by the often-uncomfortable impact of that (or what you think is a) compliment – the intention is frankly irrelevant. It is the responsibility of all of us to clearly understand where the compliance (and workplace etiquette) boundaries are, and how to avoid them – and help our coworkers to do the same.

Simply put:  we humans are not psychic – we can not definitively discern and concretely establish intent. All we can do is address what we observe with the commonly accepted human senses – the impact on the person harmed by the action.

Hanging your hat on intention attempts to dodge your responsibility for your workplace conduct. Accepting accountability for the impact of your conduct is the first step to stopping and preventing harassment in the workplace.

Do you and your employees clearly understand what harassing behaviors and conduct are; as well the intent vs. the impact of their conduct, in business and at work?