Harassing Words Always Cause Harm in Business and at Work

As part of an Executive Order last week, NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo not only directed the state Office of Employee Relations to take over investigations of harassment and discrimination in all state agencies, the Executive Order was also accompanied by draft materials and guidance on the state’s updated sexual harassment laws. These drafts are available for comment by NYS employers and other interested parties until September 12, 2018; and NYS then has until October 9, 2018 to finalize the requirements for workplace sexual harassment prevention policies, training and complaint forms.

NYS employers with 1 or more employees are expected to comply with the above requirements by the following deadlines:

  • Distribution of a final workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention Policy and accompanying complaint form that meets or exceeds the new NYS requirements by October 9, 2018;
  • Distribution of a new workplace Harassment Complaint Form by October 9, 2018 that meets and exceeds the new NYS requirement; and
  • All employees must receive their first annual Sexual Harassment Prevention training, meeting or exceeding the NYS new minimum standards by January 1, 2019.

With nearly 30 years of conducting workplace harassment prevention training (and investigating and stopping workplace harassment), I was interested to see the state’s draft recommended Harassment Case Study examples as a training minimum requirement fortunately (and unfortunately) equaled the real-life harassment examples (names and companies redacted) from my own 30-year HR experience that I already include in the workplace harassment training I’ve conducted for nearly as many years. My real-life training examples meet and often exceed the NYS minimum case study requirements.

There are a number of similarly real-life examples in the case studies. One example that initially stands out is the example of an employee scratching the word “bitch” into a female co-worker’s lunchbox to express their displeasure about working with a female employee. The case study then asks that while rude, is this action considered to be sexual harassment? Of course, the answer is yes. And NYS agrees:

[The word “bitch”] is directed at her because she is a woman and appear to be intended to intimidate her and cause her to quit her job. While not sexual in nature, this harassment is because of her sex and will create a hostile work environment if it is sufficiently severe or frequent.”

How will you ensure that your employees will avoid harassing words that not only cause harm but also may violate NYS discrimination law and regulation via the new workplace Harassment Prevention Policy, Training and Complaint Form standards in business and at work?