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Protect Your Employees From A Hostile Environment

Author: Rhonda Goetz

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, age, national origin, and sex.

Federal law is broken into two categories: this article looks at Hostile Environment.

A Hostile Environment occurs when unwelcome sexual conduct ruins an employee's work environment.

When this occurs the behavior or its effect unreasonably interferes with work performance and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment either at work or at company-sponsored events.

The behavior must be unwelcome and in most cases repeated.

Types of harassment includes:

• sexually explicit jokes, pinups, or graffiti
• vulgar statements and sounds
• abusive language
• indirect sexual comments
• overt sexual conduct

The courts have held employers liable in cases that involved supervisors, other employees, and/or customers or vendors.

Court Case

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a settlement with London International Group, LLC (LIG) in a lawsuit charging the Eufaula-based plant, which manufactures condoms, with subjecting a class of employees to a hostile work environment in which they have been subjected to numerous racially and sexually derogatory cartoons and comments since 1995.

Award: $625,000 in monetary damages

Protect your business from this type of harassment. Make sure your employees are well-trained in harassment and discrimination prevention and awareness.

Rhonda Goetz is the owner and CEO of Chrome Zebra. She also is an authorized harassment and discrimination trainer and online instructional designer.

Her online courses provide businesses with an alternate training method that saves time and money. Employees train at their desks or workstations, and can train anytime. Businesses no longer have to lose production time to large training seminars, or hire expensive consultants or be locked into a set training schedule. Online training is cost-effective as well, per employee cost is approximately $25 or less for each employee.

Get the F.ree 10 Tips to Prevent Sexual Harassment, sign up here.

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