Preventing Harassment in the Workplace

In today’s business environment, harassment of any kind is a huge concern. Between fiscal year 2018 and 2021, harassment charges, including those involving sexual harassment, accounted for approximately thirty-five (35%) of all complaints received by the EEOC.

For employers, a major defense to a harassment claim is employee training regarding how to prevent and respond to workplace harassment.

When conducting harassment training, employers should:

• Onboard new employees.
• Explicitly outline what is harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
• Review and reinforce the company's anti-harassment policy.
• Prepare a clear strategy to prevent harassment and other abusive conduct.
• Prepare training examples.
• Tailor training to the type of work environment that employees utilize.
• Offer additional resources regarding employee harassment

Companies should have extremely robust internal policies prohibiting any type of harassment.