Sexual Harassment Workplace

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Sexual harassment in the workplace is an issue that affects many due to the high rise in reported and unreported cases. Both men and women across the U.S and worldwide are being affected directly and indirectly. Certain measures are needed to prevent sexual harassment from arising in the workplace, and it is only through an effective education that this will be achieved. According to the National Women 's Law Center (2000), “Harassment can poison the work atmosphere and negatively impact other workers who are not themselves harassed. In fact, decreased work group productivity was the largest single cost to the government in its survey of harassment.” The purpose of this paper is to describe an example of

It is extremely useful for the employee to understand the definition of sexual harassment since it can occur in different ways. Sexual harassment can occur through verbal or physical contact, and it can happen to both men and women. Many times it can occur within unit employees or even involve those that are high in the organizational hierarchy. According to Cogin and Fish (2009), “Individuals in legitimate positions of authority have the opportunity to abuse their power for their own sexual gratification through the harassment of subordinates” (p. 445). An effective strategy for educating staff on the identification of these risky behaviors would be through role playing and educational media such as videos and interactive web tutorials. By having the staff actively participate in these exercises, they will be able to learn what types of behaviors trigger sexual harassment by employees, administrators, and patients. Employees have an obligation to be familiar with the organization’s sexual harassment policies and state laws in order to effectively report these cases. The employees should feel comfortable enough to speak openly with their direct supervisors or another authority within the

According to Hunt, Davidson, and Hoel (2010), “A major contributing factor to there being such a variance in sexual harassment incidence figures is that it is often difficult for organizations to monitor harassment, particularly when complaints are dealt with informally” (p. 658). With the identification of the deficiencies, the Human Resource and those who are involved in the implementation of the action plan can develop the training sessions to address those deficiencies. By partnering up with Human Resources to develop the training sessions, the likely hood of the employee 's misunderstanding the organization’s sexual harassment policies and procedures will be less. Therefore, the employees will feel more comfortable in identifying and reporting sexual harassment situations from the moment they are identified. “The ANA recommends that every nursing employer and schools of nursing education have a written policy statement on sexual harassment. Every employee and student of nursing should be oriented to this policy at the time of employment or enrollment. A policy statement should include the purpose, the legal definition and guidelines, employee and management responsibilities, implementation procedure, grievance procedure, a non-retaliation statement and disciplinary measures for employees and non-employees. A policy statement should