Harassment comes in many varieties-teasing, ridiculing, and put downs all the way to people being passed up for assignments, raises, promotions and jobs. On a continuum of behavior, imagine a timeline from a starting place of a “healthy, functioning well” workplace environment in which employees do their job well, are trained for their job functions, positive communication occurs between employees and with management and conflicts/misunderstandings are resolved in a productive manner. Yes, we would ALL want that. A few steps down would be discrimination…which is an attitude manifesting in negative behavior against someone in a protected class (such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, family status, religion, disability-to name a few). Harassment enters in when there is verbal or physical conduct that denigrates or shows hostility or an aversion toward the individual based on an attribute of theirs that is non-job related (ie, a protected class….”I am different than you because I am… or I believe…”) Continuing on along this line comes a hostile work environment, where now the harassment creates an unpleasant or difficult work environment that effects a person’s ability to do their job. This behavior is pervasive and on-going. At the far end of the spectrum is workplace bullying, in which a person or group is consistently targeted with persistent, aggressive and unreasonable behaviors to obtain their goal (frequently to make them quit, be fired or demoted). There are many stories of all these types of harassment-and there is not necessarily a clean line between when one type of defined behavior begins or ends.
Bottom line for your workplace: is this behavior acceptable? Should it continue-and if others found out about it, would it be reprimanded? There are laws to protect the innocent and to apply consequences to the offender. Laws, lawsuits, investigations….the EEOC establishes guidelines so your company can be in compliance. Letting it go is not an option.
http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/internal/harassment_order.cfm
Are your employees, peers and management playing “nice”?
If not, then how do YOU bring your workplace culture to an attitude so discrimination, harassment, and bullying create a toxic environment? Yes, just one person can make a difference.