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There is NO EXCUSE for Sexual Harassment in the 21st Century!

HR Community June 19, 2021

No employee should have to endure being subjected to sexual harassment in order to earn a living! NO, NO, NO!

In fiscal 2018, the EEOC recovered almost $70 million for sexual harassment complaints, up from $47.5 million in fiscal year 2017. Sexual harassment remains a persistent problem in the workplace that does not seem to slow down.

A few days ago, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued a couple of companies for violating federal law when they subjected a female employee to flagrant sexual harassment and retaliated against her for complaining to the EEOC.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, a female employee was repeatedly subjected to unwelcome and offensive sexual advances, including unwanted sexual touching, and repeated, unwelcome requests to engage in a romantic relationship with the companies’ owner. Despite complaints to the owner and another manager, the harassment continued, and the company fired the female employee in retaliation for her complaints, the EEOC charges.

If you would like to learn more about Sexual Harassment Prevention and earn continuing education credits towards your SHRM or HRCI certification please join me at one of my upcoming 2-Day Sexual Harassment Prevention Certificate Programs.

If you would like to learn more about our other certificate programs and earn continuing education credits towards your SHRM or HRCI certification please join me at any one of my upcoming Certificate Program Trainings.

If you would like to learn more about our SHRM-CP®, SHRM-SCP®, aPHR™, PHR®, SPHR® Exam Prep Courses and Boot Camps please check out our upcoming Exam Prep Trainings and check out our Student Testimonials and Success Stories.

Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on sex, including sexual harassment. Title VII also prohibits employers from retaliating against an employee because she opposed discrimination or harassment. 

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.

Prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to take steps necessary to prevent sexual harassment from occurring. They should clearly communicate to employees that sexual harassment will not be tolerated. They can do so by providing sexual harassment training to their employees and by establishing an effective complaint or grievance process and taking immediate and appropriate action when an employee complains.

Sexual harassment is unacceptable but unfortunately is very real in the workplace.

Elga Lejarza-Penn, aPHR, PHR, SPHR, SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP

If you would like to learn more about Sexual Harassment Prevention and earn continuing education credits towards your SHRM or HRCI certification please join me at one of my upcoming 2-Day Sexual Harassment Prevention Certificate Programs.

If you would like to learn more about our other certificate programs and earn continuing education credits towards your SHRM or HRCI certification please join me at any one of my upcoming Certificate Program Trainings.

If you would like to learn more about our SHRM-CP®, SHRM-SCP®, aPHR™, PHR®, SPHR® Exam Prep Courses and Boot Camps please check out our upcoming Exam Prep Trainings and check out our Student Testimonials and Success Stories.

Categories: Employee and Labor Relations

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COVID-19 and High Unemployment in 2020

In April 2020, 23 million workers lost their jobs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During April, the unemployment rate peaked at an unprecedented level of 14.7% (in the last 80 years) before declining to a still-elevated level of 6.9% in October. Due to the large amount of uncertainty in the economy, it is estimated that high unemployment will persist in the next few years, despite the significant gains seen in employment since April.

Human Resources professionals can help laid off workers by providing a prepared list of resources such as unemployment compensation, eviction protection, credit card debt and loans. Compassion and empathy can also go a long way to ease the difficult transition for employees. Employers may face rising tax rates for unemployment compensation during this period as their rates are determined partially by how many employees are claiming unemployment benefits.

In this blog we posed the following question, do you know what the answer is? Read on to test your knowledge and see if you know the correct answer:

Which of the following is not true about unemployment compensation?

a) It was established as part of the Social Security Act of 1935.

b) Employees are eligible for unemployment compensation from their first day of hire.
c) Employees terminated for misconduct are not eligible for unemployment.

d) Fraud is a serious problem for unemployment insurance programs.

HR Community June 19, 2021