Unwelcome and inappropriate requests for sexual favors, promise of rewards for sexual favors, sexual advances, and other physical or verbal conduct of a sexual nature such as bullying or coercion constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, implicitly or explicitly affects employment, or creates an intimidating hostile or offensive work environment. It includes a range of behaviors from seemingly mild transgressions and annoyances to actual sexual abuse or sexual assault.
For many businesses, preventing sexual harassment, and defending employees from sexual harassment charges, have become key training objectives and goals of legal decision-making.
Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including but not limited to the following:
- The victim can be either gender. The harasser can be either gender. The victim and harasser can be the same gender.
- The harasser can be anyone, such as a client, superior, a co-worker, a teacher or professor, a student, a friend, or a stranger.
- The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct, even indirectly.
- Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim. While adverse effects on the victim are common, this does not have to be the case for the behavior to be unlawful.
- The harasser's conduct must be unwelcome.
- The harasser may be completely unaware that his or her behavior is offensive or constitutes sexual harassment or may be completely unaware that his or her actions could be unlawful, which is why training is important.
Training and prevention are the best tools to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to adopt training to prevent sexual harassment from occurring. They should clearly communicate to employees that sexual harassment will not be tolerated. They can do so by implementing sexual harassment training for all employees.
