Sunday, August 15, 2010

Who's harassing whom?

It would not be so funny if it were not at least partially true. Only the lazy, the fools and those who are in coma have not jumped onto the sexual harassment bandwagon yet. Irrespective which side of the fence you are on, it is so easy to gain attention cheaply, fast and efficiently if you play the harassment card right. The problem exists: as an HR professional I had to deal with issues like harassment, gender discrimination, workplace romance and the like. It is not a sexy job to do, pardon the pun. There are emotions and careers involved, and at times the stakes are very high. 

Often I saw that the complaining party was clearly after a personal gain (money, promotion, revenge), but the amount of attention such matters command, the imperfect regulatory framework and sensitivity/subjectivity of the problem make things incredibly complicated. Thus, often the management perspective is to satisfy the complaint just not to let all the worms out of the can. Now that is just wrong. You overstep the line once, you are getting hundreds of others running after the same freebies, since the precedent has been created. What are your experiences with harassment matters?

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