Can you identify sexual harassment?
This True/False quiz will test your knowledge on sexual harassment situations. Determine if the reactions are correct or not. Click below to see answers.
- A month ago, Pam sent her supervisor an email complaining a fellow driver harassed her. She hasn’t brought it up since, so her supervisor let it go. After all, a single complaint doesn’t warrant an investigation. True or False?
- You work for a large motor carrier. A driver says he was harassed by a customer. You investigate, because your company could be held liable for the inappropriate behavior of a customer. True or False?
- One of your drivers, Irv, extended a friend request to dispatcher Callie on social media and she accepted but later becomes uncomfortable with Irv being too familiar with her on her social media site. Despite her repeated refusals, he keeps asking her out. But Callie feels she can’t report this to their employer, because it happened online, not at work, and she accepted Irv’s friend request. True or False?
- A group of your company’s drivers is gathered around a table in a break room telling jokes, and some of them are pretty raunchy. One of your drivers, Hal, pretends to find the jokes funny, but actually finds them offensive. Later he tells you he was uncomfortable. You tell him the guys were just “blowing off steam” and he should lighten up. Besides, he was laughing too, so this wasn’t harassment. True or False?
Can you identify sexual harassment?: Answers
- FALSE. Although a behavior isn’t legally considered harassment unless it is shown to be “pervasive,” employers must take every complaint seriously. Don’t wait until it’s pervasive to take action.
Conduct a thorough investigation. And make sure you document the situation – even if you conclude that no illegal harassment occurred, or you determined it to be a minor infraction that doesn’t require formal discipline. Documenting everything can help you identify patterns down the road. - TRUE. The fact that sexual harassment can be perpetrated by a company’s clients, customers, or any other segment of the public with whom they interact often gets overlooked. For example, if a customer is being suggestive to a driver unloading at their dock, and the driver subsequently reports the behavior to a supervisor, the company now has an obligation to protect this driver from sexual harassment.
This type of situation can be challenging because motor carriers don’t want to stop serving customers. At the same time, switching this driver to a less desirable route, or switching this driver to a less desirable shift because this customer’s employee only works on the loading dock in the morning could conceivably be regarded as retaliation.
Note too that sexual harassment can happen to anyone. Gender does not determine who conducts harassment or gets harassed. - FALSE. Callie should feel comfortable reporting this, and the employer should take Callie’s complaint seriously. If Irv had asked Callie out one time, and accepted her refusal, that wouldn’t be a problem, but his repeated requests after being told “no,” may be considered harassment. The fact that Callie accepted Irv’s friend request doesn’t matter. Make sure your policies are clear that behavior that is in violation of a company’s harassment policy— or the law — is the company’s responsibility to address, in order to protect employees from harassment.
- FALSE. This falls under whether or not a “reasonable person” would find the behavior acceptable in the workplace. While some employees may opt to tell others directly if they don’t like such jokes and banter, not everyone feels comfortable doing that, preferring to bring the concern to HR, so yes, it may be your job to let your drivers know the behavior is unwelcome.