Workplace sexual harassment often involves quid pro quo harassment. A manager, business owner or other person in a position of authority uses career rewards or employment threats to demand romantic or sexual favors from subordinates.
Quid pro harassment is common, but it is not the only form of sexual harassment that affects the careers of professionals. Workers may also experience hostile work environments that constitute sexual harassment. Employers have an obligation to prevent the development of a hostile work environment and to act promptly to address a hostile work environment if one does develop.
What is a hostile work environment?
A hostile work environment entails a scenario where other reasonable people recognize that enduring abuse has become a condition of maintaining employment. Hostile work environments may involve opposite-sex abuse from a professional in a career dominated by the other sex. A male nurse may constantly endure mistreatment and exclusion based on their appearance and sex, rather than their personality and job performance.
Hostile work environments can also involve same-sex workers targeting one individual because of their appearance, romantic history or sexual orientation. Men tampering with or hiding a co-worker’s safety equipment because they believe he is homosexual could create a hostile work environment. Women targeting and bullying a coworker who they perceive as sexually promiscuous could also constitute a hostile work environment.
Employers should train workers to identify and avoid creating hostile work environments. They should also intervene when workers make credible claims of consistent abuse from their teammates.
Documenting sexual harassment, including behavior that creates a hostile work environment, can help professionals assert themselves. When companies force workers to endure abuse and ignore reasonable complaints, those employers may ultimately be liable for allowing sexual harassment to occur.