SEXUAL HARASSMENT: Design an effective Policy.

1) Introduction

Nowadays, with all kinds of tendencies in our social environment, and with unlimited freedom of human rights; a man has the choice to be in love with a man, a woman, an animal and much more. To seduce or have what he likes, A Man or Woman can use all means and sometimes to be accepted by the other, harassment is a chosen method.

In our modern society, there are several forms of harassment that can, however, fall into two broad categories: mental or psychological harassment, sexual harassment or sentimental or emotional harassment. Besides these two main categories, there are forms of harassment such as exaggerated hazing, violent attacks on others that can be equally disastrous.

As said Frédéric Beigbeder (‘’Life in the Enterprise reproduces the cruelty of school life, more violent because nobody protects us. Inadmissible insults, Unjust Assaults, Sexual Harassment and Power Wraths.’’); it is really necessary to put in place an anti-harassment policy to protect people in any organization and this policy should contain and respect some key points that we will present below.

2) Harassment context understanding

In a corporate or organizational context, harassment (Sexual or otherwise) should be defined as any sequence of comments or vexatious conduct when the perpetrator knows or ought reasonably to know that these remarks or actions are being moved Undermines the dignity and respect of the person on grounds such as gender, race, creed, color, religion, ethnic origin, place of origin, sexual orientation, Political, gender identity, sexual expression, marital status, family status, disability, conviction for pardon, age, social and economic class, activism and participation in a unionization group or Language, and any other unlawful motive referred to in the applicable laws and the rights of persons.

Thus said, we see that harassment can be done by any person within the company, from top to bottom. Therefore, it is up to HR Managers to find out specific strategies to eliminate harassment practices in all its forms, which can hinder or destroy the development of employees.

In the company's overall policy, HR clauses or rules should be put in place to avoid harassment in the workplace. In the literature there are many example cases, but if one wants to get closer to reality, one should take into account some factors related to the culture, environment and even the locality habits of the place where the company or organization is implanted.

3) Key elements to successfully fight against Harassment

In a comprehensive way we can give the following components that must imperatively be included in the HR strategy to effectively fight against any harassment in the workplace:

? Define a clear process against harassment (Sexual in this case) in the organization, publish, communicate and educate employees on it: The main purpose of this process is to maintain an environment free of harassment, to clarify the responsibilities of each person in order to combat harassment in all its forms (physical, moral or psychological); It must clearly define all the steps to be followed within the company in a case of a concrete harassment situation suffered by any employee.

This process should contain important elements such as:

·     The Preamble or Objectives;

·     Clearly definitions of terms (sexual harassment, moral harassment...);

·     The employer's commitment and the scope of the process; The reporting procedure for each harassment case by any employee to the employer;

·     The internal procedures for the resolution of complaints and the choice of a procedure (Personal initiative, Mediation, Investigation ...);

·     The punishments method or sets;

·     The Confidentiality and Protections against reprisals;

·     The management of false accusations;

·     Investigations carried out at the request of the employer or the employee and, finally, the irreversible application of the sanctions.

? Encourage all forms of conflict resolution related to harassment:

As said Jean-Christophe Florentin, ‘’Sexual harassment: The only thing that almost allows to send any person in prison, if it is a male-sex and one day has the presumptuousness to utter against his supposed victim any gesture of friendship.’’ This assertion teach us about one thing: that we have to be more careful when judging any issue related to Sexual Harassment in a company or elsewhere, because if not innocents will be sanction for nothing.

Thus said, we have to take in consideration all the major forms of arrangement between the various parties involved in any harassment issue, that mean:

·        Informal Arrangement: As is commonly said, "A bad arrangement is better than a good court judgment"; We want to emphasize that, it is the responsibility of HR to promote friendly arrangements between employees, as it should not be forgotten that the company's climate and its image depends greatly on it. In this case, seek a formal arrangement only if the informal arrangement has not worked.

·        Formal Arrangement: Here, the harasser must simply follow the process set up by the HR manager’s line that we mentioned in the previous paragraph

Finally, as a final recommendation, it would be wise for managers’ line to always monitor all activities related to harassment in all its forms, for the overall wellbeing of the organization.

Abbreviation:

BOM: Board of Managers.

EM-Employees Management.

HCM-Human Capital Management.

HCMO-Human Capital Management in Organization.

HR-Human Resource.

HRM-Human Resource Management.

SHRM-Strategic HRM.     

 References:    

1.      Managing Human Resources: Through Strategic Partnerships/ Jackson, Susan E., Randall S. Schuler, and Steve Werner/ 10-E/ Year: 2009/ Southwestern Publishing/ ISBN: 9780324579673

2.      https://new.abb.com/docs/librariesprovider16/default-document library/hrp35_workplace_harassment.pdf?sfvrsn=2

3.     https://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/harassment.cfm

4.      https://topics.hrhero.com/harassment-in-the-workplace/#

4.      https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/policies/pages/cms_000534.aspx

5.     https://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/sites/default/files/template_anti-harassment.pdf

About the author:

TANGUEP Freddy Rolland: Actually Director of Network Operation Center at Viettel Cameroun S.A. (Nexttel); Master's Degree in Engineering of Telecommunication from the University of Maroua of Cameroon.